Part 29 (1/2)
The Cingalese are entirely Indian in figure, in language, in manners, in customs, in religion and in their government. Their features are not widely different from those of Europeans, but they differ from them in their colour, in their height, and in the proportions of their bodies.
The hue of their skin varies from light brown to black. Black is the usual colour for their eyes and hair. They are shorter than Europeans, but well made, with well defined muscles. Their chests and their shoulders are broad, their hands and feet small. Their hair grows in large quant.i.ty and to great length, but they have little on their faces.
Their women are, as a rule, well made.
The attractions which a lady ought to combine in order to be a perfect beauty are, according to a Kandian fop, as follow: her hair should be as bushy as the tail of a peac.o.c.k, long enough to reach the knees, and gracefully curled at the ends; her eyebrows arched as the rainbow, eyes blue as sapphires, and her nose like a hawk's beak; her lips must vie with coral in redness and l.u.s.tre, and small, even, and closely-set teeth, resembling jessamine buds, should complete the picture.
Ceylon, as everybody knows, is indebted for its great prosperity to its coffee plantations, a large trade being carried on between the English and its inhabitants, who enjoy a well-earned reputation as cultivators of that shrub.
”The Kandians,” says M. Alfred Grandidier, ”possess more robust const.i.tutions, less feeble limbs, and features not so effeminate as their countrymen of the coast; their l.u.s.ty shoulders, broad chests, and short but muscular legs, are a proof of the effect which climate can produce on the development of the human frame.
”The habits of the mountaineers have undergone scarcely any change in consequence of the foreign influences which have impressed a complex character upon the manners of the people nearer the sea. Their primitive customs, originated by the imperious necessities of life, are still found in existence among them; and they have none of the timidity and servility which are the attributes of the dwellers in the maritime districts. The feudal state in which they have long lived has preserved in them an energy and independence rare among Indian populations. The configuration of the country enabled them, in fact, to retain their freedom more easily than their brethren of the northern plains, either when aggression came from their own ruler or from foreign intruders; but, nevertheless, that indolence still prevails among them which comes naturally to every people who are not obliged to contend against any material obstacle in order to supply themselves with the necessities of life. The tyranny of their masters, whether chiefs or kings, has unhappily accustomed them to hypocrisy, and made them vindictive.
”Whilst the Cingalese of the coast have applied themselves to trade and industry, those of the high regions always show repugnance to such occupations. They have invariably shunned any connection with foreigners; and so great, even at the present day, is their desire to withdraw as much as possible from a.s.sociation with the English settlers, that they conceal their villages in the middle of the jungle, and at a distance of some hundreds of yards from the least frequented paths. A rice-field in the midst of forests, or a glimpse of the tall tops of cocoa-trees, alone indicate the presence of human beings in places that would otherwise be thought uninhabited. In countries like these, where nature has acc.u.mulated so many of her treasures, the relations of man with man, which a.s.suredly conduce to the happiness of all, are not indispensable; and the natives love a solitude, where they enjoy benefits of every kind in profusion.
”The Cingalese of the hills have a traditional respect for their chiefs, and a deep attachment to ancient usages. Their costume differs from that of the inhabitants of the plains, insomuch that they do not habitually wear the vest, this garment being, in fact, exclusively reserved for their n.o.bles, who a.s.sume it on grand occasions; their hair is allowed to grow to its full length, and is not confined by a comb. Sumptuary laws and religious injunctions settle in other respects the clothing suitable to each cla.s.s, the greater part of these laws being, to the present day, still in force among the Kandians, in spite of the abolition of castes which has been decreed by the English administration.
”The length of the frock-like petticoats worn by men and women both in the high and low lands, and which seem to be the part of the national costume to which the greatest importance is attached, was formerly proportioned according to the social position of the individual.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 164.--PALANQUIN.]
”The pariahs were not permitted to let this skirt come lower than the knee, and males and females of inferior caste had the breast uncovered.
Among the chiefs themselves a difference existed, and still exists, as to the method of wearing the _comboy_. After rolling it twice or three times round the hips and legs, they form with it round the waist a more or less bulky girdle, the dimensions of which depend upon their rank.
The n.o.bles are also distinguished from the lower orders by their extraordinary headgear, consisting of a sort of round, flat, white linen cap, like that worn by the Basque peasantry, while the lower cla.s.ses merely surround the head with a silk handkerchief, leaving none of it bare except the top. The king alone possessed the privilege of wearing sandals. Prohibitions, such as one against wearing gold and silver chains or ornaments, are still scrupulously observed by the Kandians, who strenuously resist any encroachments of the inferior castes.”
M. Guillaume Lejean has published some interesting particulars of his travels in Cashmere and the Punjaub. It is not our intention to follow the learned wanderer in his rapid journeys across Hindostan, but we should like to draw attention to a novel opinion which has been expressed by him as to the ethnology of the Indian population.
M. Lejean believes that he has re-discovered in Hindostan the Aryans, that is to say, the primitive people from whom the Aryan or Caucasian race is descended. The features of these peoples, our own genuine ancestors, are regular and of an European type. Their complexion is not browner than that of the inhabitants of Provence, Sicily, or Southern Spain. This statement does not apply to the lower castes, whose skin grows darker and darker, until it reaches the sooty tint of the Nubian.
The country people have long and slightly wavy hair, blacker and more brilliant than jet. Though not effeminate in appearance, the race is deficient in muscular vigour, an effect attributed by the traveller to the torrid heat of the climate. The women are generally of middle height, with pleasing but expressionless countenances of little originality; their eyes are large, black, and submissive, and their hands delicately beautiful.
In the opinion of M. Lejean, the fine, symmetrical heads, small, well-formed hands, and regular features of the natives of Scinde, remind one completely of the white European race, and allow us to identify the inhabitants of that part of Asia with the ancient Aryans, who were the colonizers of primitive Europe, and who springing, as is said, from the regions of Persia, spread themselves over our own continent and that of Asia.
This is an opportune moment for alluding to a race, sprung seemingly from Hindoos of the lower cla.s.ses, which had probably abandoned its own land, and from which those detached groups that traverse the entire globe, without ever fixing themselves anywhere, or ever losing their peculiar characteristics, derive their origin. Under this category come the wandering tribes, commonly known in different languages, as Gipsies, Bohemians, Zingari, Gitanos, &c., who wander over countries either as beggars or in pursuit of the lowest callings. These Gipsies and Bohemians, who are especially numerous in the South of France, and enjoy a considerable repute as horse-clippers and tinkers, who are invariably vagrants, and now and then thieves, appear to be descended from low-caste Hindoos. They are travelling Pariahs. Such, at least, is the opinion entertained by some modern ethnologists.
MALABAR FAMILY.
The Malabar Family inhabiting the Deccan differs in many respects from the Hindoo, and the peoples included in it are very dark and sometimes black in complexion. This branch is divided into three princ.i.p.al divisions: the _Malabars_ proper, who dwell in the country of that name; the _Tamuls_, in the Carnatic; and the _Telingas_, in the north-east.
Neither the language nor the customs of the tribes composing this group, exhibit peculiarities sufficiently important to induce us to stop to describe them.
CHAPTER II.
ETHIOPIAN BRANCH.
The African populations which we cla.s.s with the Brown Race have a resemblance in the formation of the body to those of the White Race, but their skin is darker in colour, being intermediate between that of the Negro and that of the White. The natives const.i.tuting this branch have never attained to any appreciable degree of civilization, and there is a complete void of positive notions as to their origin or migrations, while even the different languages in use among them, are partly unknown to us. We shall distinguish in the Ethiopian branch, two great families, the _Abyssinian_ and the _Fellan_.