CHAPTER VI CIVILIZATIONS THAT HAVE INDIA "In population the Caucasian race leads the world, with about 800,000,000 souls. Nearly 300,000,000 of these, however, are of the darker branches of the race and live in Asia, 220,000,000 of them being Aryans of India." We have seen that mankind is divided into three great primary groups or races: black (Negro), yellow (Mongolian), and white (Caucasian). We have also seen that the Caucasian or white race is essentially migratory, and that its restless energy, combined with its superior cultural ability had, at an early period, led it from its primeval home into every continent. These age-long movements of the Caucasian had in prehistoric times given rise to extensive blood admixture with both black and yellow races, so much so that at the dawn of history there were numerous mixbreed Caucasic peoples fully constituted as "races," some by admixture with the negro, others by admixture with the Mongolian. 1Senate Document No. 662, 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission, 1911, under title of Dictionary of Races or Peoples. Our immigration officials, in the main, classify the peoples coming to our shores according to the languages they speak. For instance, the Hebrew from Russia is classified as Slavic. On the basis of language, the American negro, immigrating into another country, would be classified as Caucasian because he speaks a Caucasic language. Language, then, is not a satisfactory test of race. Aryan language, in Asia, has outlived the purity of the Aryan race. It is by the language test only that it may be said 300,000,000 of our race live in Asia, 220,000,000 being Aryans of India. The white race is divided into three main divisions, the Mediterranean, the Alpine, and the Nordic or Aryan (see notes to Chapter I). To the latter the Anglo-Saxon belongs. His language, his literature, his art, his ethics, are fundamentally Aryan. The Aryan peoples were early divided into Eastern and Western branches-the Eastern in Asia, the Western mainly in Europe. The objection to language as a test of race lies in the fact that races mix, but that languages do not. When two peoples speaking different tongues come into contact the final outcome is the blood admixture of the groups and the survival of one of the languages. We see this principle in progress in Ireland and Wales, where Mediterraneans and Nordics are amalgamating, but where English is supplanting the Keltic speech acquired by the Mediterraneans from earlier Nordic conquerors. In central and northern Latin America, the Spanish and Portuguese languages have survived, though the pure whites are, with each generation, becoming submerged in the racial mixtures. We are, then, prepared to see why it is that a classification of Aryan peoples on the basis of language does not of necessity agree with their classification on the basis of race stock. This much is certain: the "Aryan," whatever his language may be, who is not of fair complexion is not Aryan. Nor does the Aryan become less fair when dwelling in hot countries. The Hima of Uganda and the Fula of Nigeria, negroid Caucasians dwelling in equatorial Africa, are of much lighter complexion than the surrounding pure negroes. After four centuries, the pure whites of Central America are as white as their ancestors in Europe. The English in Jamacia are not darker than the English in England. Those who have been exposed to a hotter sun and have become tanned will breed as true to the original type as their kinsmen in North. Europe. All ethnologists know that we find dark races at the poles and light skinned races at the equator. Climate, in conjunction with other natural agencies working over an immense period of time may, for all we know, serve permanently to darken a breed, but there has been no perceptible change in race complexions during the period of known history. So let us not permit mixbreeds to be, in forceful vernacular, "wished on us" under the guise of “our sun-burnt cousins," by negrophile and uncritical authors.1 Our relatedness to the Aryan conquerors of India is certain. Such kinship is honorable and in it we gain an added confidence that Aryan breeds will develop great cultures wherever it is possible for them to express their inherent qualities. But surely those who assert that the present peoples of India are our blood relatives, and should be received as such, ought to be able to explain why the overwhelming mass of Indians are colored, why their complexion exhibits all shades of color, from the jet-black to the blue-eyed blond! Is it that climate has selected the mass for racial slaughter and an infinitesimal few for racial preservation? We know that this is not true. Not climate, but the blood of colored races, is responsible for our "sun-burnt cousins." Not climate, but caste is responsible for the little purity that exists. The briefest survey of the Aryan conquest of India will suffice to show that the white Aryan came into contact with a decayed civilization which was in its last stages as a result of the previous Caucasian conquerors of India having interbred with the aborigines. The breed which produced the earlier culture had become submerged in the black mass about them, 1The writer is not alluding to the very capable authors of Senate Document No. 662, 61st Congress, 3rd Session. Throughout this valuable work there is an effort to define races and peoples in terms of blood lineage as well as classify them according to languages. and the new-coming Aryan found that the "melting pot" had prepared India for an easy conquest. The Aryans, by reason of race and culture, came as aristocrats. Their numbers were but small when compared with the colored multitudes about them. They came slowly from their homeland in the northwest where, in spite of later mixtures with blacks and yellows, we yet find Afghans and Persians who are fundamentally Aryan. While all the darker strains of India may not be traced to the influence of the blood of the Asiatic branch of the negro race, which at an early time was widely distributed on the Asiatic mainland and which now has many representatives in the islands south of the continent, yet the blood of the negro is evident in certain of the races of India. Speaking of the race types of India, Madison Grant says, "The Aryanized Afghan and Hindu of northern India speak languages derived from Old Sanskrit and are closely related to the Mediterranean race. Aside from common dolichocephaly, these peoples are entirely distinct from the Dravidians of south India, whose speech is agglutinative and who show strong evidence of profound mixture with the ancient Negrito substratum of southern Asia. Everywhere throughout the Asiatic portion of its range the Mediterranean race overlies an even more ancient Negroid race. These Negroids still have representatives among the pre-Dravidians of India, the Ved |