PLIOCENE.-The Great Central Zone practically complete. Mesopotamia formed. Also Arabia. Also India. Vast "Caspian area still in existence. Land-communication between Southern Angara and "Europe" quite free. PLEISTOCENE.-During last Glacial period northern parts of the Zone west of the Arctic Gulf under ice-cap; but landcommunication easy between Angara and "Europe" south of the Ice-cap, including Mesopotamia. There were now three main Land-Zones (1) GREAT NORTHERN, touching the South at and near Spain, and, in the far East, extending southwards in Malaysia. (2) GREAT CENTRAL, area of characterization of a new type of man, i.e. Dark-White man-once called the "Aamu," race. (3) GREAT SOUTHERN, i.e. South America, Africa, and Australasia. Ethnic amalgamations, along meeting zonal margins, now begin (a) Between Yellow Man and Black Man in Malaysia. (d) Between Yellows and Dark-Whites (Aamu ?) of Meso- III In this connexion it may be useful to note the views of Professor G. Elliot Smith. In his recent book on The Ancient Egyptians, after accepting Eduard Meyer's chronology, which estimates B.C. 3400+ as the approximate epoch of the beginnings of Dynastic history in Egypt, he states that the blendings of so-called "Semitic" and Sumerian cultures in Babylonia took place long after this epoch. He holds that the germs of Elamite and Sumerian civilization were planted in their respective domains by people equipped with the arts and customs of Egypt who had previously been exploiting Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa for resins, incense, etc. That these civilizers came by sea is suggested, he says, " not merely by Sumerian tradition, but also by the two facts (a) that the civilization of Mesopotamia originated in the extreme south on the shores of the Persian Gulf and (3) because the ram-or goat-headed Sumerian god Enki-the homologue of the deity Khnum particularly associated in Egypt with Elephantiné -acquired a fish body and tail in Sumer, for the reason that he is reputed to have come out of the waters of the Persian Gulf". This, of course, must be set against the Indian argument that the Oannés story supports the theory of a possible Sumerian origin from India. Professor Elliot Smith is strongly of opinion that the peoples in ancient Mesopotamia, commonly called "Semites" and alleged to have originated from Arabia, were not "Semites" at all. In this, of course, he is quite right. They were Dark-Whites, i.e. local Aamu aborigines of the Great Central Land-Zone. Professor Elliot Smith, however, calls them Armenoids, because they were vanquished by 'Syrians (Amorites) "_" these Armenoids of Northern Syria” who pushed their way into Mesopotamia later. As a matter of fact, the Amorites were neither Semites nor Armenoids. Originally they were a ruddy-blond folk hailing from Old Mediterranean regions. Subsequently, no doubt (through contact with the Hittites), they got an "Armenoid" overlay, Indeed (through Hittites and Kassites), all aboriginal Western Asia did-but that is all. The fact that these northern peoples of Western Asia acquired what is commonly called "the Semitic speech," because of its undoubted affinities with Arabic, Hebrew, etc.,; seems to puzzle Professor E. Smith. He even says it is not known how it came to pass. But it is known. It is very simple. Like these northern peoples, the inhabitants of Western Arabia (the real homeland of the Semites) were genuine autochthons of the Great Central Land-Zone. But in each local area the ethnos was only the species of a more widely diffused genus. Hence, within certain limits of longitude, each country, north or south, spoke its own "dialect ", as it were, of a language that in many respects was common to all. This common language happens to have acquired the convenient but arbitrary name of "Semitic." In Akkad the inhabitants-the "black-headed ones" of the Tablets-were originally DarkWhites, or Aamu ( Moon worshippers ?). Southwards, in adjoining Sumer, the situation was somewhat different. There, the population was of two surts: (a) Original Dark-Whites, like those in early Akkad, and (5) another stock (probably Yellows), to whom the name "Sumerians" more particularly applies. In this connexion, however, Professor E. Smith seems to hold peculiar views. He appears to regard the Sumerians as one homogeneous community, and, as such, representatives of what he calls the "Brown race"-my Dark-Whites. As a matter of fact, the population in Sümer was, as I have said, twofold-one portion Dark-Whites 1 (Professor E. Smith's "Brown race") and the other portion probably Yellows of the North. These last, whose language was agglutinative, were the Sumerians proper. The general position seems to have been this. Western Asia, in remote antiquity, was the meeting-place of two distinct land-zones-(1) the unimaginably ancient Great Northern Zone (home of the Yellows, especially in Angara) and (2) the less ancient Great Central Zone (home of the DarkWhites, or Aamu-Professor E. Smith's "Brown race"). All, in course of time, got an "Armenoid " (Kassite and Hittite) overlay. The Yellow element in Sumer at first had their own Northern civilization-incalculably old. This apparently blended with the civilization of the Dark-White aborigines. Later 1 NOTE. From these came the 'Ibr-Aamů, or ‘Abr-Aamu, i.e. the Abramites, eventually known as the Hebrews, according to Professor E. Smith-i.e. after say B.C. 3400Egyptian civilization can.e in from the South, by sea (the Oannes tradition); and, still later, entering by the North, from the Amorite West, there was the " Armenoid" overlay from Syria. Yet another hypothesis may be mentioned-my own idea that Mitanni (not Amora) was the source from which, in the remote past, the Dark-White aborigines of Akkad received their higher culture. In those days Mitanni was supreme. She represented an ethnical and cultural immigration from the Old Mediterranean West. This had blended with the local aborigines and culture of the Great Northern Land Zone. Hence, the Mitannians who civilized Akkad were a fair but mixed racesemi-Rosy-blond, and semi-Yellow. All these views, therefore, have to be set against each other and considered. Indians, of course, are quite entitled to advocate their theory of a possibly Indian origin for the Sumerians. Certainly the Dark-Whites, in a modified form, extended as far as India. But the DarkWhites of "Sumer" are only half the "Sumerian" problem. There were also the Yellows, with their agglutinative language. Can we imagine an agglutinative language coming from India, except from the Dasyus? Further, we must not forget that the Indian theory envisages only a possibility, and that, in any case, it is but one of several theories. Which of them all is the most probable? Which best accounts for all the facts, i.e. such few facts as we are sure of? Perhaps some further lucky "find" will clear up the position. At present, Harappa and Mohenjo Daro notwithstanding, it is undoubtedly very nebulous, yet fascinatingly so. IV.-Totemism and Religion. By Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Roy, M.A., B.L., M.L.C. The comparatively primitive conception of an intimate relation between a group of kindred people on the one hand and a class of animals or natural (and sometimes artificial) objects on the other, and the customs and practices arising out of such conception, forms one of the most interesting phenomena of "primitive" culture. As to the nature and origin of that conception various theories have been advanced and no unanimity has yet been arrived at by anthropologists. We have first the "guardian-spirit" theory started in the seventeenth century by the Jesuit missionaries in North America and revived at the present day by Dr. Franz Boas, Mr. Hill-Toat, Miss Alice Fletcher and others; we have uext the "nick-name " theory of Herbert Spencer who would derive totemism from the primitive custom of naming children after animals or natural objects from some accidental circumstances or fancied resemblances and later misinterpreting these metaphorical names as having their origin in facts and paying to these supposed animal or other ancestors reverence due to real ancestors; and the analogous "sobriquet" theory of Andrew Lang and "heraldic badge " theory of Keane; we have then the "transmigration" theory of Wilken and Tyler who regard the totem as the bridge over the gap between a clan of men and a species of animals so that they become united in kinship and mutual alliance"; then there is the "economic " theory of Dr. Haddon who holds that totems were originally the animals or plants on which the local groups of people chiefly subsisted and after which they were named by their neighbours; and, finally, the "conceptional" theory of Sir James Frazer, superseding both his first theory (namely, the "external soul" theory according to which totemism |