The Human Race Part 28

[Ill.u.s.tration: 156.--NATIVES OF HYDERABAD.]

The Hindoos are well made, but their limbs are far from robust. They have small hands and feet, a high forehead, black eyes, well arched eyebrows, fine bright black hair, and a more or less brown skin, which, in the south of India, and particularly among the lowest cla.s.ses, is sometimes black. Ethnologically speaking, there are two families in the Hindoo branch:--the _Hindoo_ family, and the _Malabar_ family.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 157.--A BANIAN OF SURAT.]

HINDOO FAMILY.

The _Hindoo_ family const.i.tutes the greater part of the population of northern Hindostan. The dialects spoken in this country have generally some relation to Sanskrit. The colour of the skin, in the higher cla.s.ses, is fair enough, but becomes darker among the lower castes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 158.--AN AGED SIKH.]

Among the people belonging to the Hindoo family we may name the Sikhs, a warlike people, remarkable for the beauty of their oval countenances; the Jats, the Rajpoots, and the Mahrattas; the Bengalese, a peaceful people, devoted to trade, and the Cingalese, or inhabitants of the island of Ceylon.

An accomplished traveller, M. Alfred Grandidier, has published in the "Tour du Monde," in 1869, the account of a "Voyage dans l'Inde." We learn from him a few general facts that perfectly sum up the social condition of the India of to-day, especially that of the central portion of the peninsula, for it would perhaps be difficult to generalize on the manners and customs of the whole of India, of which the population amounts to more than a hundred and eighty millions, and the superficies to that of the whole of continental Europe with the exception of Russia.

India is, in fact, divided into three distinct basins; that of the Indus, that of the Ganges, and the plain of the Deccan, const.i.tuting Central India. This last is cla.s.sic India, that is to say, the only part of the country thoroughly known to Europeans. M. Grandidier's travels were in the Deccan, to which refer the remarks we are about to quote:--

"The Hindoos of the Deccan," says M. Grandidier, "resemble the Aryan (Caucasian) race in the oval shape of their head, in the formation of their cranium, and in their facial angle. They are distinct from it, however, in colour. Their bodies are frail; the low caste native is thin and slight, but makes up for his lack of strength by his activity and lightness. His skin varies from a light copper colour to a dark brown; his hair is a fine glossy black, and grows plentifully on his face.

"Gentle and timid, the Hindoo is wanting in perseverance and firmness; gifted with a rapid comprehension, he is yet incapable of any sustained effort. A double yoke, from time immemorial, has weighed him down; caste distinctions and a foreign sway have made him a flexible creature, possessing more prudence and cunning than energy and uprightness; more keenness of wit than n.o.bility of soul.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 159.--A Pa.r.s.eE GENTLEMAN.]

"A lively imagination, never subdued by a rational education, has brought him under the influence of the gross superst.i.tions sanctioned by the Hindoo religion, with its train of ign.o.ble divinities. The timidity of his character has preserved him from the violent fanaticism of the Mussulman, but his religion is very dear to him, and the belief of the lower cla.s.ses is at least a sincere one.

"Sivaism, to which belong most of the inhabitants of the Deccan, is so priceless in their eyes, that they value it far beyond their lives. They repose an ardent and lively faith in the most absurd doctrines. This form of religion pleases their imagination by its fantastic dreams and by its poetic materialism, and its ceremonies amuse them, while gratifying their pa.s.sions.

"The paucity of their wants tends to render them improvident, and their lively and childish imagination, feeding on the smallest and vaguest facts, which they poetise and exaggerate in their own manner, develops in them a dreamy and indolent mode of life.

"Their doctrine of metempsychosis still further increases the natural tendency of their mind, and helps to cause their almost incredible mental inaction, which nothing can surprise or stimulate. The only lever that can move the ma.s.ses must be one attacking their religious faith.

"The dress of the Hindoos is the _dhoti_, a long scarf of cloth rolled round the figure, pa.s.sing under the legs and fastened behind the back.

This garment leaves the legs and the upper part of the body uncovered.

The upper cla.s.ses wear a short s.h.i.+rt (_angaskah_) and a long white robe (_jamah_). Their head is always covered with a turban, of different size and colour, according to their caste. Few Hindoos wear shoes, sandals being in almost universal use. The women wear the _choli_, a little jacket with short sleeves, just covering the bosom, which it supports, and the _sari_, a large piece of cloth which they fold around them, and throw coquettishly over the shoulder or the head. This graceful drapery recalls the chlamyde worn by the Diana of Gabies.

"This dress of the Hindoos is, as a rule, tasteful, and suited to the climate and to their mode of life. Although each caste, each sect, has its own particular method of wearing it, it is still, all over India, the most uniform and the most characteristic feature of the population.

"Both s.e.xes are pa.s.sionately fond of jewellery; women of the very poorest cla.s.s often wear gold rings set with pearls in their noses.

Their arms are covered with silver, copper, and gla.s.s bracelets. The large toes of their feet are adorned with rings, and their legs with heavy metal bangles. As for their ears, they literally droop beneath the weight of the golden earrings with which they are laden; and their lobes are pierced with large holes, often nearly an inch in diameter, into which are introduced gold ornaments in the shape of small wheels, replaced on working days by pieces of rolled leaves. This custom has actually reached Polynesia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 160.--SIR SALAR JUNG, K.S.I.]

"Hindoos turn all their little capital into jewellery. This habit springs from a medley of vanity and superst.i.tion, the latter leading them to consider trinkets as talismans against spells and witchcraft.

"It was also, under the ancient Mogul dynasty, a means of preserving their property from the rapacity of Mussulman tyrants, whose religion forbade them to appropriate women's chattels.

"The Hindoos are very tenacious of their prerogatives, and India has frequently been convulsed by sanguinary struggles occasioned by some one of its castes refusing to conform to traditional custom. Terrible conflicts have, ere now, been caused by an inferior caste attempting to wear slippers of a certain shape, the privilege of a higher one, or because it wished to use, in its religious rites, certain musical instruments. .h.i.therto reserved for the wors.h.i.+p of the superior divinities.

"The Hindoos may lay claim to a refined politeness and elegant manners; but the smallest concession in the respect to which their social position ent.i.tles them, the least relaxation in the prescribed etiquette are considered a sign of weakness and an avowal of inferiority.

"The conversational formulae used towards a native vary according to his station. Nothing is easier than to affront their susceptibility. Never speak to an Oriental of his wife or of his daughters. To do so, is contrary to custom. To use the left hand in bowing, in eating, or in drinking, is to offer an insult; the right hand alone is reserved for the higher uses, and the left, the ign.o.ble hand, is used for ablutions.

"In Europe, it is a sign of respect to uncover the head, in the East, to take off the turban is a disrespectful act. On entering a house, conversely to us, they keep their heads covered, but leave their shoes at the threshold. This habit seems to me a most sensible one. A white cloth is stretched on the floor of their apartments, on cus.h.i.+ons placed on which they sit cross-legged. It appears to me that shoes were invented to preserve the feet from the roughness of the ground, from the mud and from the dust of the roads. Are they not then objectionable, or, at any rate, useless in the interior of a well-kept house?

"When paying a visit, the Hindoo waits until his host bids him adieu.

They very properly suppose that a visitor can be in no hurry to leave the friend whom he has purposely come to see. The host, on the contrary, may have urgent business claiming his immediate attention. The forms of this dismissal vary:--'Come and see me often,' or 'Remember that you will always be welcome.' Presents of flowers and fruit generally terminate these visits, and betel is invariably handed round.

"The usual food of the Hindoo is very simple, and their meals are of but short duration. Rice boiled in water, and curry (a compound of vegetables, ghee--a sort of clarified b.u.t.ter, spices, and saffron), sometimes eggs or milk, a little fish, and occasionally coa.r.s.e meal cakes, bananas, and the fruit of the bread tree, form the morning and evening meal of rich and poor. The leaves of the banana tree are used instead of plates and dishes. In eating vegetables and rice, fingers are used instead of spoons and forks; and the meat is torn by the teeth in default of the absent knife. An European is rather likely to be disgusted with the sauce trickling down the chins and the fingers of the guests at a Hindoo meal. Water is the prevailing drink, and but little use is made of arrack (a spirit extracted from the palm tree).

[Ill.u.s.tration: 161.--NAUTCH GIRL OF BARODA.]

"Faithful observers of their religious injunctions, which forbid them to touch animal food under pain of being excluded from society and from the bosom of their families, the high caste natives never eat meat; as for the Pariahs, they eat all kinds of animals, and are very fond of arrack.

"Betel is incessantly used all over India. In hot countries, where the inhabitants lead a sedentary life, their digestion becomes sluggish, and can neither receive nor absorb the same quant.i.ty of nourishment as it does in Northern countries. The vegetable diet of the Hindoos is not very rich in azotic matter, and its continual use would cause an internal formation of gas, without the alkaline stimulant used by all the inhabitants of India to prevent its development. This stimulant is the astringent areca nut, which they chew with a little lime placed on a betel leaf.

"This mixture dyes the lips and the tongue red; it is pernicious in its effect on the teeth, but it is certainly useful to the digestive functions.

"Tobacco, rolled in a green leaf and lighted like a cigarette, is the universal method of smoking.

"Many different languages are spoken in India. Philologists have enumerated as many as fifty-eight, but not more than ten have an alphabet and literature of their own. Sanskrit, a dead language, is more or less mixed with all the dialects of India. In the north it forms their incontestable basis, but in the south it is merely grafted on to pre-existing tongues, and frequently but faint traces are found of it.

All the alphabets seem to have been invented separately, but they have been improved by the regular and philosophical arrangement of the _Devanagri_. This is the name of the Sanskrit alphabet, the most perfect of all. The living languages have a very simple grammatical construction.

"Hindostani, which is spoken in the province of Agra, is the most cultivated and the most generally employed of all Indian languages. It has received a large Persian element since the Mussulman conquest.

Besides the local dialect of each district, Hindostani is everywhere spoken by the educated cla.s.ses, and by all professing the Mussulman faith.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 162.--A COOLIE OF THE GHATS.]

"The ties of caste replace in India the ties of family. Hindoos love their wives and children; but this affection is subordinated to their caste duties. Expulsion from the family is princ.i.p.ally caused by violation of religious ordinances or by the illicit connection of high caste women with men of a lower rank. The Brahmins and the Sudras, and even the Pariahs themselves, are divided into a number of sub-castes, a member of one of which can neither eat, drink, nor intermarry with one of another. If a Hindoo becomes degraded, if he loses his caste, he is disowned by his relations; his wife is considered a widow, his children orphans; he must expect no a.s.sistance, no pity, from those who hitherto have surrounded him with the most considerate care.

"Europeans are ranked with Pariahs on account of their daily habit of eating beef. It is true that the Brahmins consent to shake hands with an European, but on their return home after doing so, their first care is to undress and perform their ablutions so as to purify themselves from the stain of such an impure contact; it is even a.s.serted by them that the mere gaze of a Pariah is enough to cause contamination.

"Every village in the Deccan is composed of two parts, separated by an interval of a few yards. These are two distinct quarters, one reserved for the men of caste, the other, surrounded by hedges, allotted to the Pariahs. These miserable beings are not allowed to enter the streets of the village without the consent of the inhabitants, and they must only presume to draw water in the wells set aside for their particular use.

Where the Pariahs have no special wells, they place their _chatties_ by the well-sides of the men of caste, and await humbly and patiently the alms offering of a few gla.s.ses of water. It is always the women that attend to this household care.

"The higher castes often make the Pariahs presents, which they invariably place on the ground, for fear of contracting by mere physical contact the moral leprosy with which in their eyes the Pariahs are affected. A person of caste never accepts a gift from the hands of a Pariah.

"If on the one hand the high-caste natives are physically and intellectually superior to the Pariahs; on the other hand the latter are more laborious, more docile, and more accessible to European influence.

In the Presidency of Madras they const.i.tute the best and the most solid nucleus of the native English army.

"If I wished to enumerate all the subdivisions of caste based on the conduct, the calling, and the occupation of every one, if I described in detail the clothes and the ornaments which vary ad infinitum according to caste, if I attempted to recite all the existing prejudices about food and the daily minutiae of life, I should fill several volumes.

"The same tendencies are met with everywhere. The desire of making a figure in the world, and the ambition for command without having taken the necessary trouble to become worthy of it. Yet the existence of caste has always prevented the formation of a really h.o.m.ogeneous nation. Caste is the cause of the sharp rivalries, the endless hostilities, that have always been fatal to national independence, and facilitated the invasions of strangers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 163.--PAG.o.dA AT SIRRHINGHAM.]

"Besides the social consequences we have mentioned, the Hindoos believe in religious ones. Their different castes cannot here below receive the same education, nor be initiated into the same mysteries. These differences, according to the dogmas of _Siva_, are to extend into the next world."

The preceding paragraphs refer to the inhabitants of the Deccan. It would be too tedious to describe the other populations of the peninsula, the Bengalese, the Rajpoots, the Mahrattas, &c. We will merely say a few words about the Cingalese, or inhabitants of the island of Ceylon.