University of Virginia Library

OF WANDERING TRIBES IN GENERAL.

Of the thousand millions of human beings
that are said to constitute the population
of the entire globe, there are — socially,
morally, and perhaps even physically consi-
sidered — but two distinct and broadly marked
races, viz., the wanderers and the settlers — the
vagabond and the citizen — the nomadic and the
civilized tribes. Between these two extremes,
however, ethnologists recognize a mediate va-
riety, partaking of the attributes of both. There
is not only the race of hunters and manufac-
turers — those who live by shooting and fishing,
and those who live by producing — but, say they,
there are also the herdsmen, or those who live
by tending and feeding, what they consume.

Each of these classes has its peculiar and dis-
tinctive physical as well as moral characteristics.
"There are in mankind," says Dr. Pritchard,
"three principal varieties in the form of the
head and other physical characters. Among the
rudest tribes of men — the hunters and savage
inhabitants of forests, dependent for their supply
of food on the accidental produce of the soil and
the chase — a form of head is prevalent which is
mostly distinguished by the term "prognathous,"
indicating a prolongation or extension forward of
the jaws. A second shape of the head belongs
principally to such races as wander with their
herds and flocks over vast plains; these nations
have broad lozenge-shaped faces (owing to the
great development of the cheek bones), and
pyramidal skulls. The most civilized races, on
the other hand — those who live by the arts of
cultivated life, — have a shape of the head which
differs from both of those above mentioned. The
characteristic form of the skull among these
nations may be termed oval or elliptical."

These three forms of head, however, clearly
admit of being reduced to two broadly-marked
varieties, according as the bones of the face or
those of the skull are more highly developed.
A greater relative development of the jaws and
cheek bones, says the author of the "Natural
History of Man," indicates a more ample ex-
tension of the organs subservient to sensation
and the animal faculties. Such a configuration
is adapted to the wandering tribes; whereas, the
greater relative development of the bones of the
skull — indicating as it does a greater expansion
of the brain, and consequently of the intellectual
faculties — is especially adapted to the civilized
races or settlers, who depend mainly on their
knowledge of the powers and properties of things
for the necessaries and comforts of life.

Moreover it would appear, that not only are
all races divisible into wanderers and settlers,
but that each civilized or settled tribe has gene-
rally some wandering horde intermingled with,
and in a measure preying upon, it.

According to Dr. Andrew Smith, who has
recently made extensive observations in South
Africa, almost every tribe of people who have
submitted themselves to social laws, recognizing
the rights of property and reciprocal social
duties, and thus acquiring wealth and forming
themselves into a respectable caste, are sur-
rounded by hordes of vagabonds and outcasts
from their own community. Such are the Bush-
men and Sonquas of the Hottentot race-the term
"sonqua" meaning literally pauper. But a
similar condition in society produces similar
results in regard to other races; and the Kafirs
have their Bushmen as well as the Hottentots —
these are called Fingoes — a word signifying
wanderers, beggars, or outcasts. The Lappes
seem to have borne a somewhat similar relation
to the Finns; that is to say, they appear to have
been a wild and predatory tribe who sought the
desert like the Arabian Bedouins, while the
Finns cultivated the soil like the industrious
Fellahs.

But a phenomenon still more deserving of

[Description: 915EAF. Page 002.]

notice, is the difference of speech between the
Bushmen and the Hottentots. The people of
some hordes, Dr. Andrew Smith assures us, vary
their speech designedly, and adopt new words,
with the intent of rendering their ideas unin-
telligible to all but the members of their own
community. For this last custom a peculiar
name exists, which is called "cuze-cat." This is
considered as greatly advantageous in assisting
concealment of their designs.

Here, then, we have a series of facts of the
utmost social importance. (1) There are two
distinct races of men, viz.: — the wandering
and the civilized tribes; (2) to each of these
tribes a different form of head is peculiar, the
wandering races being remarkable for the deve-
lopment of the bones of the face, as the
jaws, cheek-bones, &c., and the civilized for
the development of those of the head; (3) to each
civilized tribe there is generally a wandering
horde attached; (4) such wandering hordes
have frequently a different language from the
more civilized portion of the community, and
that adopted with the intent of concealing their
designs and exploits from them.

It is curious that no one has as yet applied
the above facts to the explanation of certain
anomalies in the present state of society among
ourselves. That we, like the Kafirs, Fellahs,
and Finns, are surrounded by wandering hordes
— the "Sonquas" and the "Fingoes" of this
country — paupers, beggars, and outcasts, pos-
sessing nothing but what they acquire by depre-
dation from the industrious, provident, and civil-
ized portion of the community; — that the heads
of these nomades are remarkable for the greater
development of the jaws and cheekbones rather
than those of the head; — and that they have
a secret language of their own — an English
"cuze-cat" or "slang" as it is called — for the
concealment of their designs: these are points
of coincidence so striking that, when placed be-
fore the mind, make us marvel that the analogy
should have remained thus long unnoticed.

The resemblance once discovered, however,
becomes of great service in enabling us to use
the moral characteristics of the nomade races
of other countries, as a means of comprehending
the more readily those of the vagabonds and
outcasts of our own. Let us therefore, before
entering upon the subject in hand, briefly run
over the distinctive, moral, and intellectual fea-
tures of the wandering tribes in general.

The nomad then is distinguished from the
civilized man by his repugnance to regular
and continuous labour — by his want of provi-
dence in laying up a store for the future — by
his inability to perceive consequences ever so
slightly removed from immediate apprehension
— by his passion for stupefying herbs and roots,
and, when possible, for intoxicating fermented
liquors — by his extraordinary powers of enduring
privation — by his comparative insensibility to
pain — by an immoderate love of gaming, fre-
quently risking his own personal liberty upon a
single cast — by his love of libidinous dances —
by the pleasure he experiences in witnessing the
suffering of sentient creatures — by his delight in
warfare and all perilous sports — by his desire
for vengeance — by the looseness of his notions
as to property — by the absence of chastity
among his women, and his disregard of female
honour — and lastly, by his vague sense of reli-
gion — his rude idea of a Creator, and utter
absence of all appreciation of the mercy of the
Divine Spirit.

Srange to say, despite its privations, its dan-
gers, and its hardships, those who have once
adopted the savage and wandering mode of life,
rarely abandon it. There are countless exam-
ples of white men adopting all the usages of
the Indian hunter, but there is scarcely one
example of the Indian hunter or trapper adopt-
ing the steady and regular habits of civilized
life; indeed, the various missionaries who have
visited nomade races have found their labours
utterly unavailing, so long as a wandering life
continued, and have succeeded in bestowing
the elements of civilization, only on those
compelled by circumstances to adopt a settled
habitation.