Man, Past and Present - Part 47
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Part 47

Deniker, 1891, pp. 238, 243, 378.

[940] For the latest information and full bibliography see J. M. Cooper, _Bureau Am. Eth. Bull. 63_, 1917, and _Proc. Nineteenth Internat.

Congress Americanists_, 1917, p. 445; also, C. W. Furlong, _ibid._ pp.

420 ff., 432 ff.

[941] Markham, "List of Tribes," etc., _Journ. Roy. Anth. Inst._ XI.

1910, pp. 89-90.

[942] _Ibid._

[943] T. Whiffen, _The North-West Amazons_, 1915, pp. 48, 78, 91, etc.

[944] For the material culture of the Araguayan tribes, cf. Fritz Krause, _In den Wildnissen Brasiliens_, 1911.

[945] T. Koch-Grunberg, _Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern_, 2 vols.

Berlin, 1910. See Vol. II. map after p. 319.

[946] Ehrenreich, _loc. cit._ p. 45 ff.; von den Steinen, _loc. cit._ p.

153 ff.

[947] It should be stated that a like conclusion was reached by Lucien Adam from the vocabularies brought by Crevaux from the Upper j.a.pura tribes--Witotos, Corequajes, Kariginas and others--all of Carib speech.

[948] A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_, Cambridge, 1911, p.

109.

[949] Described by E. F. im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, London, 1883.

[950] A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_, pp. 110-11.

[951] V. d. Steinen, _Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, p.

157. "D'apres Goncalves Dias les tribus bresiliennes descendraient de deux races absolument distinctes: la race conquerante des Tupi ... et la race vaincue, pourcha.s.see, des Tapuya...."; V. de Saint-Martin, p. 517, _Nouveau Dictionnaire de Geographie Universelle_, 1879, A--C.

[952] _Novos Estudios Craniologicos sobre os Botocudos_, Rio Janeiro, 1882, _pa.s.sim_.

[953] Possibly so called from the Portuguese _botoque_, a barrel plug, from the wooden plug or disc formerly worn by all the tribes both as a lip ornament and an ear-plug, distending the lobes like great leathern bat's-wings down to the shoulders. But this embellishment is called _tembeitera_ by the Brazilians, and Botocudo may perhaps be connected with _beto-apoc_, the native name of the ear-plug.

[954] They are the _Cambebas_ of the Tupi, a term also meaning Flatheads, and they are so called because "aperto aos recemnacidos as cabecas entre duas taboas afim de achatal-as, costume que actualmente han perdido" (Milliet, II. p. 174).

[955] Such "ident.i.ties" as Tic. _dreja_ = Aym. _chacha_ (man); _etai_ = _utax_ (house) etc., are not convincing, especially in the absence of any scientific study of the laws of _Lautverschiebung_, if any exist between the Aymara-Ticuna phonetic systems. And then the question of loan words has to be settled before any safe conclusions can be drawn from such a.s.sumed resemblances. The point is important in the present connection, because current statements regarding the supposed reduction of the number of stock languages in South America are largely based on the unscientific comparison of lists of words, which may have nothing in common except perhaps a letter or two like the _m_ in Macedon and Monmouth. Two languages (cf. Turkish and Arabic) may have hundreds or thousands of words in common, and yet belong to fundamentally different linguistic families.

[956] A. Balbi, _Atlas Ethnographique du Globe_, XXVII. With regard to the numerals this authority tells us that "il a emprunte a l'espagnol ses noms de nombres" (_ib._).

[957] Markham, _List of the Tribes_, p. 92.

[958] _Urbewohner Brasiliens_, p. 101.

[959] "La vie des Indiens dans le Chaco," trans. by H. Beuchat, _Rev. de Geog. annuelle_, t. VI. Paris, 1912. Cf. also the forthcoming book by R.

Karsten of Helsingfors who has recently visited some of these tribes.

[960] While this account of Central and South America was in the Press Clark Wissler's valuable book was published, _The American Indian_, New York, 1917. He describes (pp. 227-42) the following culture areas:

X. The Nahua area (the ancient Maya and the later Aztec cultures).

XI. The Chibcha area (from the Chibcha-speaking Talamanca and Chiriqui of Costa Rica to and including Colombia and western Venezuela).

XII. The Inca area (Ecuador, Peru and northern Chili).

XIII. The Guanaco area (lower half of Chili, Argentine, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego).

XIV. The Amazon area (all the rest of South America).

XV. The Antilles (West Indies, linking on to the Amazon area).

CHAPTER XII

THE PRE-DRAVIDIANS: JUNGLE TRIBES OF THE DECCAN, VEDDA, SAKAI, AUSTRALIANS

The Pre-Dravidians--The _Kadir_--The _Paniyan_--The _Irula_--The _Kurumba_--The _Vedda_--The _Sakai_--The _Toala_--Australia: Physical Conditions--Physical Type--Australian Origins--Evidence from Language and Culture--Four Successive Immigrations--Earlier Views--Material Culture--Sociology--Initiation Ceremonies-- Totemism--The Family--Kinship--Property and Trade--Magic and Religion.

CONSPECTUS.

#Present Range.# _Jungle Tribes, Deccan; Vedda, Ceylon; Sakai, Malay Peninsula and East Sumatra; Australians, unsettled parts of Australia and reservations._

#Hair#, _wavy to curly, long, usually black_.

#Colour#, _dark brown_. #Skull#, _typically dolichocephalic_. _Vedda skull dolichocephalic (70.5) and very small, Sakai mesaticephalic (78), Toala (mixed) low brachycephalic (82)._ #Jaws#, _orthognathous_.

_Australians, generally prognathous._ #Nose#, _usually platyrrhine_.

#Stature#, _low_. _Vedda 1.53 m. (5 ft. 0-1/2 in.) to Australian 1.575 m. (5 ft. 2 in.)_

#Speech#, _Jungle tribes, usually borrowed from neighbours_. _Australian languages agglutinative, not uniform throughout the continent and unconnected with any other group._

#Culture#, _lowest hunting stage, simple agriculture has been adopted by a few tribes from their neighbours_.

The term Pre-Dravidian, the first use of which seems to be due to Lapicque, is now employed to include certain jungle tribes of South India, the Vedda of Ceylon, the Sakai of the southern Malay Peninsula, the basal element in certain tribes in the East India Archipelago and the main element in the Australians. Pre-Dravidian characters are coa.r.s.e hair, more or less wavy or curly, a narrow head, a very broad nose, dark brown skin and short stature.

The following may be taken as examples of the Pre-Dravidian jungle tribes of Southern India[961]. The _Kadir_ of the Anaimalai Hills and the mountain ranges south into Travancore, are of short stature (1.577 m. 5 ft. 2 in.), with a dark skin, dolichocephalic and platyrrhine. They chip their incisor teeth, as do the _Mala-Vadan_, and dilate the lobes of their ears, but do not tattoo. They wear bamboo combs similar to those of the Sakai. They speak a Tamil patois. "The Kadirs," according to Thurston, "afford a typical example of happiness without culture"; they are nomad hunters and collectors of jungle products, with scarcely any tillage; they do not possess land but have the right to collect all minor forest produce and sell it to the Government. They deal most extensively in wax and honey. They are polygynous. Their dead are buried in the jungle, the head is entirely covered with leaves and placed towards the east; there are no monuments. Their religion is a crude polytheism with a vague worship of stone images or invisible G.o.ds; it is "an ejaculatory religion."

The _Paniyan_, who live in Malabar, the Wynad and the Nilgiris, have thick and sometimes everted lips and the hair is in some a ma.s.s of short curls, in others long wavy curls. They are dark skinned, dolichocephalic (index 74), platyrrhine and of short stature (1.574 m. 5 ft. 2 in.).

They sometimes tattoo, and the lobes of the ears are dilated. Fire is made by the sawing method. They are agriculturalists and were practically serfs; they are bold and reckless and were formerly often employed as thieves. They speak a debased Malayalam patois. Their dead are buried; they practise monogamy and have beliefs in various spirits.

The _Irula_ are the darkest of the Nilgiri tribes. They are dolichocephalic (index 75.8), platyrrhine and of low stature (1.598 m.

nearly 5 ft. 3 in.). No tattooing is recorded, but they dilate the lobes of their ears. Their language is a corrupt form of Tamil. They are agriculturalists and eat all kinds of meat except that of buffaloes and cattle. They are as a rule monogamous. Their dead are buried in a sitting posture and the grave is marked by a stone. Professedly they are worshippers of Vishnu.