Peninsula and the now extinct Kalangs of Java, or isolated in islands, and, like the Tasmanians and the Andamanese, have been cut off by subsidence of parts of a former continent.
While it may be accepted that the present distribution of the Oceanic Negritos indicates a primitive population spread over Malaysia, or rather inhabiting the former southern extension of the Indo-Asiatic continent, it does not necessarily follow that they all represent the same branch of the primitive stock, but rather, more or less, nearly successive offshoots.
As to the Melanesians, Dr. Codrington's argument, which I have already quoted, may be again referred to, in so far that the stock from which they have branched off must have been acquainted with (sea-going) canoes, houses, and the cultivation of gardens; therefore those ancient Melanesians, being in a far higher level of culture, could not have been the progenitors of the ancestors of the Tasmanians.
It seems to me also permissible to distinguish the Tasmanians and Andamanese from tribes such as the Samangs and Kalangs, and on these grounds I would suggest the following tentative hypothesis:—
An original Negrito population, as represented by the wild tribes of Malaysia; a subsequent offshoot, represented by the Andamanese and Tasmanians; and another offshoot, in a higher state of culture, originating the Melanesians.
As to the Australians, I may say that the discussion of the problem as to the origin of these savages, and of the Tasmanians, has led me to conclusions which require, as the original stock of the former, such a race as would be supplied by the "low form of Caucasian Melanochroi" suggested by Sir W. H. Flower and Mr. Lydekker. From such a stock the Dravidians may be also thought to have been in part derived.
Here and there in Asia are sporadic groups of people, characterised by black hair and dark eyes, with a skin of almost all shades from white to black, frequently with profuse beards and body hair, and being in many cases in a condition of low savages,[1] such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Hairy
- ↑ Keane, A. H., op. cit., p. 418.
