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THE

NATURAL HISTORY

OF

THE VARIETIES OF MAN.




THE

NATURAL HISTORY

OF

THE VARIETIES OF MAN.


                                  BY

                  ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S.,

               LATE FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE;
    ONE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, LONDON;
           CORRESPONDING MEMBER TO THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
                            NEW YORK, ETC.

                                LONDON:

                   JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.

                               M.D.CCCL.

                                LONDON:
              Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY and HENRY FLEY,
                       Bangor House, Shoe Lane.

                                  TO

                          EDWIN NORRIS, ESQ.,

                     OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY,
             TO WHOSE VALUABLE INFORMATION AND SUGGESTIONS
       MANY OF THE STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS OF THE PRESENT VOLUME
                           OWE THEIR ORIGIN,

                 ~The following Pages are Inscribed~,

                                                         BY HIS FRIEND,

                                                             THE AUTHOR.

  London, July 25th, 1850.




PREFACE.


If the simple excellence of a book were a sufficient reason for making
it the only one belonging to the sciences which it professed to
illustrate, few writers would be desirous of attempting a systematic
work upon the Natural History of their species, after the admirable
Physical History of Mankind, by the late and lamented Dr. Prichard,--a
work which even those who are most willing to defer to the supposed
superior attainments of Continental scholars, are not afraid to place
on an unapproached eminence in respect to both our own and other
countries. The fact of its being the production of one who was at
one and the same time a physiologist amongst physiologists, and a
scholar amongst scholars, would have made it this; since the grand
ethnological _desideratum_ required at the time of its publication, was
a work which, by combining the historical, the philological, and the
anatomical methods, should command the attention of the naturalist, as
well as of the scholar. Still it was a work of a rising rather than of
a stationary science; and the very stimulus which it supplied, created
and diffused a spirit of investigation, which--as the author himself
would, above all men, have desired--rendered subsequent investigations
likely to modify the preceding ones. A subject that a single book,
however encyclopædic, can represent, is scarcely a subject worth taking
up in earnest.

Besides this, there are two other reasons of a more special and
particular nature for the present addition to the literature of
Ethnology.

I. For each of the great sections of our species, the accumulation of
facts, even in the eleventh hour, has out-run the anticipations of
the most impatient; indeed so rapidly did it take place during the
latter part of Dr. Prichard's own lifetime, that the learning which he
displays in his latest edition, is, in its way, as admirable as the
bold originality exhibited in the first sketch of his system, published
as early as 1821; rather in the shape of a university thesis than of a
full and complete production. Thus--

For Asia, there are the contributions of Rosen to the philology of
Caucasus; without which (especially the grammatical sketch of the
Circassian dialects) the present writer would have considered his
evidence as disproportionate to his theory. Then, although matters
of Archæology rather than of proper Ethnography, come in brilliant
succession, the labours of Botta, Layard, and Rawlinson, on Assyrian
antiquity, to which may be added the bold yet cautious criticism and
varied observations of Hodgson, illustrating the obscure Ethnology
of the Sub-Himalayan Indians, and preeminently confirmatory of the
views of General Briggs and others as to the real affinities of the
mysterious hill-tribes of Hindostan. Add to these much new matter in
respect to the Indo-Chinese frontiers of China, Siam, and the Burmese
Empire; and add to this the result of the labours of Fellowes, Sharpe,
and Forbes, upon the monuments and language of Asia Minor. I do not
say that any notable proportion of these latter investigations have
been incorporated in the present work; their proper place being in a
larger and more discursive work. Nevertheless, they have helped to
determine those results to the general truth of which the present
writer commits himself.

Africa has had a bright light thrown over more than one of its darkest
portions by Krapff for the eastern coast, by Dr. Beke for Abyssinia,
by the Tutsheks for the Gallas and Tumalis, by the publications of
the Ethnological Society of Paris, and the researches of the American
and English Missionaries for many other of its ill-understood and
diversified populations, especially those to the south and west.

The copious extract from Mr. Jukes's Voyage of the _Fly_, show at once
how much has been added; yet, at the same time, how much remains to be
learned in respect to our knowledge of New Guinea; whilst the energy of
the Rajah Brooke has converted Borneo, from a _terra incognita_, into
one of the clear points of the ethnological world.

In _South_ America, although many of the details of Sir Robert
Schomburgk were laid before the world previous to the publication of
the fifth volume of the Physical History, many of them, though now
published, were at that time still in manuscript.

The great field, however, has been the _northern_ half of the New
World; and the researches which have illustrated this have illustrated
Polynesia and Africa as well. What may be called the _personal_ history
of the United States Exploring Expedition, was published in 1845. The
greatest mass, however, of philological _data_ ever accumulated by a
single enquirer--the contents of Mr. Hale's work on the philology
of the voyage--is recent. The areas which this illustrates are the
Oregon territory and California; and the proper complements to it are
Pickering's work on the Races of Man, the Smithsonian Contributions
to Knowledge, and the last work of the venerable Gallatin on the
Semi-civilized nations of America.

Surely these are elements pregnant with modifying doctrines!

II. For each of the great sections of our species, the present
classification presents some differences, which if true, are important.
Whether such novelties (so to say) are of a value at all proportionate
to that of the fresh _data_, is a matter for the reader rather than
the writer to determine--the latter is satisfied with indicating
them. The extension of the Seriform group, so as to include the
Caucasian Georgians and Circassians on the one side, and the Indians
of Hindostan on the other; the generalization of the term Oceanic so
as to include the Australians and Papuans--the definitude given to
the Micronesian origin of the Polynesians--the new distribution of
the Siberian Samöeids, Yeniseians, and Yukahiri--the formation of
the class of Peninsular Mongolidæ, so as to affiliate the Americans
(previously recognised as fundamentally of one and the same stock) with
the north-eastern Asiatics--the sequences in the way of transition from
the Semitic Arab to the <DW64>--the displacement of the Celtic nations,
and the geographical extension given to the original Slavonians, are
points for which the present writer is responsible; not, however,
without previous minute investigation. The proofs thereof lie in tables
of vocabularies, analyses of grammars, and ethnological reasonings,
far too elaborate to be fit for aught else than a series of special
monographs; not for a general view of the human species, as classified
according to its varieties.

This _classification_ is the _chief_ end of his work; and, more than
anything else, it is this attempt at classification which has given
a subordinate position to certain other departments of his subject.
Where such is not the case, one of three reasons stands in its place
to account for the matters enlarged upon, apparently at the expense of
others.

1. The novelty of the information acquired.

2. The extent to which the subject has been previously either
overlooked or thrown in the back-ground.

3. And, finally (though perhaps the plea is scarcely a legitimate one),
the degree of attention which has been paid to the particular question
by its expositor.

  LONDON, _July 25th, 1850_.




BIBLIOGRAPHY.

_Notice of the chief works either used as authorities, and not
particularly quoted, or else illustrative of certain portions of the
subject._


    Arnold.--History of Rome--Early Italian nations.

   