Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/159

ASIA. isolating. The Japanese language is polysyllabic and akin to the Manchu, though its alphabet has been adopted from the Chinese. The theory which made the yellow race the first inhabitants of most of Europe and of all of Western Asia (Turanians, Accado-Sumerians, etc.), seems no longer tensble; neither can it be asserted that the oldest culture of the yellow race in China, Korea, and Japan is either a copy of the old Babylonian civilization or the result of compara- tively recent Aryan influence. Chinese civiliza- tion must be regarded as having originated with the removal of the prehistoric races from the pla- teau of Tibet to the rich river lands of Eastern China, just as Aramaic civilization originated with the immigration of the Semites of Arabia into the plains of Mesopotamia. Chinese civili- zation, therefore, may be considered as the first great accomplishment of the yellow race. The characteristics of that civilization — inveterate conservatism, general apathy, and unlimited sub- missiveness — should not, however, be considered as inherent in the race, one great branch of which, the Japanese, have only recently demon- strated the possession of quite the opposite qual- ities. The Siberian members of the race are more notable for what they have done in Europe than for the part they have played in Asia; the mighty empires of Genghis Khan, Timur, and Baber were not enduring; on the other hand, the inroads of the Bulgarians, Finns, and Magyars into Europe have produced lasting results.

. The Malayan or Malayo- Polynesian peoples are denied by many ethnolo- gists the position of a race, and are regarded as merely the insular and oceanic divisions of the yellow race. Their primitive home was some- where in the neighborhood of the peninsula of Malacca, the situation of which favored the dis- tribution of the stock over the islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Physically the Malays of the continent stand nearer to the Tibeto-Chinese branch of the yellow race, while the Polynesians come closer to the Siberians. Linguistically, both Malays and Polynesians are connected with the Siberians, rather than with the Tibeto-Chinese. The brown race includes the Malays proper of Malacca, the Sundanese and Javanese of Java, the tribes of Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and Formosa, and the inhabit- ants of the Philippines, where the most impor- tant family is that of the Tagals. Lastly, there are the Polynesians and the Micronesians, all over the Pacific, and the Hovas of Madagascar. The presence of branches of the Malays in such widely scattered regions as the Philippines, Ha- waii, Madagascar, and New Zealand evidences the wonderful power of expansion possessed by the race. Its capacities for culture have been dem- onstrated in New Zealand, where it has attained its highest development. There the Maoris are on terms of equality in every way with their white fellow-citizens, enjoying representation in Parliament and a share in the Government. Malay elements are discernible in New Guinea, Northern Australia, the interior of Farther India, Southern Hindustan, and its adjacent islands, parts of China, and even Japan. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that it is the addition of the Malayan element that has made in great part the difference between the Japanese and the Chinese.

The Black Race. — Examples are the Negritos of the Pliilippines, the Papuans and their Melanesian kindred, the Andaman islanders, and a few small tribes in the Malay Peninsula, such as the Sakai and the Sermangs, Some ethnologists maintain that the white, yellow, and brown races were preceded all over southeastern Asia and a great part of the Malayo-Polynesian area by tribes of the black race, which they regard as nearer to the original human stock. It would seem, however, that the yellow race, from its nearness to the type of the child, and for certain psychic reasons, has an equal claim to this distinction. — The Red Race. In the extreme northeast of the continent, about East Cape, dwell the Yuit, a people of Eskimo stock, whose numbers were much larger formerly. As immigrants from Arctic America, these Yuit represent the Amerinds or red race of America. Some of the Aleuts also, who belong to the Eskimo stock, have wandered from island to island until they have reached the Asiatic coast, while a few have been transferred thither by the Russians. — Peoples of Doubtful Affinities. Such are the Aino of Japan, the Miao-tse and perhaps some other primitive peoples of China, some of the tribes of Formosa, the Cambodian Khmers, the Veddas of Ceylon, and the Dravidian and Kolarian peoples of Southern India. Of these, the Aino represent probably a very ancient mixture of primitive white and yellow races, and the same may be true of the Miao-tse and the Khmers. The Formosans seem largely Malayan. The Dravidians more by language than by physical type stand distinct from the mass of Indian natives, and though ethnologists are inclined to group them with the Australians, they represent, more probably, a mixture of early negroid, yellow, and white types. They are now considerably Aryanized in culture and assimilated more to the type of the white race in India. The Veddas, one of the most primitive peoples in existence, are an older, mixed people of similar ancestry. Some of the Dravidian peoples (Tamil, Telugu, etc.) have shown themselves capable of a high degree of culture, while others still linger in barbarism.

. The oldest evidences of a high order of civilization in Asia (belonging, in all probability, to the white race) exist in Asia Minor: the most ancient remains of individual man may be looked for in the southeastern region of the continent. Man's precursor, the Pithecanthropus, was discovered in the Pliocene deposits of Trinil, in Java, in 1891, by Dr. Dubois. Somewhere in Southeastern Asia, then, possibly, individual man was born, just as somewhere in Southwestern Asia men in society laid the foundations of the first great civilizations.

It was characteristic of the social groups of Asia that they early attained the limit of their development and settled into grooves in which their life ran for ages. (See under ; ; .) after the rise of the great Medo-Persian Empire under Cyrus (q.v.), Southwestern Asia was brought into contact with the earliest European civilization, that of the Hellenic people, and a contest for supremacy took place. (See ; and .) This was terminated by the triumphant march of Alexander the Great (q.v.) eastward to the Indus and