CHAPTER X

. THE NORDIC RACE OUTSIDE OF EUROPE

223 : 2. Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, pp. 380 _seq._; Myers, _Ancient History_, p. 33, footnote. Also consult Von Luschan, _The Early Inhabitants of Western Asia_, p. 230.

223 : 5. DeLapouge, L’Aryen, pp. 200 _seq._

223 : 5. Tamahu. Authorities above; Sergi, 4, pp. 59 _seq._; Beddoe, 4, p. 14, for the question of their race.

223 : 12. Broca, 1; Collignon, 5 and 7; Sergi, 1; and Ripley, p. 279. There are numerous articles on the blond Berbers and references to their relation to the Vandals. Ripley, based on Broca, gives the essential information. Gibbon, chap. XXXIII, is an important reference.

Blond Moors. Procopius says, IV, 13, describing the fighting with the Moors in Mauretania beyond Mt. Aurasium, which is thirteen days’ journey west of Carthage: “I have heard Ortaias say that beyond these nations of Moors, beyond Aurasium, which he ruled” [apparently south] “there was no habitation of men, but desert land to a great distance, and that beyond this desert there are men, not black-skinned like the Moors, but very white in body and fair-haired.”

Mr. J. B. Thornhill relates that about fifteen years ago he was in Morocco (presumably near Tangier) and while there he saw several purely blond Berbers from the Riff mountains. A young girl, especially, was an almost pure Swedish blond. The coloring, however, was pale and whitish rather than pink; the eyes were blue and the hair wavy and very blond.

223 : 21. For the Philistines, Anakim and Achæans see Ridgeway, 1, pp. 618 _seq._ Sir William Ridgeway places the appearance of the Philistines as nearly synchronous with that of the Achæans, and states that their weapons and armor were similar to those of the Achæans, but different from those of the other nations of the early world. _Cf._ also Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 72, especially footnote 1, where he says: “The Philistines were specially receptive of Hellenic culture and eager to claim relationship with the Greeks, and disassociate themselves from the Semites. Their coin types shew this, see p. 399, n.” He regards them as Cretans.

223 : 22–23. Sons of Anak. Numbers, XIII, 33: “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which came of the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers and so we were in their sight.” Deuteronomy, I, 28: “Whither shall we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, ‘The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.’”

Fairness of David. I Samuel, XVI, 11, 12: “And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth the youngest, and behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him; for we shall not sit down till he come hither. And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to....” Chap. XVII, 41,42: “And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David, and when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy and of a fair countenance.” In the Hebrew, the phrase _Of a Beautiful Countenance_ means fair of eyes.

The presence of Nordics in Syria among the Amorites is indicated by the tall stature, long-headedness and fair skin with which they are depicted on the Egyptian monuments. In some instances their eyes are blue. See p. 59 of Albert T. Clay’s _The Empire of the Amorites_, also Sayce, and Hall.

224 : 3. Wu-Suns and Hiung-Nu. Minns, _Scythians and Greeks_, p. 121. DeLapouge, _L’Aryen_, mentions the existence of a number of central Asiatic tribes in addition to the Wu-Suns, who were Nordic. See also J. Klaproth, _Tableaux historiques de l’Asie_. Zaborowski, _Les peuples aryens_, p. 286, says: “The Hiung-Nu hurled themselves upon the Illi, and upon another blond people the Wu-Suns, whose importance was such that the Chinese, who have made them known to us, sought their alliance against the Huns. The Chinese knew then, in Turkestan, only the Wu-Suns, the Sse, or Sacæ, and the Ta-hia (our Tadjiks).”

“The Yuë-Tchi, repulsed by the Wu-Suns in 130 B. C., hurled themselves upon Bactria” (see the notes to p. 119 : 13). “The Sacæ were then masters of it and their dispossession resulted in pressing them in part into India where they founded a kingdom and also in part into the Pro-Pamirian valleys, especially that of the Oxus. The Yuë-Tchi ruled over central Asia until 425 A. D. They were dispossessed in their turn by the Hoas, or Ephtalite Huns” (White Huns).

The remainder of the chapter, pp. 287–291 is concerned with Turkestan, the Wu-Suns, Huns, Kirghizes, etc.

224 : 13. Deniker, 2, pp. 59 and 371, says the Ainus are dolichocephalic and have in addition other Nordic traits. See also Haddon, 1, pp. 8, 15–16, 49–50, Ratzel and others. The Ainus are, according to Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 852, the hairiest people in the world.

224 : 19. See the notes to pp. 31: 16–32 : 4.

224 : 28. Deniker, 2, pp. 59 and 371; Haddon, 1, pp. 8, 15.

225 : 11. Phrygians. Bury, _History of Greece_, pp. 46–48, says: “But about this very time (1287 B. C.) the Hittite power was declining and northwestern Asia Minor as far as the valley of the Sangarius, was wrested from their rule by swarms of new invaders from Europe. These were the Phrygians to whose race the Dardanians belonged and who were so closely akin to the Thracians that we may speak of the Phrygo-Thracian division of the Indo-European family.” On p. 44 we read: “The dynasty from which the Homeric kings, Agamemnon and Menelaus sprang, was founded according to Greek tradition, early in the 13th century (B. C.) by Pelops, a Phrygian. Agamemnon and Menelaus represent the Achæan stock.... The meaning of this Phrygian relationship is not clear.” But if we follow the extent of the Achæan invasions and the relation of the art and language of archaic Phrygia to archaic Greece, the difficulty seems solved. See Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 475. The _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (Phrygia) says: “According to unvarying Greek tradition the Phrygians were most closely akin to certain tribes of Macedonia and Thrace; and their near relationship to the Hellenic stock is proved by all that is known of their language and art, and is accepted by almost every modern authority.... The inference has been generally drawn that the Phrygians belonged to a stock widespread in the countries which lie around the Ægean Sea. There is, however, no conclusive evidence whether this stock came from the east, over Armenia, or was European in origin and crossed the Hellespont into Asia Minor; but modern opinion inclines decidedly to the latter view”; and we may add that the recently demonstrated linguistic affiliations strengthen this assumption. See also Ridgeway, 1, pp. 396 and elsewhere; Peake, 2, p. 172; Feist, 5, p. 407; Félix Sartiaux, _Troie, la guerre de Troie_; and O. Schrader, Jevons translation, p. 430.

225 : 15. Cimmerians. See the note to p. 173 : 11.

225 : 17. Gauls and Galatians. See the note to p. 158 : 1.

225 : 19. Von Luschan, p. 243, says: “All western Asia was originally inhabited by a homogeneous, melanochroic race, with extreme hypsi-brachycephaly and with a ‘Hittite’ nose. About 4000 B. C. began a Semitic invasion from the southeast, probably from Arabia, by people looking like modern Bedawy. 2000 years later commenced a second invasion, this time from the northwest by xanthochrous and long-headed tribes like the modern Kurds, and perhaps connected with the historic Harri, Amorites, Tamahu and Galatians.

“The modern ‘Turks,’ Greeks and Jews are all three equally composed of these three elements, the Hititte, the Semitic, and the xanthochrous Nordic. Not so the Armenians and Persians. They, and still more, the Druses, Maronites, and the smaller sectarian groups of Syria and Asia Minor, represent the old Hittite element, and are little, or not at all, influenced by the somatic characters of alien invaders.”

Von Luschan means by Persians, the round-headed Medic element, which has always been in the majority and which has, at the present day, practically submerged the once powerful, dominant Nordic class, which he says is still seen not rarely in some old noble families.

225 : 20. Until rather recently nothing much was known about the wild Kurdish tribes living in southeast Anatolia, and what reports there were, were frequently conflicting. There are two kinds of Kurds, dark and light. More data has gradually accumulated, however, and it seems that the true Kurds are tall, blond people, who resemble very much the inhabitants of northern Europe.

Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, says, quoting Polak: “The Kurds are, in color of skin, hair and eyes, so little different to the northern, especially the Teutonic breed, that they might easily be taken for Germans. There is nothing to contradict this racial affinity in the reputation for honor and courage, which in spite of their rapacious tendencies, the Kurds enjoy wherever it has been found possible to compel them to labor or to the trade of arms. In Persia the Shah entrusts the security of his person to Kurdish officers rather than to any others. Their loyalty to their hereditary Wali, which neither Turks nor Persians have been able to shake, is also noted with praise. The Kurd prefers to wander with his herds and in the winter lives in caves like Xenophon’s Carduchi.... The Kurds are a highly mixed race of a type chiefly Iranian, which has been compared with the Afghan but is not homogeneous. The eastern Kurds must have received a larger infusion of Turkish blood than the western. ‘Husbandmen by necessity, fighters by inclination.’ says Moltke, ‘the Arab is more of a thief, the Kurd more of a warrior.’ They are a vigorous, violent race, running wild in tribal feuds and vendettas.... Their women hold a freer position than those of the Turks and Persians.” The quotation is from vol. III, p. 537.

Von Luschan, _op. cit._, p. 229, describes them thus: “[They] have long heads and generally blue eyes and fair hair. They are probably descended from the Kardouchoi and Gordyæans of old historians. They live southeast of the Armenian mountains. The western Kurds are dolichocephalic and more than half of them are fair. The eastern Kurds are little known but are apparently darker and more round-headed.”

Soane, in _To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Disguise_, gives a very full description of them, confirming the above. There are so many tribes differing from one another, that only the briefest summary may be given. It is found on pp. 398 _seq._ “Judged as specimens of the human form, there is probably no higher standard extant that that of the Kurds. The northerner is a tall, thin man (obesity is absolutely unknown among the Kurds). The nose is long, thin and often a little hooked, the mouth small, the face oval and long. The men usually grow a long moustache, and invariably shave the beard. The eyes are piercing and fierce. Among them are many of yellow hair and bright blue eyes; and the Kurdish infant of this type, were he placed among a crowd of English children, would be indistinguishable from them, for he has a white skin. In the south the face is a little broader sometimes, and the frame heavier. Of forty men of the southern tribes taken at random, there were nine under six feet, though among some tribes the average height is five feet nine. The stride is long and slow, and the endurance of hardship great. They hold themselves as only mountain men can do, proudly and erect.... Many and many a man have I seen among them who might have stood for the picture of a Norseman. Yellow, flowing hair, a long drooping moustache, blue eyes, and a fair skin—one of the most convincing proofs, if physiognomy be a criterion (were their language not a further proof), that the Anglo-Saxon and Kurd are one and the same stock.” For a list of Kurdish tribes and their numbers and affiliations see Mark Sykes, vol. XXXVIII of the _Jour. of the Roy. Anth. Soc. of Great Britain and Ireland_, and Von Luschan, _op. cit._

From all this evidence by men who have travelled among them it would appear that the Kurds are descendants of some ancient Nordic invaders who have found refuge in the mountain regions north of Mesopotamia. _Cf._ the note to p. 239 : 16.

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