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E T H N O L O G Y   O F   E U R O P E.

THE proper introduction to the ethnology of Europe is the following series of preliminaries:—

1. The physical peculiarities of the quarter of the world so called;

2. A general view of the stocks, families, or races which occupy it;

3. A statement of the chief problems connected with the Natural History of its populations.

1. The physical conditions of Europe are as remarkable in respect to their negative as their positive characters; in other words, there is a great number of points wherein Europe differs from Asia, Africa, America, and Polynesia, in respect to what it has not, as well as in respect to what it has.

a. No part of Europe lies between the Tropics; so that the luxuriance of a spontaneous and varied vegetation, with its pernicious tendencies to incline the habits of its population to idleness, is wanting. The rank and rapid growth of the plants which serve as food to men and animals, and which dispense with labour, nowhere occurs.

b. No part comes under the class of Steppes; or, at most, but imperfectly approaches their character. In Asia, the vast table-lands of the centre, occupied by the Turks and Mongols, have ever been the cradle of an active, locomotive, hungry, and aggressive population. And these have seen, with a strong desire to possess, the more favoured areas of the south; and have conquered them accordingly. The Luneburg Heath, and parts of Hanover are the nearest resemblances to the great Steppes of Mongolia, and Independent Tartary; but they are on a small and beggarly scale. In Russia, where the land is flat and level, the ground is also fertile, so that agriculture has been practicable, and (being practicable) has bound the occupant to the soil, instead of mounting him on fleet horses to wander with his flocks and herds from spot to spot, to become a shepherd by habit, and a warrior by profession; for in all countries, shepherds and hunters are marauders on a small, and conquerors on a large scale.

d. Its diameter from north to south is less than its diameter from east to west. This has kept the mass of its population within a similar climate; or, if not within a similar climate, within a range of temperature far less wide than that which separates the African, the American, or the Asiatic of the northern parts of their respective continents from the Hottentot of the Cape, the Fuegian of Cape Horn, and the Malay of the Malayan Peninsula. It has given uniformity to its occupants; since varieties increase as we proceed from south to north, but not as we go from east to west—or vice versâ.

Amongst its positive features the most remarkable are connected with its mountain-ranges, the extent of its sea-board, and the direction of its rivers.

a. In no country are the great levels more broken by mountains, or the great mountains more in contiguity to considerable tracts of level country. The effect of this is to give the different characters of the Mountaineer and the Lowlander more opportunity of acting and reacting on each other.

c. Its greatest rivers fall into seas navigable throughout the year. Contrast with this the great rivers of Asia, the Obi, the Lena, the Yenesey, and others, which for the purposes of navigation are useless; falling, as they do, into an Arctic sea.

In no part of the world do the differences between the varieties of the human species lie within narrower limits than in Europe. The most extreme opponents to the doctrine of the unity of our kind have never made many species out of the European specimens of the genus Homo. And these are by no means of the most satisfactory sort.

They are unsatisfactory for the following reasons. The differences that are inferred from dissimilarity of language, are neutralised by an undoubted similarity of physical form. The dissimilarities that are inferred from peculiarities of physical form are neutralised by undeniable affinities of speech. Looking to his size and colour, the Laplander is far, very far, removed from the Fin. Yet the languages belong to one and the same class. Looking to their tongues, the Basque of the Pyrenees, and the Skipetar (or Albanian of Albania) are each isolated populations. Yet their form is but slightly different from those of the other Europeans.

2. The families, stocks, or races, which occupy Europe will be taken in the order which is most convenient; so that it will be practical rather than scientific.

a. In Malta the language is Arabic, and, of course, to a certain extent, the blood also. But Malta is European only in respect to its political relations. Still its population requires notice.

b. The Osmanlis, or Turks of Turkey, are Asiatic rather than European; an intrusive population whose introduction is within its historical period. I will not say, however, that in the parts between the Dnieper and Don, members of the same great stock may not have been settled in the times anterior to history. In the following pages, the Turks of Europe will be called Osmanlis, or Ottomans: since the word Turk is a generic name applied to the family to which they, along with the Independent Tartars, the Uzbeks, the Turcomans, the Turks of Asia Minor, the Yakuts on the borders of the Icy Sea, and several other great branches, extending to the frontier of China, and the mouth of the Lena, belong. The Turk is European, as the New Englander is American; i.e., not strictly so.

The Ugrian, a stock which is the only one common to both Europe and Asia, and contains the Lapps, the Finlanders, the Esthonians, and some other smaller populations on the European feeders of the Volga. The particular branch, however, from which the Majiars were derived is Asiatic.

The next two stocks consist of a single family each, and they are mentioned together because they are so isolated as to have no known affinities either with each, or with any other population. These are—

d. The Basques of Biscay and Gascony, i.e., the Western Pyrenees; once spread over the whole of the Spanish peninsula, and for that reason commonly called Iberian—

e. The Skipetar, or Albanians of Albania.

I am taking, as aforesaid, the populations in the order of convenience, and the next is

g. The Gothic or German—

h. The Sarmatian, or Slavono-Lithuanic, containing the Slavonians and Lithuanians of Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Servia, Carinthia, Lithuania, with other less important areas, and lastly—

i. The classical or Greco-Latin stock of Italy and Greece, completing the list of the European stocks.

These three are more closely allied to each other than any of the previous ones. They are also nearer the Keltic; so much so, that a single class has been made out of the four, a class called Indo-European. The study, however, of the value of classes is in its infancy. The real fact that they are allied to an extent to which the others are not, is important.

The same suggestion arises when we look at the country occupied by the intrusive families of the Osmanlis and the Majiars of Rumelia and Hungary. The populations here are comparatively new-comers; yet it was no uninhabited tracts that they appropriated. Who was there before them? Perhaps some members of one of the stocks now existing. Perhaps, a wholly different family now extinct.

My own belief is, that the number of European stocks for which there is an amount of evidence sufficient to make their extinction a reasonable doctrine, is two—two and no more; and, even with these, the doctrine of their extinction is only reasonable.

a. The old Etruscans are the first of these;

b. The Pelasgi the second.

Each will be noticed in its proper place.

I have used the word extinction. I must now qualify it; reminding the reader that this very qualification introduces a new and difficult subject. Extinction often means no more than the abolition of the outward and visible signs of ethnological difference. A negro marries a white. In the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh generation, as the case may be, his descendant is, to all intents and purposes, a white man. Yet the negro blood is not extinguished. It exists, though in a small proportion.

Again—a Cornishman loses his native language and speaks English as his mother tongue. Many generations before he did this he differed from the Englishman in speech only. Is his British blood extinguished? No. The chief sign of it has been lost. That is all.

Stocks may intermix, and—

Stocks may lose their characteristics.

Now both these phenomena are eminently common in European ethnology; and this is what we expect from history. Two populations, the Roman and the German, have more than doubled their original areas. Were all the old inhabitants, male and female, old and young, in the countries that they appropriated, put to the sword? We hope and believe the contrary. In most cases we know they were not. Sometimes there was intermarriage. This produced intermixture. Sometimes the language, religion, laws, and habits of the conquerors were adopted by the conquered. This was a loss of characteristics. So far greater than the influences of all the other populations of Europe have been those of the Germans and the Romans (to which, for the eastern part of the continent, we must add the Turks), that for nearly half Europe, whenever the question will be one of great intermixture, the basis will be Keltic, Iberic, or Sarmatian as the case may be, with Romans or Germans for the source of the superadded elements.

3. The chief problems of the present volume will, for the present, only be stated; the results being reserved for the conclusion. They are two—

b. The extent to which differences of what is called race is an element in national likes and dislikes, predilections or antipathies.

It cannot be denied that each of these is a point of practical as well as theoretical importance.

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The areas with which it is most convenient to begin, are those of the two isolated stocks, the Skipetar (Albanian), and the Iberian,—Albania and the Spanish peninsula. Of these Albania will be taken first.

Many writers have considered the Albanian and the Iberic stocks to be the two oldest in Europe; and there is no want of reasonable grounds for the doctrine. It is not, however, for this reason that they come first in the list.

Nor is it because the Skipetar of Albania are the more eastern of the two that they take precedence of the Iberians; although, in the eyes of such inquirers as deduce the European populations from Asia, their position on the frontier of Europe gives good grounds for doing so.

It is so convenient to take Gaul next to the Spanish peninsula, Italy next to Gaul, and Greece next to Italy, that the necessity for breaking the continuity of the arrangement when we come to Albania must be avoided; and this is done by dealing with Albania at the very first, and getting its ethnology disposed of as a preliminary. It could not be taken in hand after that of Greece, for reasons which will appear when we come to that country.

Like all such coincidences it has done mischief in the way of ethnology. Though few have derived the Skipetar from Scotland, many have done so from Caucasus—and that on the strength of the name. Yet it is as little native in the one locality as the other, since no nation of Daghestan calls itself Albanian, a fact which precludes all arguments in favour of a real community of origin from the similarity of name in limine; or rather a fact which ought to do so, for the Caucasian origin of the Skipetar still has its supporters.

Both the men and women are hardy, and expose their bodies freely to the atmosphere, accustoming themselves to an out-door life amongst their flocks and herds, and dwelling, when indoors, in rude huts. Like the Swiss, they willingly let out their valour and hardihood in military service; and the best and most unscrupulous soldiers of the sultan are those recruits, who partly by force, partly by pay, are brought from Albania. Hence we find Albanians far beyond the pale of Albania; in Greece, in Thrace, in Asiatic Turkey, in Egypt, and even in Persia. The tribes, too, amongst themselves indulge in the right of private quarrel, rarely rising to the dignity of warfare, but more like the old border-feuds of England and Scotland. With the Slavonians of Montenegro, different from themselves in blood and political relations, the warfare is more bitter and serious, and the Albano-Slavonic frontier is the continual scene of aggression and reprisal and intrigue.

Creeds sit easy upon them. Before the Ottoman conquest they were Christians, partly of the Greek, partly of the Roman church. At present they are divided between the three, the majority being Mahometans.

The Skipetar fall into the following divisions, clans, or tribes.

1. The Gheghides, containing—

a. The proper Gheghides, the most northern of the Skipetar, conterminous with the Slavonic countries of Montenegro, Bosnia, and Herzegovna, bounded on the south by the river Drin—

b. The Mirdites, south of the Drin, in the province of Croia, who like the Gheghides, are Christians.

The Gheghides, as a class, are dark-skinned and black-eyed.

2. The Toskides of Toskuria, or the country between Croia and the Vojutza, the least mountainous part of Albania and containing the valleys of the Sternatza and the Beratina, are more light than dark, with blue or grey eyes.

3. The Liapides of Liapuria, or the valley and water-shed of the Deropuli and the parts about Delvinaki, are the worst-looking and most demoralized of the Skipetar. Such at least is their character.

4. The Dzhami of Dzhamuria are the most agricultural. They extend from the Liapides on the north, to the Greek frontier southward, Parga and Suli being two of their towns.

It is not for nothing that this difference of form has been indicated. In the classical writers we find more than one of the old Spanish populations mentioned under different derivatives from the same root, and sometimes a doubt is expressed by the writer in whose pages it occurs, as to whether there were two separate populations, or only one denoted by two synonymous names. Thus, side by side with the Bast-uli, we find the Bast-itani, and, side by side with the Turd-uli, the Turd-etani. Now respecting these last, Strabo expressly says that whether they were different populations under the same name, or the same under different ones is uncertain.

That the Euskara is no new tongue may be inferred from the fact of its falling into dialects; which Humboldt limits to three, whilst others extend them to five or six.

b. The Guipuscoan is the western Biscayan.

c. The Laburtanian is the Euskarian of France, spoken in the parts about St. Jean de Luz; and which, in the district of Soule, is supposed to fall into a sub-dialect.

His inference was (as might be expected) that the Euskarian was as little a modern and local tongue as the Welsh; indeed, that it was so far from anything of the kind, as to be one of the oldest in Europe, and not only old, but widely-spread also. The whole of the peninsula, France as far as the Garonne and the Rhone, and even portions of Italy, were, according to Humboldt, originally Basque; or, as it is more conveniently called, Iberic or Iberian, from the ancient name of Spain—Iberia.

So that now we talk of the ancient Vascones, Varduli, Autrigones and Caristii as particular divisions of the great Iberic stock, under their ancient names, the Euskaldunac being the same under a modern one; whilst the Basques and Navarrese are Euskaldunac, under French and Spanish designations.

With the pure Euscaldunac let us now contrast the most mixed portion of the Peninsular population; which is that of the water-system of the Guadalquiver, and the parts immediately south and east of it—Seville, Cordova, Jaen, Grenada, and Murcia, if we take the modern provinces; the country of the Turdetani and Bastitani, if we look to the ancient populations—Bætica, if we adopt the general name of the Romans, Andalusia in modern geography.

Between the garrisons of Rome and Carthage we may safely assume some intermixture of native African blood—Numidian, Gætulian, or Mauritanian—Amazirgh, Kabail, or Berber. It is safe, too, not exactly to exclude Greek influences from Turdetanian Iberia altogether, but to hold as a general rule that, from the monopolizing character of the Phœnician commerce—especially the Carthaginian branch of it—the Greek and Phœnician influences were in the inverse ratio to each other.

The chief negative fact connected with ancient Bætica is, that none of its geographical localities end in -briga, a remark, of which we shall soon see the import.

The Suevi of Spain must have been but little different from those Burgundian Germans who conquered Germany. They formed part of the same confederacy, and only differed from their allies in proceeding further southwards.

The Goths belonged to a different branch. Their epoch is from A.D. 412 to A.D. 711. As the Gothic empire was an extension from that of southern Gaul, Catalonia may be the province where the Gothic blood is most abundant. Niebuhr considers that they pressed the Suevi before them into Portugal and Asturias.

From Marseilles, Greek colonists founded Emporia on the coast of Catalonia, and a few other places of less importance.

But who were the Keltæ of Spain? the population whose name occurs in the word Celtici and Celtiberi, Keltic Iberians, or Iberian Kelts? Three considerations come in here.

a. First, the external evidence, or the testimony of ancient authors as to the presence of Kelts in Spain and Portugal.

b. Secondly, the internal evidence derived from the remains of language, the presence of certain customs, and physical appearance.

c. The à priori likelihood or unlikelihood of a Kelt-iberic mixture.

The last is considerable.

The external evidence is clear and decisive. To go no further than Strabo, we have Kelts in the north, Kelts between the Guadiana and the Douro, and Kelts in the interior.

At the head-waters of the Guadiana, Posidonius places the Keltiberians, in which parts they “increased in numbers, and made the whole of the neighbouring country Keltiberic.” This is the country on each side of the Sierra de Toledo, or New Castile, the very centre of Spain, and, as such, an unlikely place for an immigrant population, whether we look to its distance from the frontier, or to its mountainous aspect. They are carried, at least, as far north as the mountains of Burgos, and to the upper waters of the Douro on one side, and the Ebro on the other. So that Old Castile, with parts of Leon and Aragon, may be considered as Keltiberic. This is the first division.

In the south of Portugal comes the second, i.e., in Alemtejo, or the parts between the Tagus and the Guadiana. Here are the Celtici of the classical writers.

Tested, however, by the presence of the form in question, Valentia on the west, and all Portugal (the ancient Lusitania) on the east, were Keltiberic—as may be seen by reference to any map of ancient Spain.

But there is another series of facts which goes further still to invalidate the belief in the existence of Kelts in Spain. It is this. Instead of the Kelts of Iberia having been Kelts in the modern sense of the term, the Kelts of Gallia were Iberians. This is an unfortunate circumstance. Writers, speakers, journalists, and orators, Ribbonmen and Orangemen, who neither know nor care much about the Natural History of Man, talk about the Keltic stock, or the Keltic race, with a boldness and fluency that, except in the case of the antagonist term Anglo-Saxon, we meet with nowhere else. To read some of the dissertations on Irish misgovernment, or Welsh dissent, one might fancy that an American of Pennsylvania was writing about the aboriginal Indians, or the enslaved negroes—so much is there made of race, and so familiar are even the non-ethnological part of the world with the term. Men know this when they know nothing else.

Great, then, is the actual and practical currency and general recognition of the word; so great that its historical truth, and its theoretical propriety are matters of indifference. Be it ever so incorrect, the time for changing it has gone by. Nevertheless, I think (nay, I am sure) that the word is misapplied.

I also think that even the first populations to which it was applied were other than Keltic in the modern sense of the term.

I think, in short, that it was a word belonging to the Iberian language, applied, until the time of Cæsar at least, to Iberic populations.

The name came from the Greeks of the Gulf of Lyons—the Greeks of Massilia, or of Emporia, more probably the former. Now, as there is express evidence that a little to the west of Marseilles the Ligurian and Iberian areas met, the likelihood of the word belonging to the latter language is considerable.

But the Greek form for Galli is Γἁλ-αται, a form suspiciously like Κἑλτ-αι. I admit that this engenders a difficulty, since it shows the possibility of the two words being the same. At the same time it can be explained. The ατ in Γἁλ-αται is non-radical. It is the sign of the plural number, as it is in Irish at the present moment; whereas the τ in Κελτ-αι is a part of the root.

Perhaps the point is not very important. Whether we look to the amount of their civilization, to their national temper as shown in the defence of their independence, or to the extent to which they contributed to the literature of the Latin language, there are no very striking differences between the Gaul and the Iberian. Personal heroes like Viriathus and Vercingetorix occur on both sides; whilst Gaul resisted Cæsar by instances of endurance behind stone walls scarcely inferior to the display of obstinate valour at Numantia.

Such is the basis of the Spanish stock, and such the chief superadded elements—Iberic in the first instance: then Phœnician, Greek, Roman, Gothic, Vandal, Alan (?), Jewish, Arab, and Norman, to say nothing about the cases of French and other settlers from the modern kingdoms of Europe. These elements are differently distributed over the several provinces; and at the present moment each has some peculiar characteristics.

The most regular features, and the most purely brunette complexions are found in Andalusia, conjoined with a gay, pleasure-loving disposition; not given to the sterner virtues, but with considerable intellectual capacity, as shown both in art and literature; and, in Andalusia, the foreign elements are at their maximum—chiefly oriental, but partly (in the belief, at least, of the present writer) Slavonic. Yet it is not safe to refer the one to the other. The soil and climate of Andalusia—the favoured valley of the most southern river in Spain—have also their peculiarities.

In Grenada the habits are ruder, and Grenada is chiefly a mountain range.

Valencia has been unfavourably described; the physiognomy of its population being the most Moorish in Spain, and the temper dangerous. It was from Valencia that the last branch of Arabs was expelled in the reign of Philip III.—the Little Moors or Moriscoes. Orientals as they were, the nobles to whom they were serfs, and whose land they cultivated, could ill afford to lose them. Contrary to what we expect from their stock, they were signalized by steady industry and perseverance in agriculture. The present language of Valencia is only Spanish so far as it is spoken in the Spanish peninsula. It is a distinct tongue from the Castilian; yet not French. It belongs to the Provençal class—called also Limousin.

It is the same with Catalonia; the least Iberic, the least Arab, but, perhaps, the most Roman, and the most Gothic of all the Spanish provinces—Cat-alonia or Goth-land—commercial, manufacturing, and radical, with a political history of its own, and, for a time, an independent line of sovereigns—the Berengarii.

In the fourth, the mountaineer-character, with its usual spirit of independence, rude manners, and hardy mode of life, which attains its height in Navarre and Biscay, is shared in different degrees by the Galicians, Asturians, northern Arragonese, and the Spaniards of Leon; the physical appearance changing from dark to light, and from a regular contour to coarse angular features, with high cheek-bones. In Galicia, a province of hewers of wood and drawers of water, this is most remarkable. In Biscay, the comparative lightness of complexion has engendered the idea of a Norman intermixture.

A ballad literature, rising to the level of the humbler epics, and a truly home-grown drama, are the self-evolved, indigenous elements of Spanish literature. Their material influences are to be found in the histories of America, the Indies, the Philippines, Micronesia, Italy, and the Mediterranean Islands.

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