The most southern of the Orissa hill-tribes are the Sur; connected by language with the preceding tribes; as they were with each other and the Rajmahali mountaineers.

These stand in remarkable contrast with the rest of the population of Orissa; whose language is the Udiya, a tongue which, according to many, belongs to a wholly different class, or, at least, to a different division of the present.

South of Chicacole, however, the Tamul tongues are spoken continuously. I cannot say where the southern limits of the Sur population come in contact with the northern ones of the—

Chenchwars—who occupy the same range of mountains, in the parts between the rivers Kistna and Pennar, and, probably, extending as far south as the neighbourhood of Madras. Their language is the Telugu, the language of the parts around, and of Tamul origin.[37] The contrast between the Chenchwars of the hills, and the Telingas of the lower country lies in their mythologies; the former retaining much of the original creed of their country, the latter being Brahminists.

Below Madras, the mountain range changes its direction, and the next locality under notice is the Neilgherry hills.

The families here are—

1. The Cohatars—so little Indianized as to eat of the flesh of the cow, amounting to about two thousand in number, and occupants of the highest part of the range.

2. The Tudas.—An interesting monograph by Captain Harkness has drawn unusual attention to these mountaineers, the chief points of importance being the comparative absence of all elements of Brahminism, and the occurrence in their physiognomy of the most favourable points of Hindu beauty—regular and delicate features, oval face, and a clear brunette skin. Free from the other religious and social characteristics of Hinduism as the Tudas may be, they still admit a sort of caste; e.g., whilst the Peiki, or Toralli, may perform any function, the Kuta, or Tardas, are limited. Neither did they always intermarry, though they do now; their offspring being called Mookh, or descendants.

3. The Curumbas, called by the Tudas Curbs, inhabit a lower level than the preceding populations, but a higher one than—

4. The Erulars at the foot of the hills; falling into two divisions—a, the Urali (a name to be noticed), and b, the Curutali.

Between the Neilgherries and Cape Comorin, the hill-tribes are worth enumerating, if only for the sake of showing their complexity. According to Lieutenant Conner in the "Madras Journal," they are—1, Cowders; 2, Vaishvans; 3, Mudavenmars; 4, Arreamars, or Vailamers; 5, Ural-Uays. Besides these, there is a population of predial slaves, divided and subdivided.

1. Vaituvan, Konaken. 2. Polayers— a. Vulluva. b. Kunnaka. c. Morny Pulayer. 3. Pariahs. 4. Vaidurs. 5. Ulanders and Naiadi.

To return to the Neilgherries, and follow the western Ghauts upwards, a population more numerous than any hitherto mentioned is that of the—

Buddugurs, called also Marves. This name takes so many forms that Berdar may be one of them. One division of Buddugurs is called Lingait.

I cannot follow the Ghauts consecutively; however, when we reach the southern portion of the Mahratta country, we find in the rajahship of Satarah, two predatory tribes:—

The Berdars, supposed to be closely allied to Ramusi. The—

Ramusi themselves connected by tradition and creed, with the Lingait Buddugurs. But not by language; or at any rate not wholly so. The Ramusi dialect is a mixture of Tulava and Marathi—the former being undoubted Tamul, but the latter in the same category with the Udiya.

The continuous Tamul languages are now left to the south of us, and the hill-tribes next in order, will have unlearnt their native tongues, and be found speaking the Hindu dialects of the countries around them. Hence, the evidence of their Tamulian descent will be less conclusive.

Warali of the Konkan.—Mountaineers of the northern Konkan. We have seen this name twice already, and we shall see it again. The evidence of their Tamulian extraction is imperfect. Their language is Marathi and their creed an imperfect Brahminism. Their mountaineer habits separate them from—

The Katodi—outcasts, who take their name from preparing the kat, or cat-echu, and who hang about the villages of the plains.

The Kuli.—From Poonah to Gujerat, the occupants of the range of mountains parallel to the coast are called Kuli (Coolies), the same in the eyes of the Hindus of the western coast, as the Kol were in those of the Bengalese and Orissans; and similarly named. Their language is generally (perhaps always) that of the country around them, viz., Marathi amongst the Mahrattas, and Gujerathi in Gujerat. However, difference of habits and creed sufficiently separate them from the Hindus.

The Bhils.—These are generally associated with the Kulis; from whom they chiefly differ geographically, belonging, as they do to the transverse ranges—the Satpura and Vindhia mountains—rather than to the main line of the Ghauts with its due north-and-south direction, and with its parallelism to the coast.

The Paurias.—Hill-tribes in Candeish, belonging to the Satpura range, and conterminous with the Bhil tribes, and with—

The Wurali of the Satpura range.—The Wurali re-appear for the fourth time. In the parts in question they are in contact with the Bhils and Paurias; from whom they keep themselves distinct; and from whom they differ in dialect. Still their language is Marathi. Pre-eminent as they are for their Paganism, their country contains ruins of brick buildings, and considerable excavations.[38]

These three are the hill-tribes of the water-shed of the rivers Tapti and Nerbudda. The water-system of the south-western feeders of the Ganges is more complex. Along the mountains between Candeish and Jeypur come—

Certain Bhil tribes.

The Mewars—under the Grasya chiefs of Joora, Meerpoor, Oguna, and Panurwa. The political relations of these tribes—in some cases of an undetermined nature—are with the Rajput governments; in other words, we are now amongst the aborigines of Rajasthan.

The Minas.—These, like the Mewars, are in geographical contact with certain Bhil tribes; in political contact with the Rajputs—the Mewars with those of Udipur; the Minas with those of Ajmer, Jeypur, and Kota.

The Moghis.—At present, a free company rather than a population; although the representatives of what was once one—viz., the aborigines of Jodpure. So little Brahminists are they that they eat of the flesh of the jackal and the cow, and indulge freely in fermented drinks.

The hills that separate Malwah from the Haroti country, and from the south-eastern boundary of the valley of the River Chumbul are occupied by—

The Saireas.—This is a name which has occurred before and elsewhere;[39] and is almost certainly, anything but native. Tribes, under this name, extend into Bundelcund.[40]

The Goands.—The central parts between Candeish and Orissa, the head-waters of the Nerbudda and Tapti on the west, and of the Godavery on the east, still require notice. Here the hill population is at its maximum, both in point of numbers and characteristics; and the Khond forms of the Tamul re-appear under the name Goand. Of these we have specimens from—

a. The Gawhilghur mountains near Ellichpoor.

b. Chupprah.

c. Mundala in Gundwana, or the Goand country.

Such are the chief hill-populations; which, although they belong to Tamulian stock, differ as to the extent to which they carry outward and visible signs of their origin. Some, like the Rajmahali, are merely separated geographically; and, perhaps, not even that. Others, like the Khonds of Orissa, are contrasted with the Tamuls of the south, by their inferior and social condition, and their non-Brahminical creeds. The Minas and Bhils differ in language; whilst the Ramusis and Berdars, probably, exhibit transitional forms of speech. The Tudas and Chenchwars surrounded by Telingas and Tamuls, as the Khonds and Goands are by Udiyas and Mahrattas, are merely the population of the parts around them with a primitive polity and religion.

The lettered languages of the Dekhan, where the Tamul character is unequivocal, but where the civilizational influences have chiefly been Hindu, are spoken in continuity from Chicacole, east, and the parts about Goa, west, to Cape Comorin, i.e., in the Madras Presidency, and in the countries of Mysore, Travancore, and the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel. Of these, the most northern—beginning on the eastern coast—is—

The Telinga or Telugu.—Spoken from the parts about Chicacole to Pulicat, where it is succeeded by—

The Tamul Proper.—The language of the Coromandel coast and the parts of the interior as far as Coimbatore. Each of these tongues has a double form, one for literature, and one for common use; the former being called the High, the latter the Low, Tamul or Telugu, as the case may be, and the creed which it embodies being either Brahminism, or some modification of it.

In Travancore and on the Malabar coast the language is—

The Malayalma or Malayalam—and in the greater part of Mysore—

The Kanara—which, like the Tamul and Telinga, is both High and Low—literary or vulgar.

Amongst these four well-known forms of the South Tamulian tongue, may be distributed several dialects and sub-dialects. Such as the Tulava for the parts between Goa and Mangalore, and the Coorgi of the Rajahship of Coorg, not to mention the several varieties in the language of the hill-tribes.

Now all the populations of the present chapter agree in this particular—their language is generally admitted to be Tamulian at the present moment, or if not, to have been so at some earlier period. With the languages next under notice, the original Tamulian character is not so admitted—indeed, it is so far denied as to make the affirmation of it partake of the nature of paradox.

The distinction then is raised on the existence of the doubt in question, or rather on the differences that such a doubt implies. Hence the division of the languages of India into the Hindu and the Tamulian is practical rather than scientific—the Hindu meaning those for which a Sanskrit, rather than a Tamul affinity is claimed.

Sanskrit is the name of a language; a name upon which nine-tenths of the controversial points in Indian ethnology and in Indian history turn.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. viii.

[23] "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. vi. part 2. See also pp. 112, 113 of the present volume.

[24] Described by Lieutenants Phayre and Latter in "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal."

[25] Dr. Helfer, "Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. viii.

[26] "Asiatic Researches," vol. v.

[27] Dr. Buchanan, "Asiatic Researches," vol. v.

[28] Macrae in "Asiatic Researches," vol. vii.

[29] Eliot, in "Asiatic Transactions," vol. iii.

[30] Eliot, ut supra.

[31] For Jan. 1849.

[32] "Transactions of the British Association for the Advancement of Science," 1844.

[33] "Statistical Sketch of Kumaon," by G. W. Traill, Asiatic Researches, vol. xvi.

[34] From the Greek polysmany, and anaerman.

[35] Eliot in "Asiatic Researches," vol. iv.

[36] Captain S. C. Macpherson, "Journal of the Asiatic Society," vol. xiii.

[37] See Lieut. Newbold, "Journal of the Asiatic Society," vol. viii.

[38] Lieut. C. P. Rigby, in "Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society," May to August 1850.

[39] The Soars of Orissa.

[40] Col. Todd, "Travels in Western India."



CHAPTER IV.

THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE.—ITS RELATIONS TO CERTAIN MODERN LANGUAGES OF INDIA; TO THE SLAVONIC AND LITHUANIC OF EUROPE.—INFERENCES.— BRAHMINISM OF THE PURANAS—OF THE INSTITUTES OF MENU.—EXTRACT.—OF THE VEDAS.—EXTRACT.—INFERENCES.—THE HINDUS.—SIKHS.—BILUCHI.— AFGHANS.—WANDERING TRIBES.—MISCELLANEOUS POPULATIONS.—CEYLON.— BUDDHISM.—DEVIL-WORSHIP.—VADDAHS.

The language called Sanskrit has a peculiar alphabet. It has long been written, and embodies an important literature. It has been well studied; and its ethnological affinities are understood. They are at least as remarkable as any other of its characters.

Like most other tongues, it falls into dialects; just like the ancient Greek. Like the Doric, AEolic, and Ionic, these dialects were spoken over distant countries, and cultivated at different periods. Like them, too, each is characterized by its peculiar literature.

The Sanskrit itself, in its oldest form, is the Vedaic dialect of the religious hymns called Vedas—of great, but of exaggerated, antiquity.

Another form of equal antiquity is the language of the Persepolitan and other arrow-headed inscriptions. These are of a known antiquity, and range from the time of Cambyses to that of Artaxerxes.

By old is meant old in structure, i.e., betraying by its archaic forms, an early stage of development. It is by no means old in chronology. In the way of chronology, the English of Shakespeare is older than the German of Goethe; yet the German of Goethe is the older tongue, because it retains more old inflections.

The third form is called Pali. In this is written the oldest Indian inscription; one containing the name of Antiochus, one of Alexander's successors. It is also the dialect of the chief Buddhist works.

A fourth form is the Bactrian. This occurs in the coins of Macedonian and other Indianized kings of Bactria, and is best studied in the "Ariana Antiqua," of Wilson.

A fifth is the Zend of the Zendavesta, the Scriptures of the followers of Zoroaster.

Others are called Pracrit. Some of the Sanskrit works are dramatic. In the modern comedies of Italy we find certain characters speaking the provincial dialects of Naples, Bologna, and other districts. The same took place here. In the Sanskrit plays we find deflexions from the standard language, put into the mouths of some of the subordinate characters. It is believed that these Pracrits represented certain local dialects, as opposed to the purer and more classical Sanskrit.

Every spoken dialect of Hindostan has a per-centage of Sanskrit words in it; just as every dialect of England has an amount of Anglo-Norman. What does this prove? That depends upon the per-centage; and this differs in different languages. In a general way it may be stated that, amongst the tongues already enumerated, it is smallest in the isolated Tamulian tongues; larger in the Tamul of the Dekhan; and largest in the tongues about to be enumerated; these being the chief languages of modern Hindostan.

1. The Marathi of the Mahrattas. Here the Sanskrit words amount to four-fifths in the Marathi dictionaries.

2. The Udiya, of Cuttack and Orissa, with a per-centage of Sanskrit greater than that of the Marathi, but less than that of—

3. The Bengali. Here it is at its maximum, and amounts to nine-tenths.

4. The Hindu, of Oude, and the parts between Bengal and the Punjab, falling into the subordinate dialects of the Rajput country.

5. The Gujerathi of Gujerat.

6. The Scindian of Scinde.

7. The Multani of Multan; probably a dialect of either the Gujerathi or—

8. The Punjabi of the Punjab.

By going into minor differences this list might be enlarged.

None of the previous languages were mentioned in the last chapter; in fact, they were those different Hindu tongues which were contrasted with the Tamulian, and which, in the northern part of the Peninsula had effected those displacements which separated, or were supposed to separate, the Rajmahali, Kol, and Khond dialects from each other. They formed the sea of speech, in which those tongues were islands.

Now what is the inference from these per-centages? from such a one as the Bengali, of ninety out of one hundred? What do they prove as to the character of the language in which they occur? Do they make the Sanskrit the basis of the tongue, just as the Anglo-Saxon is of the English, or do they merely show it as a superadded foreign element, like the Norman—like that in kind, but far greater in degree? The answer to this will give us the philological position of the North-Indian tongues. It will make the Bengali either Tamul, with an unprecedented amount of foreign vocables, or Sanskrit, with a few words of the older native tongue retained.

If the question were settled by a reference to authorities, the answer would be that the Bengali was essentially Sanskrit.

It would be the same if we took only the prima facie view of the matter.

Yet the answer is traversed by two facts.

1. In making the per-centage of Sanskrit words it has been assumed that, whenever the modern and ancient tongues have any words in common, the former has always taken them from the latter,—an undue assumption, since the Sanskrit may easily have adopted native words.

2. The grammatical inflections are so far from being as Sanskritic as the vocables, that they are either non-existent altogether, unequivocally Tamul, or else controverted Sanskrit.

Here I pause,—giving, at present, no opinion upon the merits of the two views. The reader has seen the complications of the case; and is prepared for hearing that, though most of the highest authorities consider the languages of northern India to be related to the Sanskrit, just as the English is to the Anglo-Saxon, and the Italian to the Latin; others deny such a connexion, affirming that as the real relations of the Sanskrit are those of the Norman-French to our own tongue, and of the Arabic to the Spanish, there is no such thing throughout the whole length and breadth of Hindostan as a dialect descended from the Sanskrit, or a spot whereon that famous tongue can be shown to have existed as a spoken and indigenous language.

But, perhaps, we may find in Persia what we lack in India; and as the modern Persian is descended from the Zend, and as the Zend is a sister to the Sanskrit, Persia may, perhaps, supply such a locality. The same doubts apply here.

Such are the doubts that apply to an important question in Asiatic ethnology. I am not, at present, going beyond the simple fact of their existence. Rightly or wrongly, there is an opinion that the Sanskrit never was indigenous to any part of India, not even the most north-western; and there is an extension of this opinion which—rightly or wrongly—similarly excludes it from Persia. So much doubt should be relieved by the exhibition of some universally admitted fact as a set-off.

Such a contrast shall be supplied, in the shape of a comment on the following tables.[41] It is one of Dr. Trithem's.

ENGLISH. LITHUANIC. RUSSIAN. SANSKRIT.

Father tewas otets pitr. Mother motina mat' mātr. Son sunai suin sūnu. Brother brolis brat bhratr. Sister sessu sestra svasr. Daughter-in-law — snokha snushā.[42] Father-in-law — svekor[43] śvasura. Mother-in-law — svekrov'[44] śvas ru. Brother-in-law — dever'[45] devr. One wienas odin eka. Two du dva dvā. Three trys tri tri. Four keturi chetuire chatvārah. Five penki piat' pancha. Six szessi shest' shash. Seven septyni sedm' saptan. Eight asstuoni osm' ashtan. Nine dewyni deviat' navan. Ten dessimtis desiat' dasa.

The following similarities go the same way, viz., towards the proof of a remarkable affinity with certain languages of Europe, there being none equally strong with any existing and undoubted Asiatic ones.

ENGLISH. LITHUANIC. SANSKRIT. ZEND.

I ass aham azem. Thou tu twam tūm. Ye yus yūyam yūs. The[46] tas ta-d tad. — szi sah ho.

LITHUANIC.

Laups-inni = I praise.

Present.

1. Laups -innu -innawa -inname. 2. — -inni -innata -innata. 3. — -inna -inna -inna.

SANSKRIT.

Jaj-ami = I conquer.

Present.

1. Jaj -āmi -āvah -āmah. 2. — -ăsi -ăthah -ătha. 3. — -ăti -ătah -anti.

LITHUANIC.

Esmi = I am.

1. Esmi eswa esme. 2. Essi esta esti. 3. Esti esti esti.

SANSKRIT.

Asmi = I am.

1. Asmi swah smah. 2. Asi sthah stha. 3. Asti stah santi.

The inference from the vast series of philological facts, of which the following is a specimen, has, generally—perhaps universally—been as follows, viz., that the Lithuanic, Slavonic, and the allied languages of Germany, Italy, and Greece—numerous, widely-spread, and unequivocally European—are Asiatic in origin; the Sanskrit being first referred to Asia, and then assumed to represent the languages of that Asiatic locality. I merely express my dissent from this inference; adding my belief that the relations of the Sanskrit to the Hindu tongues are those of the Anglo-Norman to the English, and that its relation to those of the south-eastern Slavonic area, is that of the Greek of Bactria, to the Greek of Macedon—greater, much greater in degree, but the same in kind.[47]

The Brahminic creed of Hindostan is the next great characteristic. Brahminism may be viewed in two ways. We may either take it in its later forms, and trace its history backwards, or begin with it in its simplest and most unmodified stage, and notice the changes that have affected it as they occur. At the present its principles are to be found in the holy book called Puranas; the Brahminism of the Puranas standing in the same relation to certain earlier forms, as the Rabbinism of the Talmud, or the Romanism of the fathers does to primitive Judaism and Christianity. The pre-eminence of a sacred caste—the sanctitude of the cow—an impossible cosmogony—the worship of Siva and Vishnu—and an indefinite sort of recognition of beings like Rama, Krishna, Kali, and others, are the leading features here; the recognition of the Ramas and Krishnas being of an indefinite and equivocal character, because the extent to which the elements of their divine nature are referable to the idea of dead men deified, or the very opposite notion of Gods become incarnate, are inextricably mixed together. The Puranas are referable to different dates between the twelfth and sixth centuries A.D.

The germs of the Brahminism of the Puranas are the two great epics, the Ramayana, or the conquest of Hindostan by Rama, and the Mahabharata, or great war between the Sun and Moon dynasties. If we call the worship of dead men deified, Euhemerism, it is the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, to which the Euhemerist elements of the present Brahminism are to be attributed. They increased the personality of the previous religion. This is the natural effect of narrative poetry, and one of which we may measure the magnitude by looking at the influence and tendencies of the great Homeric poems of Greece. It is these which give us Kali, Rama, Krishna, Siva, and Vishnu, and which helped to determine the preponderance of the two last over Brahma—Brahma being the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver; and Siva, the Destroyer. The highest antiquity which has been given to the epics is the second century B.C.; and this is full high enough.

The Brahminism of the "Institutes of Menu," the oldest Indian code of laws, is simpler than that of the epics. Its Euhemerism is less. Nevertheless, it contains the great text on the caste-system, the fulcrum of priestly pre-eminence.

INSTITUTES OF MENU.

Sir Graves Haughton's Translation.

1. For the sake of preserving this universe, the Being, supremely glorious, allotted separate duties to those who sprang respectively from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot.

2. To Brahmins he assigned the duties of reading the Veda, of teaching it, of sacrificing, of assisting others to sacrifice, of giving alms, if they be rich, and, if indigent, of receiving gifts.

3. To defend the people, to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Veda, to shun the allurements of sensual gratification, are, in a few words, the duties of a Cshatriya.

4. To keep herds of cattle, to bestow largesses, to sacrifice, to read the scripture, to carry on trade, to lend at interest, and to cultivate land, are prescribed or permitted to a Vaisya.

5. One principal duty the Supreme Ruler assigns to a Sudra; namely, to serve the before-mentioned classes, without depreciating their worth.

6. Man is declared purer above the navel; but the Self-Creating Power declared the purest part of him to be his mouth.

7. Since the Brahmin sprang from the most excellent part, since he was the first born, and since he possesses the Veda, he is by right the chief of this whole creation.

8. Him, the Being, who exists of himself, produced in the beginning, from his own mouth, that having performed holy rites, he might present clarified butter to the gods, and cakes of rice to the progenitors of mankind, for the preservation of this world.

9. What created being then can surpass Him, with whose mouth the gods of the firmament continually feast on clarified butter, and the manes of ancestors, on hallowed cakes?

10. Of created things, the most excellent are those which are animated; of the animated, those which subsist by intelligence; of the intelligent, mankind; and of men, the sacerdotal class.

11. Of priests those eminent in learning; of the learned, those who know their duty; of those who know it, such as perform it virtuously; and of the virtuous, those who seek beatitude from a perfect acquaintance with scriptural doctrine.

12. The very birth of Brahmins is a constant incarnation of DHERMA, God of Justice; for the Brahmin is born to promote justice, and to procure ultimate happiness.

13. When a Brahmin springs to light, he is borne above the world, the chief of all creatures, assigned to guard the treasury of duties, religious and civil.

14. Whatever exists in the universe, is all in effect, though not in form, the wealth of the Brahmin; since the Brahmin is entitled to it all by his primogeniture and eminence of birth.

15. The Brahmin eats but his own food; wears but his own apparel; and bestows but his own in alms: through the benevolence of the Brahmin, indeed, other mortals enjoy life.

16. To declare the sacerdotal duties, and those of the other classes in due order, the sage MENU, sprung from the self-existing, promulged this code of laws.

17. A code which must be studied with extreme care by every learned Brahmin, and fully explained to his disciples, but must be taught by no other man of an inferior class.

18. The Brahmin who studies this book, having performed sacred rites, is perpetually free from offence in thought, in word, and in deed.

19. He confers purity on his living family, on his ancestors, and on his descendants, as far as the seventh person; and He alone deserves to possess this whole earth.

Subtract from the Brahminism of the Institutes, the importance assigned to caste; substitute for the Euhemerism of the Epics, an elemental religion, and we ascend to the religion of the Vedas; the nominal, but only the nominal basis, of all Hinduism. In the following Vedaic hymns, Agni is fire; Indra, the sky, firmament, or atmosphere; and Marut, the cloud.

RIGVEDA SANHITA.

Wilson's Translation.

I.

1. I glorify AGNI, the high priest of the sacrifice, the divine, the ministrant, who presents the oblation (to the gods), and is the possessor of great wealth.

2. May that AGNI, who is to be celebrated by both ancient and modern sages, conduct the gods hither.

3. Through AGNI the worshipper obtains that affluence, which increases day by day, which is the source of fame and the multiplier of mankind.

4. AGNI, the unobstructed sacrifice of which thou art on every side the protector, assuredly reaches the gods.

5. May AGNI, the presenter of oblations, the attainer of knowledge; he who is true, renowned, and divine, come hither with the gods!

6. Whatever good thou mayest, AGNI, bestow upon the giver (of the oblation), that verily, ANGIRAS, shall revert to thee.

7. We approach thee, AGNI, with reverential homage in our thoughts, daily, both morning and evening.

8. Thee, the radiant, the protector of sacrifices, the constant illuminator of truth, increasing in thine own dwelling!

9. AGNI, be unto us easy of access, as is a father to a son; be ever present with us for our good!

II.

1. AŚWINS, cherishers of pious acts, long-armed, accept with outstretched hands the sacrificial viands!

2. AŚWINS, abounding in mighty acts, guides (of devotion), endowed with fortitude, listen with unaverted minds to our praises!

3. AŚWINS, destroyers of foes, exempt from untruth, leaders in the van of heroes, come to the mixed libations sprinkled on the lopped sacred grass!

4. INDRA, of wonderful splendour, come hither; these libations, ever pure, expressed by the fingers (of the priests), are desirous of thee!

5. INDRA, apprehended by the understanding and appreciated by the wise, approach and accept the prayers (of the priest), as he offers the libation!

6. Fleet INDRA with the tawny coursers, come hither to the prayers (of the priests), and in this libation accept our (proffered) food.

7. Universal Gods! protectors and supporters of men, bestowers (of rewards), come to the libation of the worshipper!

8. May the swift-moving universal Gods, the shedders of rain, come to the libation, as the solar rays come 'diligently' to the days!

9. May the universal Gods, who are exempt from decay, omniscient, devoid of malice, and bearers of riches, accept the sacrifice!

10. May SARASWATI, the purifier, the bestower of food, the recompenser of worship with wealth, be attracted by our offered viands to our rite!

11. SARASWATI, the inspirer of those who delight in truth, the instructress of the right-minded, has accepted our sacrifice!

12. SARASWATI makes manifest by her acts a mighty river, and (in her own form) enlightens all understandings.

III.

1. Come, INDRA, and be regaled with all viands and libations, and thence, mighty in strength, be victorious (over thy foes)!

2. The libation being prepared, present the exhilarating and efficacious (draught) to the rejoicing INDRA, the accomplisher of all things.

3. INDRA, with the handsome chin, be pleased with these animating praises: do thou, who art to be reverenced by all mankind, (come) to these rites (with the gods)!

4. I have addressed to thee, INDRA, the showerer (of blessings), the protector (of thy worshippers), praises which have reached thee, and of which thou hast approved!

5. Place before us, INDRA, precious and multiform riches, for enough, and more than enough, are assuredly thine!

6. Opulent INDRA, encourage us in this rite for the acquirement of wealth, for we are diligent and renowned!

7. Grant us, INDRA, wealth beyond measure or calculation, inexhaustible, the source of cattle, of food, of all life.

8. INDRA, grant us great renown and wealth acquired in a thousand ways, and those (articles) of food (which are brought from the field) in carts!

9. We invoke, for the preservation of our property, INDRA, the lord of wealth, the object of sacred verses, the repairer (to the place of sacrifice), praising him with our praises!

10. With libations repeatedly effused, the sacrificer glorifies the vast prowess of INDRA, the mighty, the dweller in (an eternal mansion)!

IV.

1. The MARUTS who are going forth decorate themselves like females: they are gliders (through the air), the sons of RUDRA, and the doers of good works, by which they promote the welfare of earth and heaven: heroes, who grind (the solid rocks), they delight in sacrifices!

2. They, inaugurated by the gods, have attained majesty, the sons of RUDRA have established their dwelling above the sky: glorifying him (INDRA) who merits to be glorified, they have inspired him with vigour: the sons of PRISNI have acquired dominion!

3. When the sons of the earth embellish themselves with ornaments, they shine resplendent in their persons with (brilliant) decorations; they keep aloof every adversary: the waters follow their path!

4. They who are worthily worshipped shine with various weapons: incapable of being overthrown, they are the overthrowers (of mountains): MARUTS, swift as thought, intrusted with the duty of sending rain, yoke the spotted deer to your cars!

5. When MARUTS, urging on the cloud, for the sake of (providing) food, you have yoked the deer to your chariots, the drops fall from the radiant (sun), and moisten the earth, like a hide, with water!

6. Let your quick-paced smooth-gliding coursers bear you (hither), and, moving swiftly, come with your hands filled with good things: sit, MARUTS, upon the broad seat of sacred grass, and regale yourselves with the sweet sacrificial food!

7. Confiding in their own strength, they have increased in (power); they have attained heaven by their greatness, and have made (for themselves) a spacious abode: may they, for whom VISHNU defends (the sacrifice) that bestows all desires and confers delight, come (quickly) like birds, and sit down upon the pleasant and sacred grass!

8. Like heroes, like combatants, like men anxious for food, the swift-moving (MARUTS) have engaged in battles: all beings fear the MARUTS, who are the leaders (of the rain), and awful of aspect, like princes!

9. INDRA wields the well-made, golden, many-bladed thunderbolt, which the skilful TWASHTRI has framed for him, that he may achieve great exploits in war. He has slain VRITRA, and sent forth an ocean of water!

10. By their power, they bore the well aloft, and clove asunder the mountain that obstructed their path: the munificent MARUTS, blowing upon their pipe, have conferred, when exhilarated by the soma juice, desirable (gifts upon the sacrificer)!

11. They brought the crooked well to the place (where the Muni was), and sprinkled the water upon the thirsty GOTAMA: the variously-radiant (MARUTS) come to his succour, gratifying the desire of the sage with life-sustaining waters!

12. Whatever blessings (are diffused) through the three worlds, and are in your gift, do you bestow upon the donor (of the libation), who addresses you with praise; bestow them, also, MARUTS, upon us, and grant us, bestowers of all good, riches, whence springs prosperity!

If we investigate the antiquity of these hymns we shall find no definite and unimpeachable date. Their epoch is assigned on the score of internal evidence. The language is so much more archaic than that of the Institutes, and the mythology so much simpler; whilst the Institutes themselves are similarly circumstanced in respect to the Epics. Fixing these at about 200, B.C.; we allow so many centuries for the archaisms of Menu, and so many more for those of the Vedas. For the whole, eleven hundred has not been thought too little, which places the Vedas in the fourteenth century, B.C., and makes them the earliest, or nearly the earliest records in the world.

It is clear that this is but an approximation, and, although all inquirers admit that creeds, languages, and social conditions present the phenomena of growth, the opinions as to the rate of such growths are varied, and none of much value. This is because the particular induction required for the formation of anything better than a mere impression has yet to be undertaken—till when, one man's guess is as good as another's. The age of a tree may be reckoned from its concentric rings, but the age of a language, a doctrine, or a polity, has neither bark nor wood, neither teeth like a horse, nor a register like a child.

Now the antiquity of the Vedas, as inferred from the archaic character of their language, has been shaken by the discovery of the structure of the Persepolitan dialect of the arrow-headed inscriptions. It approaches that of the Vedas; being, in some points, older than the Sanskrit of Menu. Yet its date is less than 500, B.C. Again, the Pali is less archaic than the Sanskrit; yet the Pali is the language of the oldest inscriptions in India, indeed, of the oldest Indian records of any sort, with a definite date.

One of the few cases where the phenomena of rate have been studied with due attention, is in the evolution of the three languages of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden out of the Icelandic. What does this tell us? The last has altered so slowly that a modern Icelander can read the oldest works of his language. In Sweden, however, the speech has altered. So it has in Denmark; whilst both these languages are unintelligible to the Icelander, and vice versa. As to their respective changes, Petersen shows that the Danish was always about a hundred years forwarder than the Swedish, having attained that point at (say) 1200, which the Swedish did not reach till 1300. Both, however, changed; and that, at a uniform rate; the Danish having, as it were, the start of a century. The Norwegian, however, comported itself differently. Until the Reformation it hardly changed at all; less than the stationary Icelandic itself. Fifty years, however, of sudden and rapid transformation brought it, at once, to the stage which the Danish had been three hundred years in reaching. How many times must the observation of such phenomena be multiplied before we can strike an average as to the rate of change in languages, creeds, and polities?

Again—it is by no means certain that the Institutes and the Vedas represent a contemporary state of things. All doctrinal writings contain something appertaining to a period older than that of their composition.

Lastly,—the proof that all the writings in question belong to the same linear series, and represent the growth of the same phenomena in the same place is deficient. The AEgyptologist believes that contemporary kings are mistaken for successive ones; the philologist, that difference of dialects simulates a difference of age. Doubts of a more specific nature dawn upon us when we attempt to realize the alphabet in which an Indian MS. of even only eight hundred years B.C., was written. No Indian MS. is fifteen hundred years old; no inscription older than Alexander's time. Nevertheless,—though I write upon this subject with diffidence—the Devanagari characters of the Sanskrit MSS. can be deduced from the alphabet of the inscriptions; whilst these inscriptions themselves approach the alphabets of the Semitic character in proportion to their antiquity: so that the oldest alphabet of the Vedas is referable to that of the inscriptions, and that of the inscriptions betrays an origin external to India. Its introduction may be very early; nevertheless its epoch must be investigated with a full recognition of the comparatively modern date of even the earliest alphabets of Persia, and the parts westward; early as compared with such a date as 1400, B.C., the accredited epoch of the Vedas; an epoch, perhaps, a thousand years too early.

Nevertheless, the existence of an alphabet, an architecture, a coinage, and an algebra at a period which no scepticism puts much later than 250, B.C., is so undoubted, that they may pass as ethnological facts, i.e., facts sufficiently true to be not merely admitted with what is called an otiose belief, but to be classed with the most unexceptionable data of history, and to be used as effects from which we may argue backwards—more ethnologico—to their antecedent causes; the appreciation of these requiring a philosophy and an induction of its own.

We cannot detract from the antiquity of Indian civilization without impugning its indigenous origin, nor doubt this without stirring the question as to the countries from which it was introduced. These have been Persia, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece; the introduction being direct or indirect as the case might be.

In this way are contrasted the views of the general ethnologist, with those of the special orientalist, in respect to the great and difficult question of Indian antiquity. Yet, how far does the scepticism of the former affect our views concerning the descent of the Hindus, the Mahrattas, the Bengali, and those other populations, to the languages whereof they applied? Not much. Whichever way we decide, the population may still be Tamulian; only, in case we make the language Sanskritic, it is Tamulian in the same way as the Cornish are Welsh; i.e., Tamulian with a change of tongue.

The doubts, too, as to the antiquity of the Sanskrit literature unsettle but little. They merely make the introduction of certain foreign elements some centuries later.

Whatever may be the oldest of the great Hindu creeds, that of the Sikhs is the newest. Its founder, Nanuk, in the fifteenth century, was a contemplative enthusiast; his successor, Govind, a zealous man of action; himself succeeded by similar gurus, or priests, who eventually, by means of fanaticism, organization, and union with the state raised the power of the Khalsa to the formidable height from which it has so lately fallen. Truth is the great abstraction of the Sikh creeds; and the extent to which it is at once intolerant and eclectic may be seen from the following extracts.[48] They certainly present the doctrine in a favourable light.

I.

The true name is God; without fear, without enmity; the Being without death; the Giver of salvation; the Gooroo and Grace. Remember the primal truth; truth which was before the world began. Truth which is, and truth, O Nanuk! which will remain. By reflection it cannot be attained, how much soever the attention be fixed. A hundred wisdoms, even a hundred thousand, not one accompanies the dead. How can truth be told, how can falsehood be unravelled? O Nanuk! by following the will of God, as by Him ordained.

II.

Time is the only God; the First and the Last, the Endless Being; the Creator, the Destroyer; He who can make and unmake. God who created angels and demons, who created the East and the West, the North and the South; How can He be expressed by words?

III.

Numerous Mahomets have there been, and multitudes of Bruhmas, Vishnoos, and Sivas. Thousands of Peers and Prophets, and tens of thousands of saints and holy men: But the chief of Lords is the one Lord, the true name of God. O Nanuk! of God, His qualities, without end, beyond reckoning, who can understand?

IV.

Many Bruhmas wearied themselves with the study of the Veds, but found not the value of an oil seed. Holy men and saints are sought about anxiously, but they were deceived by Maya. There have been, and there have passed away, ten regent Owtars, and the wondrous Muhadeo. Even they, wearied with the application of ashes, could not find Thee.

V.

He who speaks of me as the Lord, him will I sink into the pit of hell! Consider me as the slave of God; of that have no doubt in thy mind. I am but the slave of the Lord, come to behold the wonders of creation.

VI.

Dwell thou in flames uninjured, Remain unharmed amid ice eternal, Make blocks of stone thy daily food, Spurn the earth before thee with thy foot, Weigh the heavens in a balance, And then ask of me to perform miracles.

VII.

Since he fell at the feet of God, no one has appeared great in his eyes. Ram and Ruheem, the Poorans, and the Koran, have many votaries, but neither does he regard. Simruts, Shasters, and Veds, differ in many things; not one does he heed. O God! under Thy favour has all been done, nought is of myself.

VIII.

All say that there are four races, But all are of the seed of Bruhm. The world is but clay, And of similar clay many pots are made. Nanuk says man will be judged by his actions, And that without finding God there will be no salvation. The body of man is composed of five elements; Who can say that one is high and another low?

IX.

There are four races and four creeds in the world among Hindoos and Mahometans; Selfishness, jealousy, and pride drew all of them strongly; The Hindoos dwelt on Benares and the Ganges, the Mahometans on the Kaaba; The Mahometans held by circumcision, the Hindoos by strings and frontal marks. They each called on Ram and Ruheem, one name, and yet both forgot the road. Forgetting the Veds and the Koran, they were inveigled in the snares of the world. Truth remained on one side, while Moollas and Brahmins disputed, And salvation was not attained.

X.

God heard the complaint (of virtue or truth), and Nanuk was sent into the world. He established the custom that the disciple should wash the feet of his Gooroo, and drink the water; Par Bruhm and Poorun Bruhm, in his Kulyoog, he showed were one. The four feet (of the animal sustaining the world) were made of faith; the four castes were made one; The high and the low became equal: the salutation of the feet (among disciples) he established in the world; Contrary to the nature of man, the feet were exalted above the head. In the Kulyoog he gave salvation; using the only true name, he taught men to worship the Lord. To give salvation in the Kulyoog, Gooroo Nanuk came.

PARTS BEYOND THE INDUS.

The Punjab is the most western locality of the Indian stock, whether we call the members of it Hindu or Tamulian. On crossing the Indus we reach a new ethnological area, only partially, and only recently British; viz., the country of the Biluch, and the country of the Afghans. And here we must prepare for new terms; for hearing of tribes rather than castes; and for finding a polity more like that of the Jews and Arabs than the institutions of the Brahmins.

The Biluch.—Biluchi-stan means the country of the Biluch, just as Hindo-stan and Afghani-stan mean that of the Hindus and Afghans. It is the south-western quarter of Persia, that is the chief area of the tribes in question. Hence, however, they extend into Kutch Gundava, Scinde, and Multan, and the northern parts of Gujerat. Between Kelat, the Indus, and the sea, they are mixed with Brahui.

The Biluchi is a dialect of the Persian—sufficiently close to be understood by a Persian proper.

There are no grounds for believing the Biluch to have been other than the aborigines of the country which they occupy; as their advent lies beyond the historical period; beyond the pale of admissible tradition. We may, perhaps, be told that they came from Arabia; an origin which their Mahometanism, their division into tribes, and their manners, suggest; an origin, too, which their physiognomy by no means impugns. Yet the tradition is not only unsupported, but equivocal. The Arabia that it refers to is, probably, the country of the ancient Arabitae; and that is neither more nor less than a part of the province of Mekran, within—or nearly within—the present Biluch domain. Hence, they may be Arabite, though not Arabian; or rather the old Arabitae of the Arabius fluvius were Biluch.

But the Arabs are not the only members of the Semitic family with which the Biluch have been affiliated. A multiplicity of Jewish characteristics has been discerned. These are all the more visible from their contrast to the manners of the Hindus. Intermediate in appearance to the Hindu and the Persian, the Biluch "cast of feature is certainly Jewish;"[49] his tribual divisions are equally so; whilst the Levitical punishment of adultery by stoning, and the transmission of the widow of a deceased brother to the brothers who survive, have been duly recognized as Hebrew characteristics. We know what follows all this; as surely as smoke shows fire. Levitical peculiarities suggest the ubiquitous decad of the lost tribes of Israel. We shall soon hear of these again.

Tribes under chiefs—hereditary succession—pride of blood—clannish sentiments—feuds between tribe and tribe—the sacro-sanctity of revenge as a duty—the suspension of private wars when foreign foes threaten—greater rudeness amongst the mountains—comparative industry in the plains—the business of robbery tempered by the duties of hospitality—black mail, &c. All this is equally Biluch, Arabian, and Highland Scotch; and it all shows the similarity of details which accompanies similarity of social institutions. Ethnological relationship it does not show.

The word Biluch is Persian. The bearer of the designation either calls himself by the name of his tribe, or else glorifies himself by the term Usul or Pure. The tribes or khoums are numerous. Sir H. Pottinger gives the names of no less than fifty-eight; without going into their subdivisions.

If, however, instead of details, we seek for classes of greater generality we find that three primary divisions comprise all the ramifications of the Biluch. The first of these is the Rind; the other two are the Nihro and the Mughsi. The daughter of a Rind may be given to a Rind as a wife; but to marry into a tribe of Nihro or Mughsi extraction is a degradation. Here the elements of caste intermix with those of tribe or clan.

Afghans.—Afghani-stan means the country of the Afghans, just as Hindo-stan and Biluchi-stan mean that of the Hindus and Biluchi, respectively.

In India the Afghans are called Patan.

Their language is called Pushtu. It is allied to the Persian—but less closely than the Biluch.

Fully and accurately described in the admirable work of Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone, the Afghans have long commanded the attention of the ethnologist; and all that has been said about the Judaism of the Biluchi has been said in respect to them also, though not by so good a writer as the one just quoted. No wonder. Their tribual organization, if not more peculiar in character, has been more minutely described; a greater massiveness of frame and feature has been looked upon as eminently Judaic; and, lastly, an incorrect statement of Sir William Jones's, as to the Hebrew character of the Pushtu language, has added the authority of that respected scholar to the doctrine of the Semitic origin of the Afghans. Against this, however, stands the evidence of their peculiar and hitherto unplaced language. I say unplaced, because the criticism that separates the modern dialects of Hindostan from the Sanskrit, disconnects the Pushtu and the old Persian. Nevertheless, it is anything but either Hebrew or Arabic.

Similarity of political constitution, and its attendant spirit of independence, have given a political importance to both the Biluch and the Afghan. Each is but partially—very partially—British; and each became dependent upon Britain, not because they were the Afghans and Biluch of their own rugged countries, but because they were part and parcel of certain territories in India. It was on the Indus that they were conquered; and it as Indians that they are British.

Four great patriarchs are the hypothetical progenitors of the four primary Afghan divisions—though it is uncertain whether any such quaternion be more of an historical reality than the four castes of Brahminism. Subordinate to these four heads is the division called Ulus (Ooloos).

A minuter knowledge of the Afghan affiliations—real or supposed—is to be gained by premising that khail has much the same meaning as the Biluch khoum, so that it denotes a division of population which we may call clan, tribe, or sept; whilst the affix -zye, means sons or offspring. Hence, Eusof-zye is equivalent to what an Arab would call Beni Yusuf; a Greek, Ioseph-idae; or a Highland Gael, MacJoseph. All this is clear. When, however, we try to give precision to our nomenclature, and ask whether the khail contains a number of -zye, or the -zye a number of khails, difficulties begin. Sometimes the one, sometimes the other is the larger class. And a khail in one case may be divided into groups ending in -zye; in others, a group denoted by -zye may contain two or more khails. Each is a generic or specific designation as the case may be.

However, to proceed to instances, the following groups of Afghans may be constituted.

1. Three sections—the Acco-zye, the Mulle-zye, and the Lawe-zye—are subdivisions of the—

2. Eusof.—The Eusof and Munder being branches of the—

3. Eusof-zye.—Now the Eusof-zye is one out of four divisions of the—

4. Khukkhi.—The Guggiani, Turcolani, and Mahomed-zye, being the other three.

5. Lastly, the Khukkhi, the Otman-khail, the Khyberi, the Bungush, the Khuttuk and, probably, some others form the Berdurani Afghans.

But as Berdurani is a geographical, or political, rather than a tribual designation; as it is the name by which the north-eastern Afghans were known to the Moghuls; and as it is equivalent to such an expression as Western or Eastern Highlander, rather than to names so specific as Campbell or MacDonald, it may be excluded from the true Afghan affiliations.

With this deduction, however, the classification is sufficiently complex; besides which, it is, probably, much more systematic on paper than in reality. This, however, can only be indicated.

The valley of Peshawar is the valley of the Guggiani, and Mahomed-zye Afghans.

The parts round it belong to the Eusof-zye, the Otman-khail, the Turcolani, the Momunds, and the Khyberi of the Khyber Range and Pass. These last fall into the Afridi, the Shainwari, and the Uruk-zye. Their country is chiefly to the north of the Salt Range.

The river Kurum gives us the two valleys of Dowr and Bunnu[50]—the Bunnuchi being as pre-eminently a mixed, as the mountaineers around them—the Vizeri—are a pure branch. These, and others, appear to belong to the great Khuttuk division.

The south-eastern Afghans are called Lohani; and, as a proof of this designation being of the same geographico-political character as Berdurani, the Khuttuk Afghans are divided between the two sections; at least the particular Khuttuks called Murwuti are mentioned as Lohani, though the Khuttuk class in general is placed in the Berdurani branch. The chief Lohani Afghans are the Shirani near the Tukt-i-Soliman mountain, and the Storiani (Storeeanees, Oosteraunees) conterminous with the most northern of the Biluch.

Of these the Bugti and Murri are the chief populations of the frontier; whilst the Nutkani, Kusrani, Lund, Lughari, Gurkhari, Mudari, and others, help to fill up the Muckelwand (or the parts immediately along the course of the Indus), and the Biluch portions of Multan.

The Brahui.—The Brahui, with whom it has been stated that the Biluch are intermixed, are pastoral tribes, with a coarser physiognomy, and a stouter make than their neighbours. Their language also is different. A specimen of it may be found amongst the well-known and important vocabularies of Lieutenant Leach; and this forms the subject of a memoir of no less a scholar than Lassen. Without placing it, he remarks that the numerals are South-Indian (or Tamulian) rather than aught else. He might have said more. The Brahui is a remarkable and unexplained branch of the Tamul; but whether it be of late introduction or indigenous origin in the parts where it now occurs is uncertain. The mountains between Kutch Gundava and Mekran seem to form the area of the Brahui; some eastern branches of which population I presume to be British, mixed with Biluch.[51]

* * * * *

Ceylon.—The inhabitants of the northern part of Ceylon speak the Tamul language, and are Brahminists in creed. They are not, however, the true natives of the island. These latter use a Hindu tongue, called the Singhalese. Its philological relations are exactly those of the Mahratta, Bengali, and Udiya,—neither better nor worse defined, more or less unequivocal. Some make it out to be of Sanskrit, others of Tamulian origin. All that is certain is, that it is more Sanskritic than the proper Tamul, and more Tamul than the Bengali. It is written; and embodies a copious, but worthless literature, its alphabet being derived from that of the Pali language.

This introduces a new characteristic. The Pali has the same relation to Buddhism, that the Sanskrit has to Brahminism. It is the language of the Scriptures, the priest, and the scholar, and, although, at the present moment, it is as little recognized as a holy tongue on the continent of India, as the Greek of the New Testament is at Rome, it divides with the Arabic and Latin, the honour of being the most widely-spread literary language of the world. All the forms of Buddhism in the transgangetic peninsula are embodied in Pali writings. So are those of the Mongols; and so, to a great extent, those of the Tibetans as well. This makes the language and the creed nearly co-extensive. In China, however, and Japan, where great changes have taken place, and where either the development, or the deterioration of Buddhism has gone far enough to abolish the more palpable characteristics of the original Indian doctrine, the Pali language is no longer the medium. It is so, however, for the vast area already indicated.

In Buddhism, as opposed to Brahminism, there is a greater tenderness of animal life in general, whilst less respect is paid to the ox-tribe in particular. There is less also of the system of caste; and, in consequence of this, fewer of those elements of priestly influence, which originate in the ideas of the hereditary transmission of sacro-sanctitude. Buddhism, too, has the credit of running further in the dream-land of subjective metaphysics than Brahminism,—though this, as far as my own very imperfect means of judging go, is doubtful. Into practical pantheism, and into the deification of human reason it does run.

When self-contemplation has reached its highest degree of abstraction, the state of Nirwana is induced. This seems to mean the absorption of the spirit within itself; a condition which at once suggests adjectives like impassive, subjective, exalted, and supra-sensual, or substantives like transcendentalism, egoism, &c., and the like; in some cases with definite ideas to correspond with the term; oftener as mere meaningless words. Such, however, is the nomenclature which is requisite; a nomenclature to which I have recourse, not for the sake of illustrating my subject, but with the view of giving a practical notion of its indistinctness.

Buddha himself is a specimen and model of self-absorption, consummation, perfection, or exaltation rather than a deity, or even a prophet. He shows what purity can effect, rather than teaches what purity consists in. He may even have become what he was, by his own unaided powers of supra-sensual abstraction.

All this is but a series of negations, at least in the way of theology. But his spirit, after the departure of his body from the earth,[52] became incarnate in the body of some successor—and so on ad infinitum. This connects Buddhism with the doctrine of metempsychosis; a doctrine which the incarnations of Brahminism also suggest.

Such are some of the speculative points of Buddhism. Its morality has been greatly, and, perhaps, unduly extolled. So much contemplation can scarcely exist without the condemnation of the more palpable sins of commission. Hence, those vices which are the offspring of passion and ignorance are condemned; as is but natural. The suspension of exertion precludes active vice. Of the active virtues, however, the recognition is as slight as may be; so slight as to make it doubtful whether Buddhism be a better rule for the formation of good citizens than Brahminism. Which has been the most resistant to the influences of Christianity is doubtful.[53]

Just as the Anglo-Saxon language, although it originated in Germany, has survived and developed itself in Britain only, the Buddhist creed, once indigenous to the continent of Hindostan, is now found nowhere between the Himalayas and Cape Comorin; whilst beyond the pale of India, it is as widely extended as the English language is beyond the limits of Germany. The rival religion of the Brahmins expelled it. Which of the two was the older is uncertain. Still more difficult is it to determine how far each is a separate substantive mythological growth, or merely a modification of the rival creed.

I lay but little stress upon the internal evidence derivable from the character of the religions themselves. Both are complicated and artificial—both, perhaps, equally so. In contrast, however, to the more speculative and transcendental points, suggestive of recent development, there are others indicative of great antiquity. Nevertheless, it is as difficult to affirm that the primitive parts of the one creed are older than the most primitive parts of the other, as it is to affirm that the highest transcendentalisms are more recent.

The fact of the oldest inscriptions being in the Pali dialect, is favourable to the greater antiquity of Buddhism, but it is not conclusive. The notion that Sanskrit itself is comparatively recent, of course subtracts from that of Brahminism. But this is far from being admitted. Besides which, it by no means follows, that because Brahminism is, comparatively speaking, recent, Buddhism must be ancient.

The best clue in this labyrinth of conflicting opinions is the study of the superstitions of the ruder tribes of the hill-ranges of India itself, of the sub-Himalayas, and of the Indo-Chinese peninsula; the result of which investigation will be that that creed which has most points in common with the primitive and unmodified mythologies of the Tamulian stock, and of those branches of the monosyllabic populations nearest akin thereto, has also the best claim to be considered as the older.

In my own mind, I believe that the Bedo of the Rajmahali mountaineers, is the Batho of the Bodo, the Pennu of the Khonds, and the Potteang of the Kukis,[54]—name for name. I believe this without doubt or hesitation. But if I ask myself the import of this identity, the answer is unsatisfactory. There is doubt and hesitation in abundance. Bedo, Batho, Petto, and Potteang, may represent the germ of what afterwards became Buddh-ism. They may exhibit the Indian creed in its rudiments. True. But they may also represent it in its fragments, so that Bedo and Batho may be but Buddh, distorted in form, and but imperfectly comprehended in import. In our own Gospel, the name for the place of punishment, which the Greeks called Hades, and the Hebrews typified by Gehenna, is the name of a Saxon goddess Hela; and, in this particular instance, a point of our original paganism has been taken up into our present Christianity. The same is the case with the Finnic nation, where Yumala signifies God; Yumala being as truly heathen as Jupiter. On the other hand we find amongst the genuine pagan Gallas of Africa, an object of respect or worship called Miriam. What is this? No true piece of heathendom at all. Dr. Beke has given good reasons for believing that it means the Virgin Mother of the Saviour, the only extant member of the Christian Revelation now known to that once imperfectly Christianized community.

Buddhism, then, may claim a higher antiquity than Brahminism under the two following conditions.

1. That the names Batho, &c., be really a form of Buddh.

2. That they have belonged to superstitions in which they occur from the beginning; and are not in the same category with the Miriam of the Gallas, i.e., recent introductions from a wholly different religion—grafts rather than embryos.

How far this latter is the case must be ascertained by a wide and minute inquiry, foreign to the present work.

It is no wonder that, side by side with a semi-philosophical creed like Buddhism, we should have such a phenomenon as Devil-worship. When the spirit falls short of its due degree of self-sustained hardihood, fear finds its way to the heart. The evil powers are then propitiated; sometimes in a manner savouring of dignity, sometimes with groveling and grotesque cowardice. The Yezid of Mesopotamia, whose belief in the power of an evil spirit is derived from the Manicheism of old, shows his fear of the arch-enemy by simple and not unreasonable acts of negation. He does nothing that may offend; never mentions his name; and dwells on his attributes as little as possible. The devil-worshipper of Ceylon uses such invocations as the following:—

I.

Come, thou sanguinary Devil, at the sixth hour. Come, thou fierce Devil, upon this stage, and accept the offerings made to thee!

The ferocious Devil seems to be coming measuring the ground by the length of his feet, and giving warnings of his approach by throwing stones and sand round about. He looks upon the meat-offering which is kneaded with blood and boiled rice.

He stands there and plays in the shade of the tree called Demby. He removes the sickness of the person which he caused. He will accept the offerings prepared with blood, odour, and reddish boiled rice. Prepare these offerings in the shade of the Demby tree.

Make a female figure of the planets with a monkey's face, and its body the colour of gold. Offer four offerings in the four corners. In the left corner, place some blood, and for victims a fowl and a goat. In the evening, place the scene representing the planets on the high ground.

The face resembles a monkey's face, and the head is the colour of gold. The head is reddish, and the bunch of hair is black and tied. He holds blood in the left-hand, and rides on a bullock. After this manner make the sanguinary figure of the planets.

II.

O thou great devil Maha-Sohon, preserve these sick persons without delay!

On the way, as he was going, by supernatural power he made a great noise. He fought with the form of Wessamoony, and wounded his head. The planet Saturn saw a wolf in the midst of the forest, and broke his neck. The Wessamoony gave permission to the great devil called Maha-Sohon.

O thou great devil Maha-Sohon, take away these sicknesses by accepting the offerings made frequently to thee.—The qualities of this devil are these: he stretches his long chin, and opens wide his mouth like a cavern: he bears a spear in his right-hand, and grasps a great and strong elephant with his left-hand. He is watching and expecting to drink the blood of the elephant in the place where the two and three roads meet together.

Influenced by supernatural power, he entered the body of the princess called Godimbera. He caused her to be sick with severe trembling sickness. Come thou poor and powerless devil Maha-Sohon to fight with me, and leave the princess, if thou hast sufficient strength.

On hearing these sayings, he left her, and made himself like a blue cloud, and violently covered his whole body with flames of fire. Furiously staring with his eyes, he said, "Art thou come, blockhead, to fight with me who was born in the world of men? I will take you by the legs, and dash you upon the great rock Maha-meru, and quickly bring you to nothing."

Thou wast born on Sunday, the first day of the month, and didst receive permission from the King of Death, and didst brandish a sword like a plantain-leaf. Thou comest down at half-past seven, to accept the offerings made to thee.

If the devil Maha-Sohon cause the chin-cough, leanness of the body, thirst, madness, and mad babblings, he will come down at half-past seven, and accept the offerings made to him.

These are the marks of the devil Maha-Sohon: three marks on the head, one mark on the eye-brow and on the temple; three marks on the belly, a shining moon on the thigh, a lighted torch on the head, an offering and a flower on the breast. The chief god of the burying-place will say, May you live long!

Make the figure of the planets called the emblem of the great burying-place, as follows: a spear grasped by the right-hand, an elephant's figure in the left-hand, and in the act of drinking the blood of the elephant by bruising its proboscis.

Tip the point of the spear in the hand with blood, pointed towards the elephant's face in the left-hand. These effigies and offerings take and offer in the burying-place,—discerning well the sickness by means of the devil-dancer.

Make a figure of the wolf with a large breast, full of hairs on the body, and with long teeth separated from each other. The effigy of the Maha-Sohon was made formerly so.

These are the sicknesses which the great devil causes by living among the tombs: chin-cough, itching of the body, disorders in the bowels; windy complaints, dropsy, leanness of the body, weakness and consumptions.

He walks on high upon the lofty stones. He walks on the ground where three ways meet. Therefore go not in the roads by night: if you do so, you must not expect to escape with your life.

Make two figures of a goose, one on each side. Make a lion and a dog to stand at the left-leg, bearing four drinking-cups on four paws—and make a moon's image, and put it in the burying-place.

Comb the hair, and tie up a large bunch with a black string. Put round the neck a cobra-capella, and dress him in the garments by making nine folds round the waist. He stands on a rock eating men's flesh. The persons that were possessed with devils are put in the burying-place.

Put a corpse at the feet, taking out the intestines through the mouth. The principal thing for this country, and for the Singhalese, is the worship of the planets.[55]

In the centre of the island is the kingdom of Kandy; naturally fortified by impervious forests, and long independent. This creates a variety; the Kandyans being somewhat ruder than the other Singhalese. It is not, however, an important one. The really important ethnology of Ceylon is that of the Vaddahs, in the eastern districts, inland of Battacaloa. They are still unmodified by either the Hindu habits, or the great Indian creeds,—the true analogues of the Khonds, and Kols, and Bhils, &c. Their language, however, is Singhalese; an important fact, since it denotes one of two phenomena,—either the antiquity of the conquest of Ceylon supposing the extension of the Singhalese language to have been gradual, or the thorough-going character of it, if it be recent.

Who were the Padaei of the following extract from Herodotus?[56]—"Other Indians there are, who live east of these. They are nomads, eaters of raw flesh; and called Padaei. They are said to have the following customs. Whenever one of their countrymen is sick, whether man or woman, he is killed. The males kill the males, and amongst these the most intimate acquaintance kill their nearest friends; for they say that for a man to be wasted by disease is for their own meat to be spoilt. The man denies that he ails; but they, not letting him have his own way, kill and feast on him. If a female be sick, the women that are most intimate with her treat her as the males do the men. They sacrifice and feast upon all who arrive at old age. Few, however, go thus far, since they kill every one who falls sick before he reaches that stage of life."

Name for name, the Vaddahs of Ceylon have a claim to be Padaei. Besides which they are Indian.

But, name for name, the Battas[57] of Sumatra have a claim as well; and although they are not exactly Indian, they are cannibals of the sort in question—or, at any rate, cannibals in a manner quite as remarkable.

This gives us a conflict of difficulties. The solution of them lies in the fact of neither Vaddah nor Batta being native names; a fact which leaves us a liberty to suppose that the Padaei of Herodotus were simply some wild Indian tribe sufficiently allied in manners to the Vaddahs of Ceylon, and the Battas of Sumatra, to be called by the same name, but without being necessarily either the one or the other; or even ethnologically connected with either.

* * * * *

Now look at the gipsies of Great Britain. They are wanderers without fixed habitations; whilst, at the same time, they are more abundant in some parts of the island than others. They have no very definite occupation; yet they are oftener tinkers and tinmen than aught else equally legal. They intermarry with the English but little. All this is caste, although we may not exactly call it so. Then, again, they have a peculiar language, although it is so imperfectly known to the majority of the British gipsies, as to have become well-nigh extinct.[58] These gipsies are of Indian origin, and a wandering tribe of Hindostan, called Sikligurs, reminded Mr. Pickering of the European gipsies more than any other Indians he fell in with. Like these, the Sikligurs are coves, or tinkers.

This, however, is by the way. Although it is as well to make a note of the Indian extraction of the English and other European gipsies, it is not for this reason that they have been mentioned. They find a place here for the sake of illustrating what is meant by the wandering tribes of India, whilst at the same time they throw a slight illustration over the nature of castes. Lastly, they are essentially parts of an ethnological investigation—ethnological rather than either social or political. Their characteristics are referable to a difference of descent; and they are tinkers, wanderers, poachers, and smugglers, not so much because they are either gipsies, or Indians, as because they are of a different stock from the English. They are foreigners in the fullest sense of the term; and they differ from their fellow-citizens just as the Jew does—though less advantageously.

Now India swarms with the analogues of the English gipsy; so much so as to make it likely that the latter is found as far from his original country as Wales and Norway, simply because he is a vagabond, not because he is an Indian.

Of the chief of the tribes in question a good account is given by Mr. Balfour. This list, however, which is as follows, may be enlarged.

1. The Gohur are, perhaps, better known under the name of Lumbarri, and better still as the Brinjarri, the bullock-drivers of many parts of India, but more especially of the Dekhan. They are corn-merchants as well. Their organization consists of divisions called Tandas, at the head of which is a Naek. Two Naeks paramount over the rest, reside permanently at Hyderabad, on the confines of the Mahratta and Telugu countries. The bullock, Hatadia, devoted to the God Balajee, is an object of worship. In a long line of Brinjarri met by Mr. Pickering,[59] one of the females was carrying a dog, which neither a Hindu nor a Parsi would have done. Many of them are Sikhs. There are, certainly, three divisions of the Gohuri—the Chouhane,[60] the Rhatore, and the Powar, and probably—

The Purmans are another branch of them; consisting of about seventy-five families of agriculturists on the Bombay islets.

2. The Bhowri, called also Hirn-shikarri and Hern-pardi, though Bhowri is the native name, are hunters. They also fall into subordinate divisions.

3. The Tarremuki; so-called by themselves, but known in the Dekhan as Ghissaris, or Bail-Kumbar, and amongst the Mahrattas, as Lohars, are blacksmiths.

4. The Korawi, fall in tribes which neither eat with each other, nor intermarry, viz.:—

a. The Bajantri, who are musicians.

b. The Teling—basket-makers and prostitutes.

c. The Kolla.

d. The Soli.

5. The Bhattu, Dummur, or Kollati, are exorcists and exhibitors of feats of strength.

6. The Muddikpur, so called by themselves, though known under several other names, follow a variety of employments; some being ferrymen.

All these tribes wander about the country without any permanent home, speak a peculiar dialect with a considerable proportion of Non-Sanskritic words, and preserve certain peculiarities of creed; though in different degrees—the Muddikpur being wholly or nearly pagan, the Tarremuki Brahminic.

The wandering life of these, and other similar tribes is not, by itself, sufficient to justify us in separating them from the other Hindus. But it does not stand alone. The fragments of an earlier paganism, and the fragments of an earlier language are phenomena which must be taken in conjunction with it. These suggest the likelihood of the Gohuri, the Bhatti, and their like, being in the same category with the Khonds and Bhils, &c., i.e., representatives of the earlier and more exclusively Tamulian populations. If the gipsy language of England had, instead of its Indian elements, an equal number of words from the original British, it would present the same phenomena, and lead to the same inference as that which is drawn from the Bhatti, Bhowri, Tarremuki, and Gohuri vocabularies,[61] viz.: the doctrine that fragments of the original population are to be sought for amongst the wanderers over the face of the country, as well as among the occupants of its mountain strongholds.

* * * * *

In a country like India, where differences of habit, business, extraction, and creed, are accompanied by an inordinate amount of separation between different sections and subsections of its population, and where slight barriers of diverse kinds prevent intermixture, the different sects of its numerous religions requires notice. This, however, may be short. As sectarianism is generally in the direct ratio to the complexity of the creed submitted to section, we may expect to find the forms of Brahminism and Buddhism, not less numerous than those of either Christianity or Mahometanism. And such is really the case. The sects are too numerous to enlarge upon. The Sikh creed has been noticed from its political importance. That of the Jains is also remarkable, since it most closely resembles Buddhism, without being absolutely Buddhist in the current sense of the word. It is, possibly, the actual and original Buddhism of the continent of India—supposed to have been driven out bodily by Brahminism, but really with the true vitality of persecuted creeds, still surviving in disguise. Again, in India, though in a less degree than in China, Philosophy replaces belief—so much so, that the different forms of one negation—Natural Religion—must be classed amongst the creeds of Hindostan; by the side of which there stand many kinds of simple philosophy; just as was the case in ancient Greece, where, in one and the same city, there were the philosophers of the Academy and the believers in Zeus.

There is, then, creed within creed in the two great religions of India—to say nothing about the numerous fragments of modified and unmodified paganism.

And besides these there are the following introduced religions—each coinciding, more or less, with some ethnological division.

1. Christianity from, at least, four different sources—

a. That of the Christians of Thomas on the Malabar Coast. Here the doctrine is that of the Syrian Church, and the population being perhaps (?) Persian in origin.

b. The Romanism of the French and Portuguese; the latter having its greatest development in the Mahratta country, about Goa.

c. Dutch and Danish Protestantism.

d. English and American Protestantism. To which add small infusions of the Armenian and Abyssinian churches.

Of these it is only the Christians of St. Thomas that are of much ethnological importance.

2. Judaism on the coast of Malabar; or the Judaism of the so-called Black Jews.

3. Parseeism in Gujerat; of Persian origin, and, probably, nearly confined to individuals of Persian blood.

4. Mahometanism.

* * * * *

Of foreign blood there are numerous infusions.

1. Arab.—On the western coast, more especially amongst the Moplahs of the neighbourhood of Goa; where the stock seems to be Arabian on the father's, and Indian on the mother's side.

2. Persian.—Amongst the Parsees and Saint Thomas Christians (?); and, far more unequivocally, and in greater proportions, amongst the Moghul families—these being always more or less Persian; but Persian with such heterogeneous intermixtures of Turk and Mongol blood besides as to make analysis almost impossible.

3. Afghan.—The Rohillas of Rohilcund are Afghan in origin; so are the Patani—indeed, the term Patan means an Afghan of Hindostan wherever he may be.

4. Jewish.

5, 6, 7.—Chinese, Malay, Burmese, &c.

8. European.

Of the Indians out of India, by far the most are—

1. The Gipsies.

2. The Banians, who are the Hindu traders of Arabia, Persia, Cashmir, and other parts of the East.

3. The Hill Coolies, individuals of the Khond and Kuli class, upon whom England is trying the experiment of what may end in a revival of the old crimping system, as a substitute for slave-labour in our intertropical colonies.

* * * * *

Such is a sketch of the ethnology of India; pre-eminently complex, but not pre-eminently mysterious; its chief problems being—

1. The general ethnological relations of the Tamulian stock.

2. Those of the intrusive Brahminical Hindus.

3. The relation of the intrusive population to the aboriginal.[62]

FOOTNOTES:

[41] "Transactions of Philological Society," No. 94.

[42] Latin nurus, from snurus.

[43] Latin socer, Greek {hekyros}.

[44] Latin socrus, Greek {hekyra}.

[45] Latin levir (devir), Greek {daer}.

[46] Or that, this.

[47] The full exposition of this doctrine is in the present writer's ethnological edition of the "Germania" of Tacitus; v. AEstyi.

[48] Taken from the Appendix to Captain Cunningham's "History of the Sikhs."

[49] Captain Postans, in "Transactions of Ethnological Society," who, along with Sir H. Pottinger, is my chief authority.

[50] For a description of these parts see Major Edwardes' "Year on the Punjab Frontier."

[51] The best account of the Brahui is to be found in Sir H. Pottinger's Travels.

[52] In the sixth century, B.C. according to the Buddhist chronology.

[53] Such, at least, is the opinion of the author of "Christianity in Ceylon," Sir E. Tennent.

[54] Names explained in Chapter iii.

[55] From Callaway's "Translation of the Kolan Nattannawa."

[56] Book iii. Sec.. 99.

[57] The same, probably, is the case with the BIDI of Java.

[58] From this language, I imagine that the three following words have come into the English—two of them being slang and one a sporting term—rum, cove, jockey.

[59] "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," No. 145.

[60] These names introduce a difficulty: They are Rajput as well.

[61] All of which may be found in the paper already quoted; and all of which contain numerous Tamul roots.

[62] Since this was written Major-General Briggs' valuable paper on the Aboriginal Tribes of India, has been published in "Transactions of the British Association," &c., for 1851. Having been seen in MS. by the present writer it has been freely used.



CHAPTER V.

BRITISH DEPENDENCIES IN THE MALAYAN PENINSULA.—THE OCEANIC STOCK AND ITS DIVISIONS.—THE MALAY, SEMANG, AND DYAK TYPES.—THE ORANG BINUA.—JAKUNS.—THE BIDUANDA KALLANG.—THE ORANG SLETAR.—THE SARAWAK TRIBES.—THE NEW ZEALANDERS.—THE AUSTRALIANS.—THE TASMANIANS.

Our isolated and small settlements in the Malayan Peninsula,[63] the depot at Labuan, Sir James Brooke's Rajahship of Sarawak, New Zealand, the joint protectorate of the Sandwich Islands and Tahiti, Australia, and Van Dieman's Land, bring us to a new division of the human species, which is conveniently called the Oceanic.

Its divisions and subdivisions are as follows:—

{ PROTONESIANS { MICRONESIANS { AMPHINESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS { { MALAGASI { PROPER OCEANIC-{ { { PAPUANS { KELAENONESIANS-{ AUSTRALIANS { TASMANIANS.

Our settlements are limited to the Protonesian, Proper Polynesian, Australian, and Tasmanian sections: and we have no political authority over any of the Malagasi, Micronesians, or Papuans.

With the exception of the occupants of the Malayan Peninsula, all the Oceanic population occupy islands. This explains the term Oceanic.

Their distribution is as remarkable as their extension. The Amphinesian[64] stream of population, originating in the peninsula of Malacca, is continued through Borneo, the Moluccas, and the Philippines, Lord North's Island, Sonsoral, the Pelew group, the Caroline and Marianne Isles, the Ralik and Radack chains, the Kingsmill group and the Gilbert and Scarborough Islands, to the Navigators', Society, Friendly, Marquesas, Sandwich, and New Zealand groups; having become Micronesian rather than Protonesian, after passing the Philippines, and Proper Polynesian rather than Micronesian, after passing the Scarborough and Gilbert Archipelagoes. In this course it passes round New Guinea and Australia; in each of which islands the population is Kelaenonesian.

The Malay of the Malacca peninsula is no longer either monosyllabic or uninflectional, although in immediate contact with the southern dialects of the Siamese. Hence, the transition is abrupt; although by no means conclusive as to any broad and trenchant line of ethnological demarcation.

The differences of physical form are less than those of language. No one has denied that the Malay configuration is a modification of the Mongolian—at least in some of its varieties.

I say at least in some of its varieties, because within the narrow range of the Malaccan peninsula and the island of Borneo we find no less than three different types. In Polynesia one of these, and in Kelaenonesia another becomes exaggerated—so much so, as to suggest the idea of a different origin for the populations.

a. The Malays are referable to the first type. Mahometans in religion, they partake of the civilization of the Arab and Indian, and differ but slightly from the Indo-Chinese nations; the complexion being dark and the hair straight. The Mahometan Malays, however, are no true aborigines. They are not only a new people on the peninsula, but they consider themselves as such; and those occupants which they recognize as older than themselves, they call Orang Binua, or men of the soil. Of these some have a darker complexion and crisper hair than the intruding population: and when we reach a particular section called—

b. The Semang, we find them described as having curly, crisp, matted, and even woolly hair, thick lips, and a black skin. These, like most of the other Orang Binua, are Pagans. Still their language is essentially Malay; and their physical conformation passes into that of the Malays by numerous transitions.

c. Thirdly, we find in Borneo the Dyaks. Many of these are as much fairer than the Malays as the Semang are darker. Their language, however, belongs to the Malay class; whilst their religion and civilization may reasonably be supposed to be that of the Malays previous to the influences of Brahminism from India, Mahometanism from Arabia, and the changes effected in their habits, language, and appearance effected thereby.

It is not too much to say that within the peninsula of Malaya, the Johore Archipelago, and the island of Borneo, each of these types, and every intermediate form as well, is to be found.

Malacca.—The town of Malacca is a town of Mahometan Malays, but I believe that the eastern parts of Wellesley province are on the frontier of the Jokong, Jakon, or Jakun. These are Orang Binua, or aborigines—at least as compared with the true Malays.

In the eighth century—I am drawing an illustration from the history of our own island, and its relations to continental Germany—the Anglo-Saxons of Great Britain, themselves originally Pagan Germans, took an interest in the spiritual welfare of the so-called Old Saxons, a tribe of Westphalia, immediately related to their own continental ancestors, these Old Saxons having retained their primitive Paganism. The mission partly succeeded, and partly failed.

Now, if in addition to this partial success of the Anglo-Saxon mission, there had been a partial Anglo-Saxon colonization as well, and if, side by side with this, fragments of the old unmodified Paganism had survived amongst the fens and forests up to the present time, we should have had, in the relations of England and Germany, precisely what I imagine to have been the case with the Malayan peninsula and the island of Sumatra. Like Germany, the peninsula would have supplied the original stock to the island; but, in the island, that stock would have undergone certain modifications. With these modifications it would—so to say—have been reflected back upon the continent—re-colonizing the old mother-country. Now just what the Old Saxons of Westphalia were to the Anglo-Saxons of the eighth century, are the Jakun to the true Malays. They differ from them in being something other than Mahometan; i.e., in being nearly what the Mahometan Malays were before their conversion.

The Jakun are Malays, minus those points of Malay civilization which are referable to the religion of the Koran.

But the Jakun are only a few out of many; a single branch of a great stem.

The most convenient term for the members in general of this class is Orang Binua—a term already explained.

The Biduanda Kallang.—The next, then, of the Orang Binua that comes in contact with a British dependency—many others not thus politically connected with us being passed over—are the Biduanda Kallang of the parts about Sincapore. Their present locality is the banks of the most southern of the rivers of the peninsula, the Pulai. Thither they were removed when the British took possession of the island of Sincapore; of which they were previously the joint occupants—joint occupants, because they shared it with the tribe which will be next mentioned. They were an Orang Laut in one sense of the word, but not in another. Orang means men or people, and laut means sea in Malay; and the Biduanda Kallang were boatmen rather than agriculturists. But they were only freshwater sailors; since, though they lived on the water, they avoided the open sea. They formerly consisted of one hundred families; but have been reduced by small-pox to eight.

Their priest or physician is called bomo, and he invokes the hantu, or deities, the anito of the Philippine Islanders, the tii of the Tahitians; and, probably, the Wandong and Vintana of Australia and Madagascar respectively.

They bury their dead after wrapping the corpse in a mat; and placing on the grave one cup of woman's milk, one of water, and one of rice; when they entreat the deceased to seek nothing more from them.

Persons of even the remotest degree of relationship are forbidden to intermarry.

The accounts of their physical appearance is taken from too few individuals to justify any generalization. Two, however, of them had the forehead broader than the cheek-bones, so that the head was pear-shaped. In a third, it was lozenge-shaped. The head was small, and the face flat. The lower jaw projected; but not the upper—so that "when viewed in profile, the features seem to be placed on a straight line, from which the prominent parts rise very slightly."[65]

The Orang Sletar.—The original joint-occupants of Sincapore with the Biduanda Kallang, were the Orang Sletar, or men of the river Sletar; differing but little from the former. Of the two families they are the shyer, and the more squalid; numbering about two hundred individuals and forty boats. Their dialect is Malay, spoken with a guttural pronunciation, and with a clipping of the words.

At the birth of a child they have no ceremonies; at marriage a present of tobacco and rice to the bride's mother confirms the match; at death the deceased is wrapped in his garments and interred.

Skin diseases and deformities are common; nevertheless, many of their women are given in marriage to both the Malays and Chinese; but I know of no account of the mixed progeny.

A low retreating forehead throws the face of the Orang Sletar forwards, though the jaw is rather perpendicular than projecting.[66]

Such are the Orang Binua originally, or at present, in contact with the small and isolated possessions of the British in the Malayan peninsula.

Of the proper Malays I have said next to nothing. Excellent works give full accounts of them;[67] whilst it is not through them that the true ethnological problems are to be worked.

I believe that when we reach Borneo, the equivalents to the Orang Binua, or the original populations in opposition to the Mahometan Malays, become referable to a fresh type, and that instead of being darker than the true Malays they are often lighter. At any rate, one thing is certain, viz., that, whether the skin be brown, blackish, or fair, the language belongs to the same stock.

Again—although in one area the darker tribes may preponderate, it is not to the absolute exclusion of the fairer. The Dyaks of Borneo are, generally speaking, light-complexioned; yet, there is special evidence to the existence of dark tribes in that island. On the other hand there is equal evidence to the existence of families lighter-skinned than the true Malays in the peninsula. Nevertheless, as a general rule, the departure from the type of that population is towards darkness of colour on the continent, and towards lightness in Borneo.

With what physical conditions these differences coincide is not always easy to be discerned. In the South Sea Islands, where in one and the same Archipelago, we find some tribes tall and fair, whereas others are dark and ill-featured, it has been remarked by Captain Beechy that this contrast of complexion coincides with the geological structure of the soil. The lower and more coralline the island, the blacker the islanders; the more elevated and volcanic, the lighter. In Africa, it is the low alluvia of rivers that favour the Negro configuration. Mountains or table-lands, on the other hand, give us red or yellow skins, rather than sable.

The Dyaks, then, are light-coloured Pagans, speaking languages allied to the Malay; little touched by Arabic, and less by Hindu influences; with manners and customs that, more or less, re-appear amongst the Battas (or ruder tribes of Sumatra), and the so-called Harafuras of Celebes—and not only here but elsewhere. In other words, in all the islands, where Indian and Arabic civilization have not succeeded in wholly changing the primitive character, analogues of the Orang Binua are to be found; their greatest differences being those of stature and complexion—differences upon which good judges have laid great stress; but differences which will probably be found to coincide with certain geological conditions in the way of physical, and with a lower level of civilization in the way of moral causes—these moral causes having indirectly a physical action.

The Dyaks, in general, use the sumpitan, or blow-pipe, about five feet long; out of which some tribes shoot simple, others poisoned arrows. The utmost distance that the sumpitan carries is about one hundred yards. At twenty it is sure in its aim. The differences between the Dyak weapon, and one in use with the Arawaks of Guiana is but trifling—perhaps it amounts to nothing at all.

Some Dyak tribes tattoo their bodies; others do not.

Before a Dyak youth marries he must lay at the feet of the bride-elect the head of an enemy. This makes head-hunting a normal item of Dyak courtship.

Traces of the Indian mythology—measures of the Indian influence in other respects—just exist amongst the Dyaks—e.g., Battara is a name in their Pantheon, and this is an alteration of the Brahminic Avatar.