A. H. Keane

Domain of the Mongolo-Turki Section—Early Contact with Caucasic Peoples—Primitive Man in Siberia—and Mongolia—Early Man in Korea and Japan—in Finland and East Europe—Early Man in Babylonia—The Sumerians—The Akkadians—Babylonian Chronology—Elamite Origins—Historical Records—Babylonian Religion—Social System—General Culture—The Mongols Proper—Physical Type—Ethnical and Administrative Divisions—Buddhism—The Tunguses—Cradle and Type—Mental Characters—Shamanism—The Manchus—Origins and Early Records—Type—The Dauri—Mongolo-Turki Speech—Language and Racial Characters—Mongol and Manchu Script—The Yukaghirs—A Primitive Writing System—Chukchis and Koryaks—Chukchi and Eskimo Relations—Type and Social State—Koryaks and Kamchadales—The Gilyaks—The Koreans—Ethnical Elements—Korean Origins and Records—Religion—The Korean Script—The Japanese—Origins—Constituent Elements—The Japanese Type—Japanese and Liu-Kiu Islanders—Their Languages and Religions—Cult of the Dead—Shintoism and Buddhism.

Conspectus.

Present Range. The Northern Hemisphere from Japan to Lapland, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Great Wall and Tibet; Aralo-Caspian Basin; Parts of Irania; Asia Minor; Parts of East Russia, Balkan Peninsula, and Lower Danube.

Hair, generally the same as South Mongol, but in Mongolo-Caucasic transitional groups brown, chestnut, and even towy or light flaxen, also wavy and ringletty; beard mostly absent except amongst the Western Turks and some Koreans.

Colour, light or dirty yellowish amongst all true Mongols and Siberians; very variable (white, sallow, swarthy) in the transitional groups (Finns, Lapps, Magyars, Bulgars, Western Turks), and many Manchus and Koreans; in Japan the unexposed parts of the body also white.

Skull, highly brachycephalic in the true Mongol(80 to 85); variable (sub-brachy and sub-dolicho) in most transitional groups and even some Siberians (Ostyaks and Voguls 77). Jaws, cheek-bones, nose, and eyes much the same as in South Mongols; but nose often large and straight, and eyes straight, greyish, or even blue in Finns, Manchus, Koreans, and some other Mongolo-Caucasians.

Stature, usually short (below 1.68 m., 5 ft. 6 in.), but many Manchus and Koreans tall, 1.728 m. to 1.778 m. (5 ft. 8 or 10 in.). Lips, arms, legs, and feet, usually the same as South Mongols; but Japanese legs disproportionately short.

Temperament, of all true Mongols and many Mongoloids, dull, reserved, somewhat sullen and apathetic; but in some groups (Finns, Japanese) active and energetic; nearly all brave, warlike, even fierce, and capable of great atrocities, though not normally cruel; within the historic period the character has almost everywhere undergone a marked change from a rude and ferocious to a milder and more humane disposition; ethical tone higher than South Mongol, with more developed sense of right and wrong.

Speech, very uniform; apparently only one stock language (Finno-Tatar or Ural-Altaic Family), a highly typical agglutinating form with no prefixes, but numerous postfixes attached loosely to an unchangeable root, by which their vowels are modified in accordance with subtle laws of vocalic harmony; the chief members of the family (Finnish, Magyar, Turkish, Mongol, and especially Korean and Japanese) diverge greatly from the common prototype.

Religion, originally spirit-worship through a mediator (Shaman), perhaps everywhere, and still exclusively prevalent amongst Siberian and all other uncivilised groups; all Mongols proper, Manchus, and Koreans nominal Buddhists; all Turki peoples Moslem; Japanese Buddhists and Shintoists; Finns, Lapps, Bulgars, Magyars, and some Siberians real or nominal Christians.

Culture, rude and barbaric rather than savage amongst the Siberian aborigines, who are nearly all nomadic hunters and fishers with half-wild reindeer herds but scarcely any industries; the Mongols proper, Kirghiz, Uzbegs and Turkomans semi-nomadic pastors; the Anatolian and Balkan Turks, Manchus, and Koreans settled agriculturists, with scarcely any arts or letters and no science; Japanese, Finns, Bulgars and Magyars civilised up to, and in some respects beyond the European average (Magyar and Finnish literature, Japanese art).

Mongol Proper. Sharra (Eastern), Kalmak (Western), Buryat (Siberian) Mongol.

Tungus. Tungus proper, Manchu, Gold, Oroch, Lamut.

Korean; Japanese and Liu-Kiu.

Turki. Yakut; Kirghiz; Uzbeg; Taranchi; Kara-Kalpak; Nogai; Turkoman; Anatolian; Osmanli.

Finno-Ugrian. Baltic Finn; Lapp; Samoyed; Cheremiss; Votyak; Vogul; Ostyak; Bulgar; Magyar.

East Siberian. Yukaghir; Chukchi; Koryak; Kamchadale; Gilyak.

By "Northern Mongols" are here to be understood all those branches of the Mongol Division of mankind which are usually comprised under the collective geographical expression Ural-Altaic, to which corresponds the ethnical designation Mongolo-Tatar, or more properly Mongolo-Turki[569]. Their domain is roughly separated from that of the Southern Mongols (Chap. VI.) by the Great Wall and the Kuen-lun range, beyond which it spreads out westwards over most of Western Asia, and a considerable part of North Europe, with many scattered groups in Central and South Russia, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Middle Danube basin. In the extreme north their territory stretches from the shores of the Pacific with Japan and parts of Sakhalin continually westwards across Korea, Siberia, Central and North Russia to Finland and Lapland. But its southern limits can be indicated only approximately by a line drawn from the Kuen-lun range westwards along the northern escarpments of the Iranian plateau, and round the southern shores of the Caspian to the Mediterranean. This line, however, must be drawn in such a way as to include Afghan Turkestan, much of the North Persian and Caucasian steppes, and nearly the whole of Asia Minor, while excluding Armenia, Kurdestan, and Syria.

Nor is it to be supposed that even within these limits the North Mongol territory is everywhere continuous. In East Europe especially, where they are for the most part comparatively recent intruders, the Mongols are found only in isolated and vanishing groups in the Lower and Middle Volga basin, the Crimea, and the North Caucasian steppe, and in more compact bodies in Rumelia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Throughout all these districts, however, the process of absorption or assimilation to the normal European physical type is so far completed that many of the Nogai and other Russian "Tartars," as they are called, the Volga and Baltic Finns, the Magyars, and Osmanli Turks, would scarcely be recognised as members of the North Mongol family but for their common Finno-Turki speech, and the historic evidence by which their original connection with this division is established beyond all question.

In Central Asia also (North Irania, the Aralo-Caspian and Tarim basins) the Mongols have been in close contact with Caucasic peoples probably since the New Stone Age, and here intermediate types have been developed, by which an almost unbroken transition has been brought about between the yellow and the white races.

During recent years much light has been shed on the physiographical conditions of Central Asia in early times. Stein's[570] explorations in 1900-1 and 1906-8 in Chinese Turkestan, the Pumpelly Expeditions[571] in 1903 and 1904 in Russian Turkestan, the travels of Sven Hedin[572] in 1899-1902, and 1906-8, of Carruthers[573] in N.W. Mongolia, and the researches of Ellsworth Huntington[574] (a member of the first Pumpelly Expedition) in 1905-7 all bear testimony to the variation in climate which the districts of Central Asia have undergone since glacial times. There has been a general trend towards arid conditions, alternating with periods of greater humidity, when tracts, now deserted, were capable of maintaining a dense population. Abundant evidence of man's occupation has been found in delta oases formed by snow-fed mountain streams, or on the banks of vanished rivers, where now-a-days all is desolation, though, as T. Peisker[575] points out, climate was not the sole or even the main factor in many areas. In some places, as at Merv, the earliest occupation was only a few centuries before the Christian era, but at Anau near Askhabad some 300 miles east of the Caspian, explored by the Pumpelly Expedition, the earliest strata contained remains of Stone Age culture. The North Kurgan or tumulus, rising some 40 or 50 feet above the plain, showed a definite stratification of structures in sun-dried bricks, raised by successive generations of occupants. H. Schmidt, who was in charge of the excavations, was able to collect a valuable series of potsherds, showing a gradual evolution in form, technique and ornamentation, from the earliest to the latest periods. One point of great significance for establishing cultural if not physical relationships in this obscure region is the resemblance between the geometrical designs on pots of the early period and similar pottery found by MM. Gautier and Lampre[576] at Mussian, and by M. J. de Morgan[576] at Susa, while clay figurines from the South Kurgan (copper culture) are clearly of Babylonian type, the influence of which is seen much later in terra-cotta figurines discovered by Stein[577] at Yotkan.

With the progress of archaeological research, it becomes daily more evident that the whole of the North Mongol domain, from Finland to Japan, has passed through the Stone and Metal Ages, like most other habitable parts of the globe. During his wanderings in Siberia and Mongolia in the early nineties, Hans Leder[578] came upon countless prehistoric stations, kurgans (barrows), stone circles, and many megalithic monuments of various types. In West Siberia the barrows, which consist solely of earth without any stone-work, are by the present inhabitants called Chudskiye Kurgani, "Chudish Graves," and, as in North Russia, this term "Chude" is ascribed to a now vanished unknown race which formerly inhabited the land. To them, as to the "Toltecs" in Central America, all ancient monuments are credited, and while some regard them as prehistoric Finns, others identify them with the historic Scythians, the Scythians of Herodotus.

There are reasons, however, for thinking that the Chudes may represent an earlier race, the men of the Stone Age, who, migrating from north Europe eastwards, had reached the Tom valley (which drains to the Obi) before the extinction of the mammoth, and later spread over the whole of northern Asia, leaving everywhere evidence of their presence in the megalithic monuments now being daily brought to light in East Siberia, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. This view receives support from the characters of two skulls found in 1895 by A. P. Mostitz in one of the five prehistoric stations on the left bank of the Sava affluent of the Selenga river, near Ust-Kiakta in Trans-Baikalia. They differ markedly from the normal Buryat (Siberian Mongol) type, recalling rather the long-shaped skulls of the South Russian kurgans, with cephalic indices 73.2 and 73.5, as measured by M. J. D. Talko-Hryncewicz[579]. Thus, in the very heart of the Mongol domain, the characteristically round-headed race would appear to have been preceded, as in Europe, by a long-headed type.

In East Siberia, and especially in the Lake Baikal region, Leder found extensive tracts strewn with kurgans, many of which have already been explored, and their contents deposited in the Irkutsk museum. Amongst these are great numbers of stone implements, and objects made of bone and mammoth tusks, besides carefully worked copper ware, betraying technical skill and some artistic taste in the designs. In Trans-Baikalia, still farther east, with the kurgans are associated the so-called Kameni Babi, "Stone Women," monoliths rough-hewn in the form of human figures. Many of these monoliths bear inscriptions, which, however, appear to be of recent date (mostly Buddhist prayers and formularies), and are not to be confounded with the much older rock inscriptions deciphered by W. Thomsen through the Turki language.

Continuing his investigations in Mongolia proper, Leder here also discovered earthen kurgans, which, however, differed from those of Siberia by being for the most part surmounted either with circular or rectangular stone structures, or else with monoliths. They are called KÜrÜktsÚr by the present inhabitants, who hold them in great awe, and never venture to touch them. Unfortunately strangers also are unable to examine their contents, all disturbance of the ground with spade or shovel being forbidden under pain of death by the Chinese officials, for fear of awakening the evil spirits, now slumbering peacefully below the surface. The Siberian burial mounds have yielded no bronze, a fact which indicates considerable antiquity, although no date can be set for its introduction into these regions. Better evidence of antiquity is found in the climatic changes resulting in recent desiccation, which must have taken place here as elsewhere, for the burials bear witness to the existence of a denser population than could be supported at the present time[580].

Such an antiquity is indeed required to explain the spread of neolithic remains to the Pacific seaboard, and especially to Korea and Japan. In Korea W. Gowland examined a dolmen 30 miles from Seul, which he describes and figures[581], and which is remarkable especially for the disproportionate size of the capstone, a huge undressed megalith 14½ by over 13 feet. He refers to four or five others, all in the northern part of the peninsula, and regards them as "intermediate in form between a cist and a dolmen." But he thinks it probable that they were never covered by mounds, but always stood as monuments above ground, in this respect differing from the Japanese, the majority of which are all buried in tumuli. In some of their features these present a curious resemblance to the Brittany structures, but no stone implements appear to have been found in any of the burial mounds, and the Japanese chambered tombs, according to Hamada, Professor of Archaeology in Kyoto University, are usually attributed to the Iron Age (fifth to seventh centuries A.D.[582]).

In many districts Japan contains memorials of a remote past—shell mounds, cave-dwellings, and in Yezo certain pits, which are not occupied by the present Ainu population, but are by them attributed to the Koro-pok-guru, "People of the Hollows," who occupied the land before their arrival, and lived in huts built over these pits. Similar remains on an islet near Nemuro on the north-east coast of Yezo are said by the Japanese to have belonged to the Kobito, a dwarfish race exterminated by the Ainu, hence apparently identical with the Koro-pok-guru. They are associated by John Milne with some primitive peoples of the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, and Kamchatka, who, like the Eskimo of the American coast, had extended formerly much farther south than at present.

In a kitchen-midden, 330 by 200 feet, near Shiidzuka in the province of Ibaraki, the Japanese antiquaries S. Yagi and M. Shinomura[583] have found numerous objects belonging to the Stone Age of Japan. Amongst them were flint implements, worked bones, ashes, pottery, and a whole series of clay figures of human beings. The finders suggest that these remains may have belonged to a homogeneous race of the Stone Period, who, however, were not the ancestors of the Ainu—hitherto generally regarded as the first inhabitants of Japan. In the national records vague reference is made to other aborigines, such as the "Long Legs," and the "Eight Wild Tribes," described as the enemies of the first Japanese settlers in Kiu-shiu, and reduced by Jimmu Tenno, the semi-mythical founder of the present dynasty; the Ebisu, who are probably to be identified with the Ainu; and the Seki-Manzi, "Stone-Men," also located in the southern island of Kiu-shiu. The last-mentioned, of whom, however, little further is known, seem to have some claim to be associated with the above described remains of early man in Japan[584].

In the extreme west the present Mongol peoples, being quite recent intruders, can in no way be connected with the abundant prehistoric relics daily brought to light in that region (South Russia, the Balkan Peninsula, Hungary). The same remark applies even to Finland itself, which was at one time supposed to be the cradle of the Finnish people, but is now shown to have been first occupied by Germanic tribes. From an exhaustive study of the bronze-yielding tumuli A. Hackman[585] concludes that the population of the Bronze Period was Teutonic, and in this he agrees both with Montelius and with W. Thomsen. The latter holds on linguistic grounds that at the beginning of the new era the Finns still dwelt east of the Gulf of Finland, whence they moved west in later times.

It is unfortunate that, owing probably to the character of the country, remains of the Stone Age in Babylonia are wanting so that no comparison can yet be made with the neolithic cultures of Egypt and the Aegean. The constant floods to which Babylonia was ever subject swept away all traces of early occupations until the advent of the Sumerians, who built their cities on artificial mounds. The question of Akkado-Sumerian[586] origins is by no means clear, for many important cities are unexplored and even unidentified, but the general trend of recent opinion may be noted. The linguistic problem is peculiarly complicated by the fact that almost all the Sumerian texts show evidence of Semitic influence, and consist to a great extent of religious hymns and incantations which often appear to be merely translations of Semitic ideas turned by Semitic priests into the formal religious Sumerian language. J. HalÉvy, indeed, followed by others, regarded Sumerian as no true language, but merely a priestly system of cryptography[587], based on Semitic. As regards linguistic affinities, K. A. Hermann[588] endeavoured to establish a connection between the early texts and Ural-Altaic, more especially with Ugro-Finnish. A more recent suggestion that the language is of Indo-European origin and structure rests on equally slight resemblances. The comparison with Chinese has already been noticed. J. D. Prince[589] utters a word of caution against comparing ancient texts with idioms of more recent peoples of Western Asia, in spite of many tempting resemblances, and claims that until further light has been shed on the problem Sumerian should be regarded as standing quite alone, "a prehistoric philological remnant."

E. Meyer[590] claims for the Sumerians not only linguistic but also physical isolation. The Sumerian type as represented on the monuments shows a narrow pointed nose, with straight bridge and small nostrils, cheeks and lips not fleshy, like the Semites, with prominent cheek-bones, small mouth, narrow lips finely curved, the lower jaw very short, with angular sharply projecting chin, oblique Mongolian eyes, low forehead, usually sloping away directly from the root of the nose. In fact the nose has almost the appearance of a bird's beak, projecting far in advance of mouth and chin, while the forehead almost disappears. The hair and beard are closely shaven. The Sumerians were undoubtedly a warlike people, fighting not like the Semites in loosely extended battle array, but in close phalanx, their large shields protecting their bodies from neck to feet, forming a rampart beyond which projected the inclined spears of the foremost rank. Battle axe and javelin were also used. Helmets protected head and neck. Besides lance or spear the royal leaders carried a curved throwing weapon, formed of three strands bound together at intervals with thongs of leather or bands of metal; this seems to have developed later into a sign of authority and hence into a sceptre. The bow, the typical weapon of the Semites and the mountainous people to the east, was unrepresented. The gods carried clubs with stone heads. It is important to notice that, in direct contrast to the Sumerians themselves, their gods had abundant hair on their heads, carefully curled and dressed, and a long curly beard on the chin, though cheeks and lips were closely shaven; these fashions recall those of the Semites. Thus, although the general view is to regard the Sumerians as the autochthones and the Semites as the later intruders in Babylonia, the Semitic character of the Sumerian gods points to an opposite conclusion. But the time has not yet come for any definite conclusion to be reached. All that can be said is that according to our present knowledge the assumption that the earliest population was Sumerian and that the Semites were the conquering intruders is only slightly more probable than the reverse[591].

Recent archaeological discoveries make Sumerian origins a little clearer. Explorations in Central Asia (as mentioned above p. 257) show that districts once well watered, and capable of supporting a large population, have been subject to periods of excessive drought, and this no doubt is the prime cause of the racial unrest which has ever been characteristic of the dwellers in these regions. A cycle of drought may well have prompted the Sumerian migration of the fourth millennium B.C., as it is shown to have prompted the later invasions of the last two thousand years[592]. Although there is no evidence to connect the original home of the Sumerians with any of the oases yet excavated in Central Asia, yet signs of cultural contact are not wanting, and it may safely be inferred that their civilisation was evolved in some region to the east of the Euphrates valley before their entrance into Babylonia[593].

Since Semitic influence was first felt in the north of Babylonia, at Akkad, it is assumed that the immigration was from the north-west from Arabia by way of the Syrian coastlands, and in this case also the impulse may have been the occurrence of an arid period in the centre of the Arabian continent. The Semites are found not as barbarian invaders, but as a highly cultivated people. They absorbed several cultural elements of the Sumerians, notably their script, and were profoundly influenced by Sumerian religion. The Akkadians are represented with elaborately curled hair and beard, and hence, in contradistinction to the shaven Sumerians, are referred to as "the black-headed ones." Their chief weapon was the bow, but they had also lances and battle axes. As among the Sumerians the sign of kingship was a boomerang-like sceptre[594]. Except for Babylon and Sippar, which throw little light on the early periods, no systematic excavation has been undertaken in northern Babylonia, and the site of Akkad is still unidentified.

The chronology of this early age of Babylonia is much disputed. The very high dates of 5000 or 6000 B.C. formerly assigned by many writers to the earliest remains of the Sumerians and the Babylonian Semites, depended to a great extent on the statement of Nabonidus (556 B.C.) that 3200 years separated his own age from that of Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon of Agade; for to Sargon, on this statement alone, a date of 3800 has usually been assigned[595]. This date presents many difficulties, leaving many centuries unrepresented by any royal names or records. Even the suggested emendation of the text reducing the estimate by a thousand years is not generally acceptable. Most authorities hesitate to date any Babylonian records before 3000 B.C.[596] and agree that the time has not arrived for fixing any definite dates for the early period.

Despite the legendary matter associated with his memory, Shar-Gani-sharri, commonly called Sargon of Akkad, about 2500 B.C. (Meyer), 2650 B.C. (King), was beyond question a historical person though it seems that there has been some confusion with Sharru-gi, or Sharrukin, also called Sargon, earliest king of Kish[597]. Tradition records how his mother, a royal princess, concealed his birth by placing him in a rush basket closed with bitumen and sending him adrift on the stream, from which he was rescued by Akki the water-carrier, who brought him up as his own child. The incident, about which there is nothing miraculous, presents a curious parallel to, if it be not the source of, similar tales related of Moses, Cyrus, and other ancient leaders of men. Sargon also tells us that he ruled from his capital, Agade, for 45 years over Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, governed the black-headed ones, as the Akkads are constantly called, rode in bronze chariots over rugged lands, and made expeditions thrice to the sea-coast. The expeditions are confirmed by inscriptions from Syria, though the cylinder of his son, Naram-Sin, found by Cesnola in Cyprus, is now regarded as of later date[598]. As they also penetrated to Sinai their influence appears to have extended over the whole of Syria and North Arabia. They erected great structures at Nippur, which was at that time so ancient that Naram-Sin's huge brick platform stood on a mass 30 feet thick of the accumulated debris of earlier buildings. Among the most interesting of recent discoveries at Nippur are pre-Semitic tablets containing accounts similar to those recorded in the book of Genesis, from which in some cases the latter have clearly been derived. The "Deluge Fragment" published in 1910 relates the warning given by the god Ea to Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, and the directions for building a ship by means of which he and his family may escape, together with the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven[599]. A still later discovery agrees more closely with the Bible version, giving the name of the one pious man as Tagtog, Semitic NÛhu, and assigning nine months as the period of the duration of the flood. The same tablet also contains an account of the Fall of Man; but it is Noah, not Adam, who is tempted and falls, and the forbidden fruit is cassia[600].

Sennacherib's grandson, Ashurbanipal, who belongs to the late Assyrian empire when the centre of power had been shifted from Babylonia to Nineveh, has left recorded on his brick tablets how he overran Elam and destroyed its capital, Susa (645 B.C.). He states that from this place he brought back the effigy of the goddess, Nana, which had been carried away from her temple at Erech by an Elamite king by whom Akkad had been conquered 1635 years before, i.e. 2280 B.C. Over Akkad Elam ruled 300 years, and it was a king of this dynasty, Khudur-Lagamar, who has been identified by T. G. Pinches with the "Chedorlaomer, king of Elam" routed by Abraham (Gen. xiv. 14-17)[601]. Thus is explained the presence of Elamites at this time so far west as Syria, their own seat being amid the Kurdish mountains in the Upper Tigris basin.

The Elamites do not appear to have been of the same stock as the Sumerians. They are described as peaceful, industrious, and skilful husbandmen, with a surprising knowledge of irrigating processes. The non-Semitic language shows possible connections with Mitanni[602]. Yet the type would appear to be on the whole rather Semitic, judging at least from the large arched nose and thick beard of the Susian god, Ramman, brought by Ashurbanipal out of Elam, and figured in Layard's Monuments of Nineveh, 1st Series, Plate 65. This, however, may be explained by the fact that the Elamites were subdued at an early date by intruding Semites, although they afterwards shook off the yoke and became strong enough to conquer Mesopotamia and extend their expeditions to Syria and the Jordan. The capital of Elam was the renowned city of Susa (Shushan, whence Susiana, the modern Khuzistan). Recent excavations show that the settlement dates from neolithic times[603].

Even after the capture of Susa by Ashurbanipal, Elam again rose to great power under Cyrus the Great, who, however, was no Persian adventurer, as stated by Herodotus, but the legitimate Elamite ruler, as inscribed on his cylinder and tablet now in the British Museum:—"Cyrus, the great king, the king of Babylon, the king of Sumir and Akkad, the king of the four zones, the son of Kambyses, the great king, the king of Elam, the grandson of Cyrus the great king," who by the favour of Merodach has overcome the black-headed people (i.e. the Akkads) and at last entered Babylon in peace. On an earlier cylinder Nabonidus, last king of Babylon, tells us how this same Cyrus subdued the Medes—here called Mandas, "Barbarians"—and captured their king Astyages and his capital Ekbatana. But although Cyrus, hitherto supposed to be a Persian and a Zoroastrian monotheist, here appears as an Elamite and a polytheist, "it is pretty certain that although descended from Elamite kings, these were [at that time] kings of Persian race, who, after the destruction of the old [Elamite] monarchy by Ashurbanipal, had established a new dynasty at the city of Susa. Cyrus always traces his descent from AchÆmenes, the chief of the leading Persian clan of PasargadÆ[604]." Hence although wrong in speaking of Cyrus as an adventurer, Herodotus rightly calls him a Persian, and at this late date Elam itself may well have been already Aryanised in speech[605], while still retaining its old Sumerian religion. The Babylonian pantheon survived, in fact, till the time of Darius Hystaspes, who introduced Zoroastrianism with its supreme gods, Ahura-Mazda, creator of all good, and Ahriman, author of all evil.

It is now possible to gain some idea of the gradual growth of the city states of Babylonia. Beginning with a mere collection of rude reed huts, these were succeeded by structures of sun-dried bricks, built in a group for mutual protection, probably around a centre of a local god, and surrounded by a wall. The land around the settlement was irrigated by canals, and here the corn and vegetables were grown and the flocks and herds were tended for the maintenance of the population. The central figure was always the god, who occasionally gave his name to the site, and who was the owner of all the land, the inhabitants being merely his tenants who owed him rent for their estates. It was the god who waged wars with the neighbours, and with whom treaties were made. The treaty between Lagash and Umma fixing the limitations of their boundaries, a constant matter of dispute, was made by Ningirsu, god of Lagash, and the city god of Umma, under the arbitration of Enlil, the chief of the gods, whose central shrine was at Nippur.

With the growth of the cities disputes of territory were sure to arise, and either by conquest or amalgamation, cities became absorbed into states. The problem then was the adjustment of the various city gods, each reigning supreme in his own city, but taking a higher or lower place in the Babylonian pantheon. When one city gained a supremacy over all its neighbours, its governor might assume the title of king. But the king was merely the patesi, the steward of the city god. Even when the supremacy was sufficiently permanent for the establishment of a dynasty, this was a dynasty of the city rather than of a family, for the successive kings were not necessarily of the same family[606].

Among the city gods who developed into powerful deities were Anu of Uruk (Erech), Enlil of Nippur and Ea of Eridu (originally a sea-port). These became the supreme triad, Anu ruling over the heavens, enthroned on the northern pole, as king and father of the gods; Enlil, the Semitic Bel, god of earth, lord of the lands, formerly chief of all the gods; and Ea, god of the water-depths, whose son was ultimately to eclipse his father as Marduk of Babylon. A second triad is composed of the local deities who developed into Sin, the moon-god of Ur, Shamash the sun-god of Larsa, and the famous Ishtar, the great mother, goddess of love and queen of heaven. The realm of the dead was a dark place under the earth, where the dead lived as shadows, eating the dust of the earth. Their lot depended partly on their earlier lives, and partly on the devotion of their surviving relatives. Although their dead kings were deified there seems to be no evidence for a belief in a general resurrection or in the transmigration of souls. The hymns and prayers to the gods however show a very high religious level in spite of the important part played by soothsaying and exorcism, relics of earlier culture. The permanence of these may be partly ascribed to the essentially theocratic character of Babylonian government. The king was merely the agent of the god, whose desires were interpreted by the priestly soothsayers and exorcists, and no action could be undertaken in worldly or in religious concerns without their superintendence. The kings occasionally attempted to free themselves from the power of the priests, but the attempt was always vain. The power of the priests had often a sound economic basis, for the temples of the great cities were centres of vast wealth and of far-reaching trade, as is proved by the discovery of the commercial contracts stored in the temple archives[607].

How the family expands through the clan and tribe into the nation, is clearly seen in the Babylonian social system, in which the inhabitants of each city were still "divided into clans, all of whose members claimed to be descended from a common ancestor who had flourished at a more or less remote period. The members of each clan were by no means all in the same social position, some having gone down in the world, others having raised themselves; and amongst them we find many different callings—from agricultural labourers to scribes, and from merchants to artisans. No natural tie existed among the majority of these members except the remembrance of their common origin, perhaps also a common religion, and eventual rights of succession or claims upon what belonged to each one individually[608]." The god or goddess, it is suggested, who watched over each man, and of whom each was the son, was originally the god or goddess of the clan (its totem). So also in Egypt, the members of the community were all supposed to come of the same stock (pÁit), and to belong to the same family (pÁitu), whose chiefs (ropÁitu) were the guardians of the family, several groups of such families being under a ropÁitÚ-hÁ, or head chief[609].

Amongst the local institutions, it is startling to find a fully developed ground-landlord system, though not quite so bad as that still patiently endured in England, already flourishing ages ago in Babylonia. "The cost of repairs fell usually on the lessee, who was also allowed to build on the land he had leased, in which case it was declared free of all charges for a period of about ten years; but the house and, as a rule, all he had built, then reverted to the landlord[610]."

In many other respects great progress had been made, and it is the belief of von Ihring[611], Hommel[612] and others that from Babylonia was first diffused a knowledge of letters, astronomy, agriculture, navigation, architecture, and other arts, to the Nile valley, and mainly through Egypt to the Western World, and through Irania to China and India. In this generalisation there is probably a large measure of truth, although it will be seen farther on that the Asiatic origin of Egyptian culture is still far from being proved[613].

One element the two peoples certainly had in common—a highly developed agricultural system, which formed the foundation of their greatness, and was maintained in a rainless climate by a stupendous system of irrigation works. Such works were carried out on a prodigious scale by the ancient Babylonians six or eight thousand years ago. The plains of the Lower Euphrates and Tigris, since rendered desolate under Turkish misrule, are intersected by the remains of an intricate network of canalisation covering all the space between the two rivers, and are strewn with the ruins of many great cities, whose inhabitants, numbering scores of thousands, were supported by the produce of a highly cultivated region, which is now an arid waste varied only by crumbling mounds, stagnant waters, and the camping-grounds of a few Arab tent-dwellers.

Those who attach weight to distinctive racial qualities have always found a difficulty in attributing this wonderful civilisation to the same Mongolic people, who in their own homes have scarcely anywhere advanced beyond the hunting, fishing, or pastoral states. But it has always to be remembered that man, like all other zoological forms, necessarily reflects the character of his environment. The Mongols might in time become agriculturalists in the alluvial Mesopotamian lands, though the kindred people who give their name to the whole ethnical division and present its physical characters in an exaggerated form, ever remain tented nomads on the dry Central Asiatic steppe, which yields little but herbage, and is suitable for tillage only in a few more favoured districts. Here the typical Mongols, cut off from the arable lands of South Siberia by the Tian-shan and Altai ranges, and to some extent denied access to the rich fluvial valleys of the Middle Kingdom by the barrier of the Great Wall, have for ages led a pastoral life in the inhabitable tracts and oases of the Gobi wilderness and the Ordos region within the great bend of the Hoang-ho. During the historic period these natural and artificial ramparts have been several times surmounted by fierce Mongol hordes, pouring like irresistible flood-waters over the whole of China and many parts of Siberia, and extending their predatory or conquering expeditions across the more open northern plains westwards nearly to the shores of the Atlantic. But such devastating torrents, which at intervals convulsed and caused dislocations amongst half the settled populations of the globe, had little effect on the tribal groups that remained behind. These continued and continue to occupy the original camping-grounds, as changeless and uniform in their physical appearance, mental characters, and social usages as the Arab bedouins and all other inhabitants of monotonous undiversified steppe lands.

De Ujfalvy's suggestion that the typical Mongols of the plains, with whom we are now dealing, were originally a long-headed race, can scarcely be taken seriously. At present and, in fact, throughout historic times, all true Mongol peoples are and have been distinguished by a high degree of brachycephaly, with cephalic index generally from 87 upwards, and it may be remembered that the highest known index of any undeformed skull was that of Huxley's Mongol (98.21). But, as already noticed, those recovered from prehistoric, or neolithic kurgans, are found to be dolichocephalous like those of palaeolithic and early neolithic man in Europe.

Taken in connection with the numerous prehistoric remains above recorded from all parts of Central Asia and Siberia, this fact may perhaps help to bring de Ujfalvy's view into harmony with the actual conditions. Everything will be explained by assuming that the proto-Mongolic tribes, spreading from the Tibetan plateau over the plains now bearing their name, found that region already occupied by the long-headed Caucasic peoples of the Stone Ages, whom they either exterminated or drove north to the Altai uplands, and east to Manchuria and Korea, where a strong Caucasic strain still persists. De Ujfalvy's long-heads would thus be, not the proto-Mongols who were always round-headed, but the long-headed neolithic pre-Mongol race expelled by them from Mongolia who may provisionally be termed proto-Nordics.

That this region has been their true home since the first migrations from the south there can be no doubt. Here land and people stand in the closest relation one to the other; here every conspicuous physical feature recalls some popular memory; every rugged crest is associated with the name of some national hero, every lake or stream is still worshipped or held in awe as a local deity, or else the abode of the ancestral shades. Here also the Mongols proper form two main divisions, Sharra in the east and KalmÚk in the west, while a third group, the somewhat mixed Buryats, have long been settled in the Siberian provinces of Irkutsk and Trans-Baikalia. Under the Chinese semi-military administration all except the Buryats, who are Russian subjects, are constituted since the seventeenth century in 41 Aimaks (large tribal groups or principalities with hereditary khans) and 226 Koshungs, "Banners," that is, smaller groups whose chiefs are dependent on the khans of their respective Aimaks, who are themselves directly responsible to the imperial government. Subjoined is a table of these administrative divisions, which present a curious but effective combination of the tribal and political systems, analogous to the arrangement in Pondoland and some other districts in Cape Colony, where the hereditary tribal chief assumes the functions of a responsible British magistrate.

Since their organisation in Aimaks and Koshungs, the Mongols have ceased to be a terror to the surrounding peoples. The incessant struggles between these tented warriors and the peaceful Chinese populations, which began long before the dawn of history, were brought to a close with the overthrow of the Sungarian power in the eighteenth century, when their political cohesion was broken, and the whole nation reduced to a state of abject helplessness, from which they cannot now hope to recover. The arm of Chinese rule could be replaced only by the firmer grip of the northern autocrat, whose shadow already lies athwart the Gobi wilderness.

Thus the only escape from the crushing monotony of a purely pastoral life, no longer relieved by intervals of warlike or predatory expeditions, lies in a survival of the old Shamanist superstitions, or a further development of the degrading Tibetan lamaism represented at Urga by the Kutukhtu, an incarnation of the Buddha only less revered than the Dalai Lama himself[614]. Besides this High Priest at Urga, there are over a hundred smaller incarnations—Gigens, as they are called—and these saintly beings possess unlimited means of plundering their votaries. The smallest favour, the touch of their garments, a pious ejaculation or blessing, is regarded as a priceless spiritual gift, and must be paid for with costly offerings. Even the dead do not escape these exactions. However disposed of, whether buried or cremated, like the khans and lamas, or exposed to beasts and birds of prey, as is the fate of the common folk, "masses," which also command a high price, have to be said for forty days to relieve their souls from the torments of the Buddhist purgatory.

It is a singular fact, which, however, may perhaps admit of explanation, that nearly all the true Mongol peoples have been Buddhists since the spread of Sakya-Muni's teachings throughout Central Asia, while their Turki kinsmen are zealous followers of the Prophet. Thus is seen, for instance, the strange spectacle of two Mongolic groups, the Kirghiz of the Turki branch and the Kalmuks of the West Mongol branch, encamped side by side on the Lower Volga plains, the former all under the banner of the Crescent, the latter devout worshippers of all the incarnations of Buddha. But analogous phenomena occur amongst the European peoples, the Teutons being mainly Protestants, those of neo-Latin speech mainly Roman Catholics, and the Easterns Orthodox. From all this, however, nothing more can be inferred than that the religions are partly a question of geography, partly determined by racial temperament and political conditions; while the religious sentiment, being universal, is above all local or ethnical considerations.

Under the first term of the expression Mongolo-Turki (p. 256) are comprised, besides the Mongols proper, nearly all those branches of the division which lie to the east and north-east of Mongolia, and are in most respects more closely allied with the Mongol than with the Turki section. Such are the Tunguses, with the kindred Manchus, Golds, Orochons, Lamuts, and others of the Amur basin, the Upper Lena head-streams, the eastern affluents of the Yenisei, and the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk; the Gilyaks about the Amur estuary and in the northern parts of Sakhalin; the Kamchadales in South Kamchatka; in the extreme north-east the Koryaks, Chukchis, and Yukaghirs; lastly the Koreans, Japanese, and Liu-Kiu (Lu-Chu) Islanders. To the Mongol section thus belong nearly all the peoples lying between the Yenisei and the Pacific (including most of the adjacent archipelagos), and between the Great Wall and the Arctic Ocean. The only two exceptions are the Yakuts of the middle and Lower Lena and neighbouring Arctic rivers, who are of Turki stock; and the Ainus of Yezo, South Sakhalin, and some of the Kurile Islands, who belong to the Caucasic division.

M. A. Czaplicka proposes a useful classification of the various peoples of Siberia, usually grouped on account of linguistic affinities as Ural-Altaians, and as "no other part of the world presents a racial problem of such complexity and in regard to no other part of the world's inhabitants have ethnologists of the last hundred years put forward such widely differing hypotheses of their origin[615]," her tabulation may serve to clear the way. She divides the whole area[616] into Palaeo-Siberians, representing the most ancient stock of dwellers in Siberia, and Neo-Siberians, comprising the various tribes of Central Asiatic origin who are sufficiently differentiated from the kindred peoples of their earlier homes as to deserve a generic name of their own. The Palaeo-Siberians thus include the Chukchi, Koryak, Kamchadale, Ainu, Gilyak, Eskimo, Aleut, Yukaghir, Chuvanzy and Ostyak of Yenisei. The Neo-Siberians include the Finnic Tribes (Ugrian Ostyak, and Vogul), Samoyedic Tribes, Turkic Tribes (Yakut and Turko-Tatars of Tobolsk and Tomsk Governments), Mongolic Tribes (Western Mongols or Kalmuk, Eastern Mongols, and Buryat), and Tungusic Tribes (Tungus, Chapogir, Gold, Lamut, Manchu, Manyarg, Oroch, Orochon ("Reindeer Tungus"), Oroke).

A striking illustration of the general statement that the various cultural states are a question not of race, but of environment, is afforded by the varying social conditions of the widespread Tungus family, who are fishers on the Arctic coast, hunters in the East Siberian woodlands, and for the most part sedentary tillers of the soil and townspeople in the rich alluvial valleys of the Amur and its southern affluents. The Russians, from whom we get the term Tungus[617], recognise these various pursuits, and speak of Horse, Cattle, Reindeer, Dog, Steppe, and Forest Tunguses, besides the settled farmers and stock-breeders of the Amur. Their original home appears to have been the Shan-alin uplands, where they dwelt with the kindred Niu-chi (Manchus) till the thirteenth century, when the disturbances brought about by the wars and conquests of Jenghiz-Khan drove them to their present seat in East Siberia. The type, although essentially Mongolic in the somewhat flat features, very prominent cheek-bones, slant eyes, long lank hair, yellowish brown colour and low stature, seems to show admixture with a higher race in the shapely frame, the nimble, active figure, and quick, intelligent expression, and especially in the variable skull. While generally round (indices 80° to 84°), the head is sometimes flat on the top, like that of the true Mongol, sometimes high and short, which, as Hamy tells us, is specially characteristic of the Turki race[618].

All observers speak in enthusiastic language of the temperament and moral qualities of the Tunguses, and particularly of those groups that roam the forests about the Tunguska tributaries of the Yenisei, which take their name from these daring hunters and trappers. "Full of animation and natural impulse, always cheerful even in the deepest misery, holding themselves and others in like respect, of gentle manners and poetic speech, obliging without servility, unaffectedly proud, scorning falsehood, and indifferent to suffering and death, the Tunguses are unquestionably an heroic people[619]."

A few have been brought within the pale of the Orthodox Church, and in the extreme south some are classed as Buddhists. But the great bulk of the Tungus nation are still Shamanists. Indeed the very word Shaman is of Tungus origin, though current also amongst the Buryats and Yakuts. It is often taken to be the equivalent of priest; but in point of fact it represents a stage in the development of natural religion which has scarcely yet reached the sacerdotal state. "Although in many cases the shamans act as priests, and take part in popular and family festivals, prayers, and sacrifices, their chief importance is based on the performance of duties which distinguish them sharply from ordinary priests[620]." Their functions are threefold, those of the medicine-man (the leech, or healer by supernatural means); of the soothsayer (the prophet through communion with the invisible world); and of the priest, especially in his capacity as exorcist, and in his general power to influence, control, or even coerce the good and evil spirits on behalf of their votaries. But as all spirits are, or were originally, identified with the souls of the departed, it follows that in its ultimate analysis Shamanism resolves itself into a form of ancestry-worship.

The system, of which there are many phases reflecting the different cultural states of its adherents, still prevails amongst all the Siberian aborigines[621], and generally amongst all the uncivilised Ural-Altaic populations, so that here again the religions strictly reflect the social condition of the peoples. Thus the somewhat cultured Finns, Turks, Mongols, and Manchus are all either Christians, Muhammadans, or Buddhists; while the uncultured but closely related Samoyeds, Ostyaks, Orochons, Tunguses, Golds, Gilyaks, Koryaks, and Chukchi, are almost without exception Shamanists.

The shamans do not appear to constitute a special caste or sacerdotal order, like the hierarchies of the Christian Churches. Some are hereditary, some elected by popular vote, so to say. They may be either men, or women (shamanka), married or single; and if "rank" is spoken of, it simply means greater or less proficiency in the performance of the duties imposed on them. Everything thus depends on their personal merits, which naturally gives rise to much jealousy between the members of the craft. Thus amongst the "whites" and the "blacks," that is, those whose dealings are with the good and the bad spirits respectively, there is in some districts a standing feud, often resulting in fierce encounters and bloodshed. The Buryats tell how the two factions throw axes at each other at great distances, the struggle usually ending in the death of one of the combatants. The blacks, who serve the evil spirits, bringing only disease, death, or ill-luck, and even killing people by eating up their souls, are of course the least popular, but also the most dreaded. Many are credited with extraordinary and even miraculous powers, and there can be no doubt that they often act up to their reputation by performing almost incredible conjuring tricks in order to impose on the credulity of the ignorant, or outbid their rivals for the public favour. Old Richard Johnson of Chancelour's expedition to Muscovy records how he saw a Samoyed shaman stab himself with a sword, then make the sword red hot and thrust it through his body, so that the point protruded at the back, and Johnson was able to touch it with his finger. They then bound the wizard tight with a reindeer-rope, and went through some performances curiously like those of the Davenport brothers and other modern conjurers[622].

To the much-discussed question whether the shamans are impostors, the best answer has perhaps been given by CastrÈn, who, speaking of the same Samoyed magicians, remarks that if they were merely cheats, we should have to suppose that they did not share the religious beliefs of their fellow-tribesmen, but were a sort of rationalists far in advance of the times. Hence it would seem much more probable that they deceived both themselves and others[623], while no doubt many bolster up a waning reputation by playing the mountebank where there is no danger of detection.

"Shamanism amongst the Siberian peoples," concludes our Russian authority, "is at the present time in a moribund condition; it must die out with those beliefs among which alone such phenomena can arise and flourish. Buddhism on the one hand, and Muhammadanism on the other, not to mention Christianity, are rapidly destroying the old ideas of the tribes among whom the shamans performed. Especially has the more ancient Black Faith suffered from the Yellow Faith preached by the lamas. But the shamans, with their dark mysterious rites, have made a good struggle for life, and are still frequently found among the native Christians and Muhammadans. The mullahs and lamas have even been obliged to become shamans to a great extent, and many Siberian tribes, who are nominally Christians, believe in shamans, and have recourse to them."

Of all members of the Tungusic family the Manchus alone can be called a historical people. If they were really descended from the Khitans of the Sungari valley, then their authentic records will date from the tenth century A.D., when these renowned warriors, after overthrowing the Pu-haÏ (925), founded the Liao dynasty and reduced a great part of North China and surrounding lands. The Khitans, from whom China was known to Marco Polo as Khitai (Cathay), as it still is to the Russians, were conquered in 1125 by the Niu-chi (Yu-chi, Nu-chin) of the Shan-alin uplands, reputed cradle of the Manchu race. These Niu-chi, direct ancestors of the Manchus, founded (1115) the State known as that of the "Golden Tartars," from Kin, "gold," the title adopted by their chief Aguta, "because iron (in reference to the Liao, 'Iron' dynasty) may rust, but gold remains ever pure and bright." The Kins, however, retained their brightness only a little over a century, having been eclipsed by Jenghiz-Khan in 1234. But about the middle of the fourteenth century the Niu-chi again rose to power under Aishiu-Gioro, who, although of miraculous birth and surrounded by other legendary matter, appears to have been a historical person. He may be regarded as the true founder of the Manchu dynasty, for it was in his time that this name came into general use. Sing-tsu, one of his descendants, constructed the palisade, a feeble imitation of the Great Wall, sections of which still exist. Thai-tsu, a still more famous member of the family, greatly extended the Manchu Kingdom (1580-1626), and it was his son Tai-dsung who first assumed the imperial dignity under the title of Tai-Tsing. After his death, the Ming dynasty having been overthrown by a rebel chief, the Manchus were invited by the imperialists to aid in restoring order, entered Peking in triumph, and, finding that the last of the Mings had committed suicide, placed Tai-dsung's nephew on the throne, thus founding the Manchu dynasty (1644) which lasted down to 1912.

Such has been the contribution of the Manchu people to history; their contributions to arts, letters, science, in a word, to the general progress of mankind, have been nil. They found the Middle Kingdom, after ages of a sluggish growth, in a state of absolute stagnation, and there they have left it. On the other hand their assumption of the imperial administration brought about their own ruin, their effacement, and almost their very extinction as a separate nationality[624]. Manchuria, like Mongolia, is organised in a number of half military, half civil divisions, the so-called Paki, or "Eight Banners," and the constant demand made on these reserves, to support the dynasty and supply trustworthy garrisons for all the strongholds of the empire, has drawn off the best blood of the people, in fact sapped its vitality at the fountain-head. Then the rich arable tracts thus depleted were gradually occupied by agricultural settlers from the south, with the result that the Manchu race has nearly disappeared. From the ethnical standpoint the whole region beyond the Great Wall as far north as the Amur has practically become an integral part of China, and from the political standpoint since 1898 an integral part of the Russian empire. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the Eight Banners numbered scarcely more than a quarter of a million, and about that time the AbbÉ Huc declared that "the Manchu nationality is destroyed beyond recovery. At present we shall look in vain for a single town or a single village throughout Manchuria which is not exclusively inhabited by Chinese. The local colour has been completely effaced, and except a few nomad groups nobody speaks Manchu[625]."

Similar testimony is afforded by later observers, and Henry Lansdell, amongst others, remarks that "the Manchu, during the two centuries they have reigned in China, may be said to have been working out their own annihilation. Their manners, language, their very country has become Chinese, and some maintain that the Manchu proper are now extinct[626]."

But the type, so far from being extinct, may be said to have received a considerable expansion, especially amongst the populations of north-east China. The taller stature and greatly superior physical appearance of the inhabitants of Tien-tsin and surrounding districts[627] over those of the southern provinces (Fokien, Kwang-tung), who are the chief representatives of the Chinese race abroad, seem best explained by continual crossings with the neighbouring Manchu people, at least since the twelfth century, if not earlier.

Closely related to the Manchus (of the same stock says Sir H. H. Howorth, the distinction being purely political) are the Dauri, who give their name to the extensive Daur plateau, and formerly occupied both sides of the Upper Amur. Daur is, in fact, the name applied by the Buryats to all the Tungus peoples of the Amur basin. The Dauri proper, who are now perhaps the best representatives of the original Manchu type, would seem to have intermingled at a remote time with the long-headed pre-Mongol populations of Central Asia. They are "taller and stronger than the Oronchons [Tungus groups lower down the Amur]; the countenance is oval and more intellectual, and the cheeks are less broad. The nose is rather prominent, and the eyebrows straight. The skin is tawny, and the hair brown[628]." Most of these characters are such as we should expect to find in a people of mixed Mongolo-Caucasic descent, the latter element being derived from the long-headed race who had already reached the present Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, and the adjacent islands during neolithic times. Thus may be explained the tall stature, somewhat regular features, brown hair, light eyes, and even florid complexion so often observed amongst the present inhabitants of Manchuria, Korea, and parts of North China.

But no admixture, except of Chinese literary terms, is seen in the Manchu language, which, like Mongolic, is a typical member of the agglutinating Ural-Altaic family. Despite great differences, lexical, phonetic, and even structural, all the members of this widespread order of speech have in common a number of fundamental features, which justify the assumption that all spring from an original stock language, which has long been extinct, and the germs of which were perhaps first developed on the Tibetan plateau. The essential characters of the system are:—(1) a "root" or notional term, generally a closed syllable, nominal or verbal, with a vowel or diphthong, strong or weak (hard or soft) according to the meaning of the term, hence incapable of change; (2) a number of particles or relational terms somewhat loosely postfixed to the root, but incorporated with it by the principle of (3) vowel harmony, a kind of vocal concordance, in virtue of which the vowels of all the postfixes must harmonise with the unchangeable vowel of the root. If this is strong all the following vowels of the combination, no matter what its length, must be strong; if weak they must conform in the same way. With nominal roots the postfixes are necessarily limited to the expression of a few simple relations; but with verbal roots they are in principle unlimited, so that the multifarious relations of the verb to its subject and object are all incorporated in the verbal compound itself, which may thus run at times to inordinate lengths. Hence we have the expression "incorporating," commonly applied to this agglutinating system, which sometimes goes so far as to embody the notions of causality, possibility, passivity, negation, intensity, condition, and so on, besides the direct pronominal objects, in one interminable conglomerate, which is then treated as a simple verb, and run through all the secondary changes of number, person, tense, and mood. The result is an endless number of theoretically possible verbal forms, which, although in practice naturally limited to the ordinary requirements of speech, are far too numerous to allow of a complete verbal paradigm being constructed of any fully developed member of the Ural-Altaic group, such, for instance, as Yakut, Tungus, Turki, Mordvinian, Finnish, or Magyar.

In this system the vowels are classed as strong or hard (a, o, u), weak or soft (the same umlauted: Ä, Ö, Ü), and neutral (generally e, i), these last being so called because they occur indifferently with the two other classes. Thus, if the determining root vowel is a (strong), that of the postfixes may be either a (strong), e or i (neutral); if Ä (weak), that of the postfixes may be either Ä (weak), or e or i as before. The postfixes themselves no doubt were originally notional terms worn down in form and meaning, so as to express mere abstract relation, as in the Magyar vel = with, from veli = companion. Tacked on to the root fa = tree, this will give the ablative case, first unharmonised, fa-vel, then harmonised, fa-val = tree-with, with a tree. In the early Magyar texts of the twelfth century inharmonic compounds, such as halÁl-nek, later halÁk-nak = at death, are numerous, from which it has been inferred that the principle of vowel harmony is not an original feature of the Ural-Altaic languages, but a later development, due in fact to phonetic decay, and still scarcely known in some members of the group, such as Votyak and Highland Cheremissian (Volga Finn). But M. Lucien Adam holds that these idioms have lost the principle through foreign (Russian) influence, and that the few traces still perceptible are survivals from a time when all the Ural-Altaic tongues were subject to progressive vowel harmony[629].

But however this be, Dean Byrne is disposed to regard the alternating energetic utterance of the hard, and indolent utterance of the soft vowel series, as an expression of the alternating active and lethargic temperament of the race, such alternations being themselves due to the climatic conditions of their environment. "Certainly the life of the great nomadic races involves a twofold experience of this kind, as they must during their abundant summer provide for their rigorous winter, when little can be done. Their character, too, involves a striking combination of intermittent indolence and energy; and it is very remarkable that this distinction of roots is peculiar to the languages spoken originally where this great distinction of seasons exists. The fact that the distinction [between hard and soft] is imparted to all the suffixes of a root proves that the radical characteristic which it expresses is thought with these; and consequently that the radical idea is retained in the consciousness while these are added to it[630]."

This is a highly characteristic instance of the methods followed by Dean Byrne in his ingenious but hopeless attempt to explain the subtle structure of speech by the still more subtle temperament of the speaker, taken in connection with the alternating nature of the climate. The feature in question cannot be due to such alternation of mood and climate, because it is persistent throughout all seasons, while the hard and soft elements occur simultaneously, one might say, promiscuously, in conversation under all mental states of those conversing.

The true explanation is given by Schleicher, who points out that progressive vocal assimilation is the necessary result of agglutination, which by this means binds together the idea and its relations in their outward expression, just as they are already inseparately associated in the mind of the speaker. Hence it is that such assonance is not confined to the Ural-Altaic group, analogous processes occurring at certain stages of their growth in all forms of speech, as in Wolof, Zulu-Xosa, Celtic (expressed by the formula of Irish grammarians: "broad to broad, slender to slender"), and even in Latin, as in such vocalic concordance as: annus, perennis; ars, iners; lego, diligo. In these examples the root vowel is influenced by that of the prefix, while in the Mongolo-Turki family the root vowel, coming first, is unchangeable, but, as explained, influences the vowels of the postfixes, the phonetic principle being the same in both systems.

Both Mongol and Manchu are cultivated languages employing modified forms of the Uiguric (Turki) script, which is based on the Syriac introduced by the Christian (Nestorian) missionaries in the seventh century. It was first adopted by the Mongols about 1280, and perfected by the scribe Tsorji Osir under Jenezek Khan (1307-1311). The letters, connected together by continuous strokes, and slightly modified, as in Syriac, according to their position at the beginning, middle, or end of the word, are disposed in vertical columns from left to right, an arrangement due no doubt to Chinese influence. This is the more probable since the Manchus, before the introduction of the Mongol system in the sixteenth century, employed the Chinese characters ever since the time of the Kin dynasty.

None of the other Tungusic or north-east Siberian peoples possess any writing system except the Yukaghirs of the Yasachnaya affluent of the Kolymariver, who were visited in 1892 by the Russian traveller, S. Shargorodsky. From his report[631], it appears that this symbolic writing is carved with a sharp knife out of soft fresh birch-bark, these simple materials sufficing to describe the tracks followed on hunting and fishing expeditions, as well as the sentiments of the young women in their correspondence with their sweethearts. Specimens are given of these curious documents, some of which are touching and even pathetic. "Thou goest hence, and I bide alone, for thy sake still to weep and moan," writes one disconsolate maid to her parting lover. Another with a touch of jealousy: "Thou goest forth thy Russian flame to seek, who stands 'twixt thee and me, thy heart from me apart to keep. In a new home joy wilt thou find, while I must ever grieve, as thee I bear in mind, though another yet there be who loveth me." Or again: "Each youth his mate doth find; my fate alone it is of him to dream, who to another wedded is, and I must fain contented be, if only he forget not me." And with a note of wail: "Thou hast gone hence, and of late it seems this place for me is desolate; and I too forth must fare, that so the memories old I may forget, and from the pangs thus flee of those bright days, which here I once enjoyed with thee."

Details of domestic life may even be given, and one accomplished maiden is able to make a record in her note-book of the combs, shawls, needles, thimble, cake of soap, lollipops, skeins of wool, and other sundries, which she has received from a Yakut packman, in exchange for some clothes she has made him. Without illustrations no description of the process would be intelligible. Indeed it would seem these primitive documents are not always understood by the young folks themselves. They gather at times in groups to watch the process of composition by some expert damsel, the village "notary," and much merriment, we are told, is caused by the blunders of those who fail to read the text aright.

It is not stated whether the system is current amongst the other Yukaghir tribes, who dwell on the banks of the Indigirka, Yana, Kerkodona, and neighbouring districts. They thus skirt the Frozen Ocean from near the Lena delta to and beyond the Kolyma, and are conterminous landwards with the Yakuts on the south-west and the Chukchi on the north-east. With the Chukchi, the Koryaks, the Kamchadales, and the Gilyaks they form a separate branch of the Mongolic division sometimes grouped together as "Hyperboreans," but distinguished from other Ural-Altaic peoples perhaps strictly on linguistic grounds. Although now reduced to scarcely 1500, the Yukaghirs were formerly a numerous people, and the popular saying that their hearths on the banks of the Kolyma at one time outnumbered the stars in the sky seems a reminiscence of more prosperous days. But great inroads have been made by epidemics, tribal wars, the excessive use of coarse Ukraine tobacco and of bad spirits, indulged in even by the women and children. "A Yukaghir, it is said, never intoxicates himself alone, but calls upon his family to share the drink, even children in arms being supplied with a portion[632]." Their language, which A. Schiefner regards as radically distinct from all others[633], is disappearing even more rapidly than the people themselves, if it be not already quite extinct. In the eighties it was spoken only by about a dozen old persons, its place being taken almost everywhere by the Turki dialect of the Yakuts[634].

There appears to be a curious interchange of tribal names between the Chukchi and their Koryak neighbours, the term Koryak being the Chukchi Khorana, "Reindeer," while the Koryaks are said to call themselves Chauchau, whence some derive the word Chukchi. Hooper, however, tells us that the proper form of Chukchi is Tuski, "Brothers," or "Confederates[635]," and in any case the point is of little consequence, as Dittmar is probably right in regarding both groups as closely related, and sprung originally from one stock[636]. Jointly they occupy the north-east extremity of the continent between the Kolyma and Bering Strait, together with the northern parts of Kamchatka; the Chukchi lying to the north, the Koryaks to the south, mainly round about the north-eastern inlets of the Sea of Okhotsk. Reasons have already been advanced for supposing that the Chukchi were a Tungus people who came originally from the Amur basin. In their arctic homes they appear to have waged long wars with the Onkilon (Ang-kali) aborigines, gradually merging with the survivors and also mingling both with the Koryaks and Chuklukmiut Eskimo settled on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.

But their relations to all these peoples are involved in great obscurity, and while some connect them with the Itelmes of Kamchatka[637], by others they have been affiliated to the Eskimo, owing to the Eskimo dialect said to be spoken by them. But this "dialect" is only a trading jargon, a sort of "pidgin Eskimo" current all round the coast, and consisting of Chukchi, Innuit, Koryak, English, and even Hawaii elements, mingled together in varying proportions. The true Chukchi language, of which NordenskiÖld collected 1000 words, is quite distinct from Eskimo, and probably akin to Koryak[638], and the Swedish explorer aptly remarks that "this race, settled on the primeval route between the Old and New World, bears an unmistakable stamp of the Mongols of Asia and the Eskimo and Indians of America." He was much struck by the great resemblance of the Chukchi weapons and household utensils to those of the Greenland Eskimo, while Signe Rink shows that even popular legends have been diffused amongst the populations on both sides of Bering Strait[639]. Such common elements, however, prove little for racial affinity, which seems excluded by the extremely round shape of the Chukchi skull, as compared with the long-headed Eskimo. But the type varies considerably both amongst the so-called "Fishing Chukchi," who occupy permanent stations along the seaboard, and the "Reindeer Chukchi," who roam the inland districts, shifting their camping-grounds with the seasons. There are no hereditary chiefs, and little deference is paid to the authority even of the owner of the largest reindeer herds, on whom the Russians have conferred the title of Jerema, regarding him as the head of the Chukchi nation, and holding him responsible for the good conduct of his rude subjects. Although nominal Christians, they continue to sacrifice animals to the spirits of the rivers and mountains, and also to practise Shamanist rites. They believe in an after-life, but only for those who die a violent death. Hence the resignation and even alacrity with which the hopelessly infirm and the aged submit, when the time comes, to be dispatched by their kinsfolk, in accordance with the tribal custom of kamitok, which still survives in full vigour amongst the Chukchi, as amongst the Sumatran Battas, and may be traced in many other parts of the world.

"The doomed one," writes Harry de Windt, "takes a lively interest in the proceedings, and often assists in the preparation for his own death. The execution is always preceded by a feast, where seal and walrus meat are greedily devoured, and whisky consumed till all are intoxicated. A spontaneous burst of singing and the muffled roll of walrus-hide drums then herald the fatal moment. At a given signal a ring is formed by the relations and friends, the entire settlement looking on from the background. The executioner (usually the victim's son or brother) then steps forward, and placing his right foot behind the back of the condemned, slowly strangles him to death with a walrus-thong. A kamitok took place during the latter part of our stay[640]."

This custom of "voluntary death" is sometimes due to sorrow at the death of a near relative, a quarrel at home, or merely weariness of life, and Bogoras thinks that the custom of killing old people does not exist as such, but is voluntarily chosen in preference to the hard life of an invalid[641].

Most recent observers have come to look upon the Chukchi and Koryaks as essentially one and the same people, the chief difference being that the latter are if possible even more degraded than their northern neighbours[642]. Like them they are classed as sedentary fisherfolk or nomad reindeer-owners, the latter, who call themselves Tumugulu, "Wanderers," roaming chiefly between Ghiyiginsk Bay and the Anadyr river. Through them the Chukchi merge gradually in the Itelmes, who are better known as Kamchadales, from the Kamchatka river, where they are now chiefly concentrated. Most of the Itelmes are already Russified in speech and—outwardly at least—in religion; but they still secretly immolate a dog now and then, to propitiate the malevolent beings who throw obstacles in the way of their hunting and fishing expeditions. Yet their very existence depends on their canine associates, who are of a stout, almost wolfish breed, inured to hunger and hardships, and excellent for sledge work.

Somewhat distinct both from all these Hyperboreans and from their neighbours, the Orochons, Golds, Manegrs and other Tungus peoples, are the Gilyaks, formerly widespread, but now confined to the Amur delta and the northern parts of Sakhalin[643]. Some observers have connected them with the Ainu and the Korean aborigines, while A. Anuchin detects two types—a Mongoloid with sparse beard, high cheek-bones, and flat face, and a Caucasic with bushy beard and more regular features[644]. The latter traits have been attributed to Russian mixture, but, as conjectured by H. von Siebold, are more probably due to a fundamental connection with their Ainu neighbours[645].

Mentally the Gilyaks take a low position—H. Lansdell thought the lowest of any people he had met in Siberia[646]. Despite the zeal of the Russian missionaries, and the inducements to join the fold, they remain obdurate Shamanists, and even fatalists, so that "if one falls into the water the others will not help him out, on the plea that they would thus be opposing a higher power, who wills that he should perish.... The soul of the Gilyak is supposed to pass at death into his favourite dog, which is accordingly fed with choice food; and when the spirit has been prayed by the shamans out of the dog, the animal is sacrificed on his master's grave. The soul is then represented as passing underground, lighted and guided by its own sun and moon, and continuing to lead there, in its spiritual abode, the same manner of life and pursuits as in the flesh[647]."

A speciality of the Gilyaks, as well as of their Gold neighbours, is the fish-skin costume, made from the skins of two kinds of salmon, and from this all these aborigines are known to the Chinese as Yupitatse, "Fish-skin-clad-People." "They strip it off with great dexterity, and by beating with a mallet remove the scales, and so render it supple. Clothes thus made are waterproof. I saw a travelling-bag, and even the sail of a boat, made of this material[648]."

Like the Ainu, the Gilyaks may be called bear-worshippers. At least this animal is supposed to be one of their chief gods, although they ensnare him in winter, keep him in confinement, and when well fattened tear him to pieces, devouring his mangled remains with much feasting and jubilation.

Since the opening up of Korea, some fresh light has been thrown upon the origins and ethnical relations of its present inhabitants. In his monograph on the Yellow Races[649] Hamy had included them in the Mongol division, but not without reserve, adding that "while some might be taken for Tibetans, others look like an Oceanic cross; hence the contradictory reports and theories of modern travellers." Since then the study of some skulls forwarded to Paris has enabled him to clear up some of the confusion, which is obviously due to interminglings of different elements dating from remote (neolithic) times. On the data supplied by these skulls Hamy classes the Koreans in three groups:—1. The natives of the northern provinces (Ping-ngan-tao and Hienking-tao), strikingly like their Mongol [Tungus] neighbours; 2. Those of the southern provinces (Klingchang-tao and Thsiusan-lo-tao), descendants of the ancient Chinhans and Pien-hans, showing Japanese affinities; 3. Those of the inner provinces (Hoanghae-tao and Ching-tsing-tao), who present a transitional form between the northerns and southerns, both in their physical type and geographical position[650].

Caucasic features—light eyes, large nose, hair often brown, full beard, fair and even white skin, tall stature—are conspicuous, especially amongst the upper classes and many of the southern Koreans[651]. They are thus shown to be a mixed race, the Mongol element dominating in the north, as might be expected, and the Caucasic in the south.

These conclusions seem to be confirmed by what is known of the early movements, migrations, and displacements of the populations in north-east Asia about the dawn of history. In these vicissitudes the Koreans, as they are now called[652], appear to have first taken part in the twelfth century B.C., when the peninsula was already occupied, as it still is, by Mongols, the Sien-pi, in the north, and in the south by several branches of the Hans (San-San), of whom it is recorded that they spoke a language unintelligible to the Sien-pi, and resembled the Japanese in appearance, manners, and customs. From this it may be inferred that the Hans were the true aborigines, probably direct descendants of the Caucasic peoples of the New Stone Age, while the Sien-pi were Mongolic (Tungusic) intruders from the present Manchuria. For some time these Sien-pi played a leading part in the political convulsions prior and subsequent to the erection of the Great Wall by Shih Hwang Ti, founder of the Tsin dynasty (221-209 B.C.)[653]. Soon after the completion of this barrier, the Hiung-nu, no longer able to scour the fertile plains of the Middle Kingdom, turned their arms against the neighbouring YuÉ-chi, whom they drove westwards to the Sungarian valleys. Here they were soon displaced by the Usuns (Wusun), a fair, blue-eyed people of unknown origin, who have been called "Aryans," and even "Teutons," and whom Ch. de Ujfalvy identifies with the tall long-headed western blonds (de Lapouge's Homo Europaeus), mixed with brown round-headed hordes of white complexion[654]. Accepting this view, we may go further, and identify the Usuns, as well as the other white peoples of the early Chinese records, with the already described Central Asiatic Caucasians of the Stone Ages, whose osseous remains we now possess, and who come to the surface in the very first Chinese documents dealing with the turbulent populations beyond the Great Wall. The white element, with all the correlated characters, existed beyond all question, for it is continuously referred to in those documents. How is its presence in East Central Asia, including Manchuria and Korea, to be explained? Only on two assumptions—proto-historic migrations from the Far West, barred by the proto-historic migrations from the Far East, as largely determined by the erection of the Great Wall; or pre-historic (neolithic) migrations, also from the Far West, but barred by no serious obstacle, because antecedent to the arrival of the proto-Mongolic tribes from the Tibetan plateau. The true solution of the endless ethnical complications in the extreme East, as in the Oceanic world, will still be found in the now-demonstrated presence of a Caucasic element antecedent to the Mongol in those regions.

When the Hiung-nu[655] power was weakened by their westerly migrations to Sungaria and south-west Siberia (Upper Irtysh and Lake Balkash depression), and broken into two sections during their wars with the two Han dynasties (201 B.C.-220 A.D.), the Korean Sien-pi became the dominant nation north of the Great Wall. After destroying the last vestiges of the unstable Hiung-nu empire, and driving the Mongolo-Turki hordes still westwards, the Yuan-yuans, most powerful of all the Sien-pi tribes, remained masters of East Central Asia for about 400 years and then disappeared from history[656]. At least after the sixth century A.D. no further mention is made of the Sien-pi principalities either in Manchuria or in Korea. Here, however, they appear still to form a dominant element in the northern (Mongol) provinces, calling themselves Ghirin (Khirin), from the Khirin (Sungari) valley of the Amur, where they once held sway.

Since those days Korea has been alternately a vassal State and a province of the Middle Kingdom, with interludes of Japanese ascendancy, interrupted only by the four centuries of KoraÏ ascendancy (934-1368). This was the most brilliant epoch in the national records, when Korea was rather the ally than the vassal of China, and when trade, industry, and the arts, especially porcelain and bronze work, flourished in the land. But by centuries of subsequent misrule, a people endowed with excellent natural qualities have been reduced to the lowest state of degradation. Before the reforms introduced by the political events of 1895-96, "the country was eaten up by officialism. It is not only that abuses without number prevailed, but the whole system of government was an abuse, a sea of corruption, without a bottom or a shore, an engine of robbery, crushing the life out of all industry[657]." But an improvement was speedily remarked. "The air of the men has undergone a subtle and real change, and the women, though they nominally keep up their habits by seclusion, have lost the hang-dog air which distinguished them at home. The alacrity of movement is a change also, and has replaced the conceited swing of the yang-ban [nobles] and the heartless lounge of the peasant." This improvement was merely temporary. The last years of the century were marked by the waning of Japanese influence, due to Russian intrigues, the restoration of absolute monarchy together with its worst abuses, the abandonment of reforms and a retrograde movement throughout the kingdom. The successes of Japan in 1904-5 resulted in the restoration of her ascendancy, culminating in 1910 in the cession of sovereignty by the emperor of Korea to the emperor of Japan.

The religious sentiment is perhaps less developed than among any other Asiatic people. Buddhism, introduced about 380 A.D., never took root, and while the literati are satisfied with the moral precepts of Confucius, the rest have not progressed beyond the nature-worship which was the ancient religion of the land. Every mountain, pass, ford or even eddy of a river has a spirit to whom offerings are made. Honour is also paid to ancestors, both royal and domestic, at their temples or altars, and chapels are built and dedicated to men who have specially distinguished themselves in loyalty, virtue or lofty teaching.

Philologists now recognise some affinity between the Korean and Japanese languages, both of which appear to be remotely connected with the Ural-Altaic family. The Koreans possess a true alphabet of 28 letters, which, however, is not a local invention, as is sometimes asserted. It appears to have been introduced by the Buddhist monks about or before the tenth century, and to be based on some cursive form of the Indian (Devanagari) system[658], although scarcely any resemblance can now be traced between the two alphabets. This script is little used except by the lower classes and the women, the literati preferring to write either in Chinese, or else in the so-called nido, that is, an adaptation of the Chinese symbols to the phonetic expression of the Korean syllables. The nido is exactly analogous to the Japanese Katakana script, in which modified forms of Chinese ideographs are used phonetically to express 47 syllables (the so-called I-ro-fa syllabary), raised to 73 by the nigori and maru diacritical marks.

The present population of Japan, according to E. Baelz, shows the following types. The first and most important is the Manchu-Korean type, characteristic of North China and Korea, and most frequent among the upper classes in Japan. The stature is conspicuously tall, the effect being heightened by slender and elegant figure. The face is long, with more or less oblique eyes but no marked prominence of the cheek-bones. The nose is aquiline, the chin slightly receding. With this type is associated a narrow chest, giving an air of elegance rather than of muscularity, an effect which is enhanced by the extremely delicate hands with long slender fingers. The second type is the Mongol, and presents a distinct contrast, with strong and squarely built figure, broad face, prominent cheek-bones, oblique eyes, flat nose and wide mouth. This type is not common in the Japanese Islands. The third type, more conspicuous than either of the preceding, is the Malay. The stature is small, with well-knit frame, and broad, well-developed chest. The face is generally round, the nose short, jaws and chin frequently projecting. None of these three types represents the aboriginal race of Japan, for there seems to be no doubt that the Ainu, who now survive in parts of the northern island of Yezo, occupied a greater area in earlier times and to them the prehistoric shell-mounds and other remains are usually attributed[659]. The Ainu are thickly and strongly built, but differ from all other Oriental types in the hairiness of face and body. The head is long, with a cephalic index of 77.8. Face and nose are broad, and the eyes are horizontal, not oblique, lacking the Mongolian fold.

It is generally assumed that this population represents the easterly migration of that long-headed type which can be traced across the continents of Europe and Asia in the Stone Age, and that their entrance into the islands was effected at a time when the channel separating them from the mainland was neither so wide nor so deep as at the present time. Later Manchu-Korean invaders from the West, Mongols from the South, and Malays from the East pressed the aborigines further and further north, to Yezo, Sakhalin and the Kuriles. But it is possible that the Ainu were not the earliest inhabitants of Japan, for they themselves bear witness to predecessors, the Koro-pok-guru, mentioned above (p. 260). Neither is the assumption of kinship between the Ainu and prehistoric populations of Western Europe accepted without demur. Deniker, while acknowledging the resemblance to certain European types, classes the Ainu as a separate race, the Palaeasiatics. For while in head-length, prominent superciliary ridges, hairiness and the form of the nose they may be compared to Russians, Todas, and Australians, their skin colour, prominent cheek-bones, and other somatic features make any close affinity impossible[660].

In spite of these various ingredients the Japanese people may be regarded as fairly homogeneous. Apart from some tall and robust persons amongst the upper classes, and athletes, acrobats, and wrestlers, the general impression that the Japanese are a short finely moulded race is fully borne out by the now regularly recorded military measurements of recruits, showing for height an average of 1.585 m. (5 ft. 2½ in.) to 1.639 m. (5 ft. 4½ in.), for chest 33 in., and disproportionately short legs. Other distinctive characters, all tending to stamp a certain individuality on the people, taken as a whole and irrespective of local peculiarities, are a flat forehead, great distance between the eyebrows, a very small nose with raised nostrils, no glabella, no perceptible nasal root[661]; an active, wiry figure; the exposed skin less yellow than the Chinese, and rather inclining to a light fawn, but the covered parts very light, some say even white; the eyes also less oblique, and all other characteristically Mongol features generally softened, except the black lank hair, which in transverse section is perhaps even rounder than that of most other Mongol peoples[662].

With this it will be instructive to compare F. H. H. Guillemard's graphic account of the Liu-Kiu islanders, whose Koreo-Japanese affinities are now placed beyond all doubt: "They are a short race, probably even shorter than the Japanese, but much better proportioned, being without the long bodies and short legs of the latter people, and having as a rule extremely well-developed chests. The colour of the skin varies of course with the social position of the individual. Those who work in the fields, clad only in a waist-cloth, are nearly as dark as a Malay, but the upper classes are much fairer, and are at the same time devoid of any of the yellow tint of the Chinaman. To the latter race indeed they cannot be said to bear any resemblance, and though the type is much closer to the Japanese, it is nevertheless very distinct.... In Liu-Kiu the Japanese and natives were easily recognised by us from the first, and must therefore be possessed of very considerable differences. The Liu-Kiuan has the face less flattened, the eyes are more deeply set, and the nose more prominent at its origin. The forehead is high and the cheek-bones somewhat less marked than in the Japanese; the eyebrows are arched and thick, and the eyelashes long. The expression is gentle and pleasing, though somewhat sad, and is apparently a true index of their character[663]."

This description is not accepted without some reserve by Chamberlain, who in fact holds that "the physical type of the Luchuans resembles that of the Japanese almost to identity[664]." In explanation however of the singularly mild, inoffensive, and "even timid disposition" of the Liu-Kiuans, this observer suggests "the probable absence of any admixture of Malay blood in the race[665]." But everybody admits a Malay element in Japan. It would therefore appear that Guillemard must be right, and that, as even shown by all good photographs, differences do exist, due in fact to the presence of this very Malay strain in the Japanese race.

Elsewhere[666] Chamberlain has given us a scholarly account of the Liu-Kiu language, which is not merely a "sister," as he says, but obviously an elder sister, more archaic in structure and partly in its phonetics, than the oldest known form of Japanese. In the verb, for instance, Japanese retains only one past tense of the indicative, with but one grammatical form, whereas Liu-Kiuan preserves the three original past tenses, each of which possesses a five-fold inflection. All these racial, linguistic, and even mental resemblances, such as the fundamental similarity of many of their customs and ways of thought, he would explain with much probability by the routes followed by the first emigrants from the mainland. While the great bulk spread east and north over the great archipelago, everywhere "driving the aborigines before them," a smaller stream may have trended southward to the little southern group, whose islets stretch like stepping-stones the whole way from Japan to Great Liu-Kiu[667].

Amongst the common mental traits, mention is made of the Shinto religion, "the simplest and most rustic form" of which still survives in Liu-Kiu. Here, as in Japan, it was originally a rude system of nature-worship, the normal development of which was arrested by Chinese and Buddhist influences. Later it became associated with spirit-worship, the spirits being at first the souls of the dead, and although there is at present no cult of the dead, in the strict sense of the expression, the Liu-Kiu islanders probably pay more respect to the departed than any other people in the world.

In Japan, Shintoism, as reformed in recent times, has become much more a political institution than a religious system. The Kami-no-michi, that is, the Japanese form of the Chinese Shin-to, "way of the Gods," or "spirits," is not merely the national faith, but is inseparably bound up with the interests of the reigning dynasty, holding the Mikado to be the direct descendant of the Sun-goddess Hence its three cardinal precepts now are:—1. Honour the Kami (spirits), of whom the emperor is the chief representative on earth; 2. Revere him as thy sovereign; 3. Obey the will of his Court, and that is the whole duty of man. There is no moral code, and loyal expositors have declared that the Mikado's will is the only test of right and wrong.

But apart from this political exegesis, Shintoism in its higher form may be called a cultured deism, in its lower a "blind obedience to governmental and priestly dictates[668]." There are dim notions about a supreme creator, immortality, and even rewards and penalties in the after-life. Some also talk vaguely, as a pantheist might, of a sublime being or essence pervading all nature, too vast and ethereal to be personified or addressed in prayer, identified with the tenka, "heavens," from which all things emanate, to which all return. Yet, although a personal deity seems thus excluded, there are Shinto temples, apparently for the worship of the heavenly bodies and powers of nature, conceived as self-existing personalities—the so-called Kami, "spirits," "gods," of which there are "eight millions," that is, they are countless.

One cannot but suspect that some of these notions have been grafted on the old national faith by Buddhism, which was introduced about 550 A.D. and for a time had great vogue. It was encouraged especially by the Shoguns, or military usurpers of the Mikado's[669] functions, obviously as a set-off against the Shinto theocracy. During their tenure of power (1192-1868 A.D.) the land was covered with Buddhist shrines and temples, some of vast size and quaint design, filled with hideous idols, huge bells, and colossal statues of Buddha.

But with the fall of the Shogun the little prestige still enjoyed by Buddhism came to an end, and the temples, spoiled of their treasures, have more than ever become the resort of pleasure-seekers rather than of pious worshippers. "To all the larger temples are attached regular spectacles, playhouses, panoramas, besides lotteries, games of various sorts, including the famous 'fan-throwing,' and shooting-galleries, where the bow and arrow and the blow-pipe take the place of the rifle. The accumulated treasures of the priests have been confiscated, the monks driven from their monasteries, and many of these buildings converted into profane uses. Countless temple bells have already found their way to America, or have been sold for old metal[670]."

Besides these forms of belief, there is a third religious, or rather philosophic system, the so-called Siza, based on the ethical teachings of Confucius, a sort of refined materialism, such as underlies the whole religious thought of the nation. Siza, always confined to the literati, has in recent years found a formidable rival in the "English Philosophy," represented by such writers as Buckle, Mill, Herbert Spencer, Darwin, and Huxley, most of whose works have already been translated into Japanese.

Thus this highly gifted people are being assimilated to the western world in their social and religious, as well as their political institutions. Their intellectual powers, already tested in the fields of war, science, diplomacy, and self-government, are certainly superior to those of all other Asiatic peoples, and this is perhaps the best guarantee for the stability of the stupendous transformation that a single generation has witnessed from an exaggerated form of medieval feudalism to a political and social system in harmony with the most advanced phases of modern thought. The system has doubtless not yet penetrated to the lower strata, especially amongst the rural populations. But their natural receptivity, combined with a singular freedom from "insular prejudice," must ensure the ultimate acceptance of the new order by all classes of the community.