Indigenous Races of the Earth

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614 THE MONOGENISTS AND last work/14 furnishes many instances of surviving aborigines. These have been more copiously and critically examined by Lieutenant­General Briggs,345 whof!c conclusions are the£ llowing: "1. That the Hindus [i.e. the Aryian, or white people's immigra­tions] entered India. from a foreign country, and that they found it prc-oc •upicd by inhabitants. 2. That by slow degrees they possessed thcmf!elves of the whole of tho soil, r ducing to ser1hge those they could retain upon it. B. That they brought with them the Sanscrit language, a tongue diff rent from that of tho aborigines. 4. That they introduced into the country municipal institutious. 5. That the o.borigiucs difD r in every respect from tho llindus. 6. Lastly; that the aborigines throughout India a~c derived from one common source." Allowing this last conclusion to be correct, it becomes positive that the Aourco of this aboriginal group of races in IIinclost~m must be radically distinct from that of tho later Sanscritic illtrud rs,­whose earliest monuments, the Vedas, trace them backwards to ogdiana, Bactriana and Persia, as their own primordial homesteads, where their characteristics seem to blend into races of tho Arian group. Briggs enumerates, among extant indigenous tribes of India:- The .Bmgiet in Bongo.!, " 'I'irllus in Tirhut, " Kolea in Kolywt~ra 11nd Kolwlln, " Jfalas in Mo.ldn o.nd Mlllpur, " Dome& in Domnpur, &o. &o., " J((rs in Mirwo.ro., " .Bhi/1 in Bhilwo.ro. o.nd Bbilwo.n, " Mahar& in Mnh!l Rllstra (M!Ihro.tto.), " Mans in Mnndesa, " Gondt in Oondwo.ra or Gondwana, " Garrow• in Bhllgnlpur, " Sonthal& in Cntt!lok, " .Bhars in Gort~kpur, " Oheri1 in Ght~zipur, tho Dltanulcs in De.hnr, " Dhera in Sn.gor, " Minas in Ambir, " Ramusi.Y in Teling(ma, " 13edars in Dckh!ln, " Oherumars in M(\labnr, " Ourumbas in Cnnn.t·n., " Vedttrs in Trnv!lnoore, " .Marawas o.t the South, " Kallars in Tincvelly, " Pullars in Tnnjore, " Pallies in Arcot, " OltsncltiJ in Mysore, " Ohenciwars of l'olingnnn: 8H Natural Ilistory of Jfatl (supro., note 172,) I, pp. 24.8-67. &'6 Two lecture& on tlte aboriginal race of India, as distinguished from the Sanscritic or Hindu Race-R. Asintio Soc., London, 8vo, 1862; pp. 6.- Compare A Sketch of Assam with some a~count of the Ilill Tribe&, by o.n officer; London, 8vo, 184. 7, pasnm, for mo.ny o;hcr ubori­gmes on the confines of Indo-Chino.; -o.nd liOOKI'lR (Himalayan Journalt, London, Svo, 1864.; I, pp. 127-41), for the Lepchas &c., !lnd (II, pp. 14) for the Jiarrum-mos and others. ~·or the nlfmi.ties Ol' divergencies of Dra·virian idioms in rclntion to other groups of tongues, the ronc.ler w11l be unnblo to find more mnsterly elucidntions th!ln in my friend M. l\1AultY's Chapter I, pp. 62-6, 74-6, 84, a11te. Tll'F. POLYGENISTS. 515 besides the J[amiwars, Yelmiwars, Barlci, JJondassi, Bandipote, Talliar, and others. This arid catalogue of names indicates the number and variety of these seemingly-proximate races. With the exception of, here and there, more or less defective, sketches of a Garrow a Tuda a Naga a Siahpusb, a Bhot'iya, or a Ceylon so, I have :con no ~uthcnti~ portraits of llinclostanic aborigines whence ideas about their s v ral characteristics can be obtained. As for their crania, "co n'cst pas lc genre" among Anglo-Indians to preserve, for science, those they cut off; such men as Hodgson ofNepaul, a.nd Cunningl1am of I .. adak/16 being honorable cxc ptions. A succinct resume of aboriginal families of mankind known to exist within the "East Indian Realm" of zoology, has been compiled from the latest source , with his usual ability, by Maury.317 Space restricts me to reiteration of the lament, over the ethnological supineness of those who ought to :fill scientific collectorships in India, implied in his remarks :-"Tl1cse indigenous tribes, of which the debr-is still wander in the north-west of .A mcrica, those insular septa that navigators have encountered in Polynesia, Oceanica, and Indian Archipelago-of such, Asia oven at this clay yet offers us the pendants. At an ancient opocb, which it is im­possible rigorously to assign, the centre and the south of this part of the wol'ld were inhabited by those savage races that IIindoo civili­zation has pushed away before it, and which Chinese society has qjectccl toward the souLhcm extremities of its empire. It is in the almost impenetrable de.filcs, which separate IIindostan from Thibet ~"Lnd from China, wherein these disinherited populations have sought refuge. There they subsist still; and there they will continue to subsist until ]~ngliah colonization [as in the pending caso of the Santals, 1855-G] shall have forever blotted them out from the soil. It is with races of men as with races of auimals, which Providence creates, and aftel'wards abandons to clcstmction. * * * Who can count how many races have already disapJ:.lcared; what populations, of which we ignore the history, the very existence, have quitted our globe, without leaving on it their name, at least, for a tmcc !" Only since 1850, through Arnaud and Vayssiorc,318 have wo heard of the Alchdc'tm (servants) of Southern AL'abia; probably last degraded relics of the abol'iginal Cushitc, or liimyarite,stoek; to be added to 846 Ladak, physical, stali&tical and Mstorical, with notices of the surrounding countries, London, 8vo, 1864; pp. 286-312; Plntcs 10-11,13-18,22-24. 841 Les Populations Primitives du Nord de l'liindoustan-Extr!lit du Bulleli11 de la SocU/d de Geograpliie; Pnris, 1864; p. 39. 348 "Los Akhdam de I' Yemen, leur origino probable, leurs moours"- Journal Asiatigue, Paris, April, 1860; pp. 880-2.