last work,344 furnishes many instances of surviving aborigines. These
have been more copiously and critically examined by Lieiftenant-
General Briggs,346 whose conclusions are the following :
“ 1| That the Hindus p. e. the Aryian, or white people’s immigrations]
entered India from a foreign country, and that they found it
pre-occupied by inhabitants.
2. That by slow degrees they possessed themselves of the whole
of the soil, reducing to serfage those they could retain upon it.
3. That they brought with them the Sanscrit language, a tongue
different from that of the aborigines.
4. That they introduced into the country municipal institutions.
5. That the aborigines differ in every respect from the Hindus.
6. Lastly ; that the aborigines throughout India are derived from
one common source.”
Allowing this last conclusion to be correct, it becomes, positive
that the source of this aboriginal group of races in Hindostán must
be radically distinct from that of the later Sanseritic intruders_
whose earliest monuments, the Vedas, trace them backwards to
Sogdiana, Bactriana and Persia, as their own primordial homesteads,
where their characteristics seem to blend into races of the Arian
group. Briggs enumerates, among extant indigenous tribes of
India :—
The Bengies in Bengal,
“ Tirhusm Tirhut,
“ Koles in Kolywara and Kolwan,
“ Malas in Malda and Malpur,
li Domes in Domapur, &c. &c.,
“ Mirs in Mlrwara,
“ Bkils in Bhilwara and Bhilwan,
“ Mahars in Maha Rastra (Mahratta),
“ Mans in Mandesa,
“ Gonds in Gondwara or Gondwana,
il G arrows in Bhagalpur,
“ Sonthals in Cattack,
“ Bhars in Gorakpnr,
“ Gheris in Ghazipur,
the Dhanuks in Behar,
“ Dhers in Sagor,
“ Minas in Ambir,
“ Ramusis in Telingana,
“ Bedars in Dekhan,
“ Cherumars in Malabar,
“ Curumbas in Cañara,
“ Vedars in Travancore,
“ Marawas at the South,
“ Kallars in Tinevélly,
“ Pullars in Tanjore,
I Balites in Arcot,
“ Chenchis in Mysore,
“ Chenciw-ars of Telingana:
844 Natural History of Man (supra, note 172,) I, pp. 248-57.
845 Two lectures on the aboriginal race of India, as distinguished from the Sanseritic or Hindu
Race—R. Asiatic Soc., London, 8vo, 1852; pp. 6. — Compare A Sketch of Assam, with some
account of the Hill Tribes, by an officer; London, 8vo, 1847, passim, for many other aborigines
on the confines of Indo-China ; — and H o o k e r (Himalayan Journals, London, 8vo,
1864; I, pp. 127-41), for the Lepchas &c., and (II, pp. 14) for the Harrum-mos and others.
For the affinities or divergencies of Dravirian idioms in relation to other groups of tongues,
the reader will be unable to find more masterly elucidations than in my friend M . M a u r y ’s
Chapter I, pp. 52—5, 74-6, 84, ante.
besides the Kamiwarsj Telmiwars, Barici, Bondassi, Bandipote, Talliar,
and others.
This arid catalogue of names indicates the number and variety of
these seemingly-proximate races. With the exception of, here and
there, more or less defective, sketches of a Garrow, a Tuda, a Haga,
a Siahpush, a Bhot’iya, or a Ceylonese, I have seen no authentic
portraits of Hindostanic aborigines whence ideas about their several
characteristics can be obtained. As for their crania, “ ce n’est pas le
genre” among Anglo-Indians to preserve, for science, those they cut
off; such men as Hodgson of Hepaul, and Cunningham of Ladàk,346
being honorable exceptions. A succinct résumé of aboriginal families
of mankind known to exist within the “East Indian Realm” of
zoology, has been compiled from the latest Sources, with his usual
ability, by Maury.347 Space restricts me to reiteration of tbe lament,
over the ethnological supineness of those who ought to fill scientific
collectorships in India, implied in his r e m a r k s |f c “ These indigenous
tribes, of which the débris still wander in the north-west of America,
those insular septs that navigators have encountered in Polynesia,
Oceanica, and Indian Archipelago—of such, Asia even at this day
yet offers us the pendants. At an ancient epoch, which it is impossible
rigorously to assign, the centre and the south of this part
of the world were inhabited by those savage races that Hindoo civilization
has pushed away before it, and which Chinese society has
ejected toward the southern extremities of its empire. It is in the
almost impenetrable defiles, which separate Hindostàn from Thibet
and from China, wherein these disinherited populations have sought
refuge. There they subsist still ; and there they will continue to
subsist until English colonization [as in the pending case of the
Santals, 1855-6] shall have forever blotted them out from the soil.
It is with races of men as with races of animals, which Providence
creates, and afterwards abandons to destruction. * * * Who can
count how many races have already disappeared; what populations,
of which we ignore the history, the very existence, have quitted
our globe, without leaving on it their name, at least, for a trace !”
Only since 1850, through Arnaud and Vayssière,348 have we heard
of the Alehdàm (servants) of Southern Arabia; probably last degraded
relies of the aboriginal Cushite, or Himyarite,stock; to be added to
346 Ladàk, physical, statistical and historical, with notices of the surrounding countries, London
8vo, 1854; pp. 285-312; Plates 10-11, 13-18, 22-24.
" Les Populations Primitives du Nord de V Sindoustartr—Extrait du Bulletin de la Société de
Géographie-, Paris, 1854; p. 39.
348 “ Les Akhdàm de l’Yémen, leun origine probable, lenrs moeurs ” — Journal Asiatique,
Paris, April, 1850 ; pp. 380-2.