Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/653

* INDIAN PEOPLES. 571 INDIAN PEOPLES. INDIAN PEOPLES. For the anthropologist India ih> of reuuirkable interest. On its .soil may still be met all grades of culture, from the savagery of hill and swamp to the urban civili- zation bom of river and plain, and all forms of human social aggregates, from the primitive family group or elan to the foreign-ruled prov- inces with their magnificent and lu.xuriuus capi- tals. Here all forms of agriculture are to be found, from the burned-over forest plot to the ter- raced hillside of the north; in the west and south the utilization of the desert by canals and tanks; all varieties of human dwellings, from the primi- tive abode in tree and cave to magnificent palaces and temples; all forms of human government, from the primitive democracy and tribal anarchy to organized despotism of the civilized sort; all kinds of marriage, from polygamy to the strictest monogamy, and all varieties of both these sys- tems, and of polj-andry as well ; as well as all forms of religion from the crudest animism and Shamanism to the agnosticism of certain develop- ments of Buddhism. All these things have been invented, exploited, modified, improved, or de- graded by members of the black, the brown, the yellow, and the white races of man for many thousands of years ; so that nowhere else in the world have so many millions of human beings done so many things at so many times in so many waj's as in India. Remains of the indus- try of Paleolitliie man have been found almost •everywhere throughout the peninsula, which makes India seem almost as old as the race of man itself. By far the most important peoples of India belong to the Aryan stock. They are responsil)le for a number of social and religious ideas and institutions, many of which are simply the expression of the mentality of the more northern and western Aryan in the process of, and after adaptation to, an Oriental and largely tropical environment. They never overcame the land by mere force of nuniljers, and their influ- ence upon the pre-Hindu population was less racial than social and religious, ilany primi- tive tribes who took over the culture of their conquerors have become assimilated to the Arj'an type while preserving intact their aboriginal speech. The complicated caste system ( see Caste ) is largely, if not entirely, the result of the con- tact of the Aryan invaders with the aboriginal population ( Dravidian, Kolarian. etc.) of the peninsula, and of the efl'orts of the conquering race to jircscrve its purity as much as possible against miscegenation. It was very early domi- nated by religious ideas, but recent investigations have shown that the lines of caste are not nearly so coincident with racial distinctions as had been assumed to be the case. After the Aryans of India, the Dravidians (the civilized Tamils, Telugus. Kanarese, and llalayalams), the more or less civilized Kodagu, or Koorgs, and the tribes of the Xilgiris. Central India. Orissa, part of Bengal, etc., such as the Irulas, Kurumbas. liada-
 * gas. Todas. Kotas, Kadcr. Khnnds, Gonds, Oraons,

and JIalcr, are the most impiu'tant peoples. The various tribes of this stock illustrate all grades of human culture, from the jungle-dwelling Ku- nunbas to the high developments of the civilized Tamils, who in literature, architecture, and other arts have shown great ability, and some of them notable capacity for assimilating both IIindi and Christian culture. The Dravidian area lies chiefly in Southern India, but the Tamils have Vol. X.— 37. extended their influence over the nofth of Ceylon, forming a very important part of the population of that island. Next to the Dravidians are to be considered the Kolarian peoples (Munda-Kols, Larka-Kols, Bhumij, Santals, Kharia, Juang, Saoras, etc.) of the Orissa-Bengal country and farther in- land. The Santals represent the highest develop- ment of Kolarian culture, and the .hiangs per- haps the lowest; while the others, except some of the Kols, are more or less primitive. Like the Dravidians, the Kolarians, who are looked upon by some as a people even older, have given to and taken from the ancient and modern Hin- dus, and have also undoubtedly allected the physical type of both Dravidians and Aryans. In the Kolarians, as in the Dravidians, certain scholars detect traces of negroid intermixture, as well as much Aryan and some Mongolian blood. The Veddas of Ceylon, by some ethnolo- gists classified as a separate variety of man- kind, certainly are one of the most primitive peoples now existing. They have been thought to represent the oldest non-negroid population of India, now disappearing. Some have sought to class the Todas of Southern Hindustan as a peculiar people. The islands off the Indian coast present some interesting tribes. The Se- lungs of the iMergui Archipelago are classed by Deniker as 'Indosenians'; but this is rather doubtful, and a like uncertainty exists regard- ing the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands, the natives of the interior of Great Nicobar being savages of a rather primitive type. The Min- kopis or Andaman Islanders are characteristic Negritos, whose extension must at one time have been much greater. In Assam, Burma, and the Malaccan possessions and protectorates of Great Britain, a great variety of peoples are to be found, chiefly of Indo-Chinese, Proto-Malay, and so-called "Indonesian' origin, besides the Sakai and Semang of Jlalacca, who are more or less Negritos. Among the most notable of these peo- ples, outside of the Burmese, Karens, etc., are the Nagas of Manipur, the Chins of Burma and Ara- kan, the Lushai tribes of Assam, the Shans of Northern Burma, and some other tribes. The anthropological history of fndia includes the following successions and impacts of races: Pre-Dravidian and pre-Kolarian (with mixtures of Negrito and Proto-ltalay ) ; Aryan (invasion by the northwest as early as B.C. 2000 at least) ; Greek invasion, in the time of Alexander the Great (locally important in the Indus region, and more important as partly opening India to the Western world) : Bactrian invasions of the northwest (following the Greek, and of local im- portance) : Mohammedan invasions (a.d. 1000- 1400). resulting in the establishment of many d>Tiasties in the northwest and west, including the famous Mogul Empire of Delhi, and its suc- cessors of the eighteenth eentur>-, which were broken up by the revolt of the Mahrattas and Sikhs, who restored .ryan supremacy. Besides these nnist be counted the Pathan influence in the northwest at various times, the ilongol (Tibeto- Sinitic) influence from a comparatively early period in the Himalayan region, and Indo-Chinese and related influences in the northeast. Malayan elements also were present in the sotith and east, with the later Arabo-Persian. Dutch. Portuguese, French, and British commercial, missionary, and political achievements. The Parsis (Persians),