CERK '^Y Li;^RARY V ...r, TY OF 1 CALIFORNIA^ ^THROPOLOGY LIBRARY PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES ARYAN PEOPLES. PKEHISTOKIC ANTIQUITIES AEYAN PEOPLES: A MANUAL OF COMPAKAIITE PHILOLOGY AND THE EARLIEST CULTURE. BEING THE "SPEACHYEKGLEICHUNG UND UEGESCHICHTE Dr 0. SCHKADER TRANSLATED BY FRANK BYRON JEVONS, M.A, TUTOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM; AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE' " DEVELOPMENT OF THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY." From the Second Revised and Enlarged German Edition, with the sanction and co-operation of the Author. W UNIVERSITY LONDON: CHARLES GRIFFIN AND COMPANY, EXETER STREET, STRAND. 18 90. All Rights Reserved. 0^ -^ ^7(f-^ AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION, When the publishers of this Avork communicated to me their jiroposal to render my work, Sprachvergleichung ^md Urgeschichte, more accessible to the English public by means of a translation, I felt it alike a pleasure and an honour — the more so as it seemed to waiTant the belief that the First Edition had already made some valued friends in England. The Science of Language, on which the following investigations are based, may properly be termed a daughter of the Anglo-German world, and if we pay honour to Franz Bopp as the founder of our science, Ave are not in danger of forgetting that it was from English hands that he received the key to its comprehension — knoAvledge of Sanskrit. But out of the purely grammatical treatment which language received at Bopp's hands, and side by side with it, in the course of time — and again Avith the active co-operation of English scholars — the idea AA'as more and more definitely developed that perhaps by the aid of the same Comparative Philology, to which such startling results were due in the domain of Avords and their forms, it might also be possible to penetrate somewhat more deeply into the history of the things denoted by those Avords. As the archaeologist, armed Avith pick and shovel, descends into the depths of the earth, in oi'der to trace the footsteps of the past in bone and stone-remains, so the student of language might endeavour to employ the flotsam and jetsam of language — Avashed on the shore of history from ages immeasurably remote — to reconstruct the picture of the primeval age. The presentiment to which Leibnitz gave utterance in the sentence : " Nihil majorem ad antiquas populorum origines inda- gandas lucem prsebere quam collationem linguarum," Avas fulfilled. Tn a Avord, Linguistic Pakeology arose. Thus, for some time past Etymology has been a sister science to t^l^t. IV PREFACE. prehistoric Ai'cliseology in the investigation of primitive culture. And now a third point of departure has been found from which to pass beyond the bounds of history. The attempt has been made by careful comparison of the antiquities of the individual Indo- European peoples to distinguish between what, on the one hand, they have jointly inherited in the way of manners and customs, of private, public, and religious institutions, and what, on the other hand, in this connection may be termed their recent acquisitions, whether loans from abroad or the results of their own independent evolution. Thus to Etymology and Archaeology a third science has been added — that of Comparative Antiquities, which, as I am firmly convinced, opens a new prospect, full of promise, for the history of the individual Indo-European peoples. It is on this triple basis that the present work is founded, being designed as a comprehensive account of what we know at present about the prehistoric period of the Indo-European race. With this object, the first of the four Parts, into which the work is divided, traces the historical development of the views and theories that have thus far been promulgated on this subject. This, it is hoped, will prove of service to the friends of Linguistic Palaeontology, as the literature of the subject, whether in extensive Avorks, tiny pamphlets, or even in the daily press, is extremely scattered. Much that is not essential has been purposely passed over. The views summarised are not criticised in detail in this Part, the object of which is to state the arguments for and against in as objective a manner as possible; indeed, they are not subjected to any criticism, save what is necessarily implied in the order and manner of their arrangement and statement. Only those points to which I could not expect to return in the course of the work have notes of correction or explanation attached. The Second Part, however, is especially devoted to a critical and methodical examination of the value of linguistic data for con- clusions as to the history of culture. What the student of pre- historic times is, and what he is not, justified in inferring from the evidence of language are the questions mainly discussed in this section. I venture to hope that I have in this discussion con- tributed my share towards removing the suspicions which have been expressed in England of late on the employment of Etymology for purposes of history.* It will be apparent that the student of * Cf., e.g., Abbott, History of Greece, p. 25, London, 1888: "Nothing is so delusive as facts founded upon etymologies ;" or Tlie Saturday Review, PREFACE. V language is by no means blind to the difficulties which beset his task, but on the contrary is fully conscious of the need of always supporting the conclusions of Etymology by the observations of History and Archaeology. The work now turns from the historical and theoretical side of the question to the actual investigation of the Primeval Age, and begins with an exhaustive examination of one of the chief and cardinal points in the primeval history of the Indo-Europeans — the question whether the Indo-Europeans before their dispei'sion were or were not acq uainted Avith the Metals. This inquiry, which I am brought to answer in the negative, proves to be intimately involved with the further question — Whence and in what way acquaintance with the Metals, if unknown to the Primeval Period, spread amongst the Indo-European peoples in later times ? For the solution of this difficult problem I believe that I have collected w^hat linguistic data there are, without losing sight of History and Archaeology. This seemed to give a base-line, satisfactory alike from the point of view of theory and of facts, from which we might ventui-e to grasp the multitude of linguistic and historic facts bearing on prehistoric research, which are presented by the various Indo- European peoples. The book concludes, accordingly, with an attempt to portray the Primeval Indo-European Period as a whole in a series of pictures representing its most important phases — The Animal Kingdom, Cattle, The Plant- World, Agri- culture, Computation of Time, Food and Drink, Clothing, Dwellings, Traffic and Trade, The Culture of the Indo-Euro- peans, and The Prehistoric Monuments of Europe (especially the Swiss Lake-Dwellings), Family and State, Religion, The Original Home. The last-named chapter, that which deals with the original home of the Indo-European race, alone requires a few further woi'ds. It is this problem which in England has of late been the subject of considerable discussion (c/. on this point especially Van den Gheyn, UOrigine Europeeyme des Aryas, Paris, 1889) ; and two further works dealing mainly with this question have appeared p. 22, January 4, 1890 : "The philological arguments, proving from words common to Aryan tongues, that the undivided Aryans have this or that institution, or custom, or piece of knowledge in common, seems to us of very slight importance. In the dark backward and abysm of time, words have been so shifted, added to, dropped, cut, and shuffled, that real historical know- ledge based on terms of speech is next to impossible." VI PREFACE. since the completion of this book.* In this discussion very great weight, and, if I am not mistaken, too great weight, has been given to K. Penka's two works {Origines Ariacoe, 1883, and D^ Herkunft der Arier, 1886). I am not blind to the value of the numerous new points of view which Penka has proposed for determining the relation between race and language. On the other hand, T, like Mas Midler, cannot close my eyes to the many mistakes into which Penka has fallen, at any rate in the employment of his philological and historical materials. The impossibility of attain- ing to any result on the lines laid dowai by Penka, in the present state of Anthropology, is dealt with by me on pp. 35, 82,/., of this book. My opinion is that the last word has not yet been spoken on this question. Anyhow, fresh works on this subject will speedily be forthcoming. Thus, Johannes Schmidt pointed out at the Seventh International Congress of Orientalists, held at Stockholm, that the numeral systems of the European languages frequently betray indications that the decimal notation is crossed by a duodecimal or sexagesimal system. " With much acuteness," says the report (cf. Deutsche Rundschau, p. 227, No. 3, 1889-90), "the speaker ti'ied to show it was probable that we have here the influence of the Babylonian mode of measuring space and time, which is based on the numeral 60 ; a hypothesis, the importance of which for the question as to the prehistoric abode of the European peoples, and consequently of the original Indo-European home, is manifest." J. Schmidt will publish his views and the arguments in support of them in a special treatise. From another side, the question of the connection between the Indo-European peoples and the Finnish peoples in prehistoric times — a question of the highest importance for our problem — is to be discussed anew. I therefore beg that the attempt here made to localise the home of the Indo-Europeans may be regarded as merely tentative, and that it may receive an unprejudiced and careful consideration. I cannot conclude this Preface without expressing my heart- felt thanks to the Translator of the Avork, Mr F. B. Jevons. Mr Jevons had already completed his translation of the First Edition, and prepared it for the press, when the necessity for a * The Cradle of the Aryans, by Gerald H. Rendal, Loudon, 1889, and The Origin of the Aryans : an Account of the Prehistoric Ethnology and Civilisation of Europe, by Canon I. Tajdor, London, 1889. PREFACE. Vll Second Edition presented itself, and the Second Edition lias grown into an almost entirely new work. Mr Jevons, nevertheless, with the greatest self-sacrifice undertook the task thus imposed of retranslating the work. If iiny reader, therefore, lays down the book with a feeling of satisfaction, much of his thanks will be due to Mr Jevons. 0. SCHRADER. Jexa, March 1890. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. Dr Schrader omits to state that he very kindly volunteered to look through the proof-sheets of the Translation with a view to ensuring the correctness of the many words which he cites from all Indo-European (and sundry other) languages. Aiid although Dr Schrader is in no way responsible for the correctness of the Translation, still I have been able to consult him whenever I was in doubt as to his meaning ; and as he has read all the proofs, T do not think it likely that any mistakes have escaped our joint efforts. ^ F. B. Jevons. The Ukiveesitv, Dukham. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PART I. THE HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC PALiEONTOLOGY. CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF LINGUISTIC PALiEONTOLOGY. PAGE Eighteenth Century Views : Adelung and Vater — Sir "VV. Jones and Bopp — The Original Indo-European Home assumed to be in Central Asia — The Beginnings of Scientific Etymology — Its Application to Indo-European Antiquities by Kuhn and Grimm, ... 1 CHAPTER II. THE RECONSTKIJCTION OF THE PRIMITIVE INDO-GERMANIC PERIOD BY MEANS OF LANGUAGE. Mommsen on the Grreco-Italian Period — Pictet on the Primitive Aryans — His Method thoroughly Uncritical — Schleicher's Pedigree Theory — Max Miiller on the Primeval Period, its Culture and its Family Life — Whitney — Attempts to Ascertain the Fauna of the Primitive Period — Indo-Germanic Poetrj' — A New Departure made by Hehn — The Meaning of Indo-European Roots to be Interpreted in Accordance with the History of Culture — Fick Fails to Profit by Helm's Work — Benfey's Erroneous Theory of Degradation in Culture — The Prehistoric Semites : Kremer and Hommel — The Primeval Finns— The Primitive Culture of the Turko-Tataric Peoples, 16 CHAPTER III. HYPOTHETICAL DIVISIONS OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS AND THEIR IM- PORTANCE FOR THE HISTORY OF CULTURE : WITH AN APPENDIX ON LOAN-WORDS IN THE INDO-GERMANIC LANGUAGES. The Migrations from the Original Home, according to Schleicher, accord- ing to Max Midler, and to Fick— I. The Primitive European Period: (a) The Grwco-Italians ; (b) The Lithu-Slavo-Teutons ; (c) The Original Teutons ; (d) The Original Slavs; (c) The Celts— II. The Hindu-Persian (or Indo-Iranian or Aryan) Group of Languages — Schmidt's Undulation Theory: its Importance as explaining the Affinities of the Indo-Germanic Languages — Its Bearing on the .Original Language— Schmidt's Critics— Leskien's View— Brug- mann agrees with Schmidt and Leskien — Appcndi.v : The Investi- gation of Loan-Words in the Indo-Germanic Languages — Loan- Words in Greek from Hebrew and Egyptian— In Latin from Greek —In Teutonic from Latin and from Celtic, ^8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. THE SEARCH FOE. THE ORIGINAL HOME OF THE INDO-GERMANIC PEOPLE. PACK Pictet assumes Bactria — General Feeling in Favour of Asia — Latliam, the heterodox, attacks the Asiatic Hypothesis — Is Supported by Beufey and Geiger — Cuuo's Argument in Favour of Eui'ope — The Lion's Witness — Helm Ridicules Latham — Kiepert — Van deu Gheyn — The Original Semitic Home : Krenier aud Hommel — The Anthropologists' Contribution to the Discussion : Posche, Linden- schmit, Penka — The Finns : Tomaschek and Canon L Taylor, . 80 PART 11. RESEARCH BY MEANS OF LANGUAGE AND HISTORY : ITS METHOD AND PRINCIPLES OP CRITICISM. CHAPTER L THE KINSHIP OF THE INDO-GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES. The Original Indo-Germanic Language — Its Differentiation into Dialects and its Expansion — Supposed Antiquity of Zend and Sanskrit and Inferences therefrom — The Original Indo-Germanic People — Linguistic Affinity and Racial Difference — Mixed Peoples — The Original Physical Type of the Indo-Germanic Race, . . . 107 CHAPTER II. LOSSES FROM THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. The Probability of Considerable Losses from the Indo-Germanic Vocabu- lary — Consequences thereof — Suspicious nature of Negative Argu- ments about the Culture of Primitive Times — The Question of the Original Home in this Connection — Occasionally, however, the Uniform Absence of Names amounts to Proof : Fishes, Colours, Flowers, 116 CHAPTER IIL THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF INDO-GERMANIC EQUATIONS. Partial Coincidences in the Indo-Germanic Vocabulary may be due to : (1) Accident ; (2) Differences of Dialect in the Original Language ; (3) New Formations Common to Separate Groups of Languages — Pedigree Theory or Transition (Undulation) Theory — The Affinities of the Teutonic and the Greek Vocabulary — Common European Culture — Difficulties of the Question Treated, .... 122 CHAPTER IV. THE FORM OF WORDS. The Phonetic Form of Equations that are Available for the History of Culture— Limitations in the Employment of Words Identical in Root, but differing in the Formation of their Suffixes — Caution even against Equations which completely Correspond — Original Mean- ing of certain Suffixes — Onomatopoeia, . . . . .133 CONTENTS. XI • CHAPTER V. THE MEANING OF WOIIDS, PAGE The Original Meaning of Words Etymologically Equivalent — Difficulty of Establishing it — The Root of an Equation Useless for the History of Culture — Names of Kin — Modern Meanings Foisted on to Ancient Words — Vei'bs Expressing the Pursuit of Certain Crafts — Names of Plants and Animals in the Original Language — Equa- tions bearing on the History of Cults and lleligion, . . . 138 CHAPTE R VI. LOAN-WORDS. Original Connection and Borrowing — The Two Things Indistinguishable in the Earliest Times — The Employment of Loan-Words for the Purposes of the History of Culture, 143 CHAPTER VII. CONCLUSION. Science of Language not in a Position of Itself to. Reconstruct the Primitive Indo-Germanic Age —Summary of Considerations — Relation of Comparative Philology to History and Palaiontology, . 147 PART III. THE FIRST APPEARANCE OP METALS, ESPECIALLY AMONGST THE INDO-GERMANIC PEOPLES. CHAPTER L INTRODUCTION. Human Culture Revolutionised by the Discovery of Metals — A Metal Medium of Exchange and Standard of Value, .... 150 CHAPTER n. THE NAMES OF THE METALS IN GENERAL. The Names of Jletals in any Language arc United by Identity of Gender — Occur in a Fixed Order in the Oldest Monuments of the Civilised Peoples of Europe and Asia, ...... 155 CHAPTER III. THE SMITH IN LORE AND LANGUAGE. The Indo-European Names of the Smith not Etymologically Con- nected — Nor the Names of his Tools — Yet Wayland the Smith has a Great Resemblance to Hephaestus — -But this may be due to Borrowing — Supernatural Smiths — The Mystery of the Smitliy, . 157 XU CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. Gold in Eg3'pt — Gold known to the Indo-Iranians — Indian Fables — Gold in Eiu-ope — Tlie Phenicians — Turko-Tataric and Ural-Altaic Fables— Loan- Words for Gold— The Northern Tribes, . . .169 CHAPTER V. SILVER, Silver in Zend, Sanskrit, and Iranian — Armenia Rich in Silver — Silver in Italian and Celtic — Electrum — Silver= " White Gold" — When it became Known to the Indo- Europeans, . . . . .180 CHAPTER VI. COPPER. Known to Primitive Man — Copper in the Ural — What is meant by Ayas and yEs? — Was Bronze Known in Pro-Ethnic Times? — A Copper Age — XaA/ct^s— Whence it Came — Meaning of Op€ix«A.Kox, 187 CHAPTER VII. IRON. Iron Abundant in Persia — When and Whence the Greeks became Acquainted with it — Steel in Greece — Ferrum of the Phenicians — Iron amongst the Celts and Teutons, 202 CHAPTER VIII. THE HISTORICAL ORDER OF COPPER, BRONZE, AND IRON. Summary of Previous Chapters — The Primeval Centre of Diffusion for Bronze — The so-called Bronze Age, . . . . . ■ . 212 CHAPTER IX. TIN AND LEAD. Tin and Lead Confused— Not Indo-Germanic — The Cassiterides — The Origin of the Word Kaa-a'mpos — Suggested Derivation for m6xv^os — For Plumbum — Tin and Lead in Asia Minor, .... 214 CHAPTER X. ANCIENT INDO-EUROPEAN NAMES OF WEAPONS. Indo-Iranian Weapons of Offence — No Agreement between Greek and Latin — Considerable Resemblance between Greek and Indo-Iraniau — Derivation of x6yxi] — The Greek I'ttpos — The Prehistoric aop — The Latin Sword — Defensive and Offensive Arms in the North — Names for the Spear — The Stone Knife — Conclusions, . . . 221 CONTENTS. XUl PAET IV. THE PRIMEVAL PERIOD. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. PAGE The Primeval Period Pre-Metallic — Comparative Philology needs the Assistance of Comparative Antiquities — The Vedas Not the A and of all Knowledge — Casual Coincidences in Antiquities : in Material, Moral, and Religious Culture — Retrogression Improbable — Contradictions between Language and Records of the Past never occur, 240 CHAPTER II. THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. Catalogue of Indo-Germanic Mammals — Lion and Tiger — Hunting — Indo-Germanic Names of Birds — The Dove a Bird of Deatli — Right and Left— Hawking— The Eel— The Snake, . . .247 CHAPTER IIL CATTLE. Ancient Indo-Germanic Domesticated Animals : Cow, Sheep, Goat, Dog, Pig, and Horse — Driving and Fighting Chariots — Ancient History of the Mule, Ass, and Camel — Conclusions as to the Original Indo-European Home — The Cat — Birds — Ape, Parrot, Peacock, . 259 CHAPTER IV. THE PLANT-WORLD. Indo-Germanic and European Names of Trees — The Original Home Question — The Soul of Trees — Wood and Temple — G. vrjos and vavs — The Oak the Tree of the Supreme God, .... 271 CHAPTER V. AGRICULTURE. Historical Notices of Indo-Germanic Agriculture and Settlements — Equations in Agricultural Terminology : Indo-European, European, and Indo-Iranian — Transition from Pastoral to Agricultural Life — The Plough — Common Field System — Ancient European and Indo- Iranian Cultivated Plants, ........ 281 CHAPTER VI. COMPUTATION OF TIME. Divisions of the Year — Originally Two — Additions — The Year- Moon and Month — Computation of Gestation — Superstition — Lunar and Solar Year — Names of the Months — Computation by Nights — Day —Divisions of the Day, 300 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. FOOD AND DRIXK. PACK Man and Beast — Flesh Diet — Vegetable Diet — Salt — Use of Milk in the Primeval Period — Mead — Beer amongst the Northern Indo-Euro- peans, Wine amongst the Southern — Sura and Soma amongst the Indo-Iranians, .......... 314 CHAPTER VIII. CLOTHING. Clothing of Skins — The Renones — Tanning and Plaiting— Terminology of Weaving and Spinning — The Materials for these Two Arts — Comparison of the Teutonic Dress according to Tacitus, with that of the Greeks according to Homer — Tattooing — Ornaments, . . 327 CHAPTER IX. DWELLINGS. Wagon-Dwellings— Terminology of Wagon -Building — Underground Habitations — Indo-Germanic Huts — Their Materials — Their Oldest Form— Door— Window— Hearth —Stalls, 338 CHAPTER X. TRAFFIC AND TRADE. Exchange — Buying and Selling — The Stranger — Origin of Guest-Friend- ship — Dumb Barter and Sale — Barter and Exchange in Language — Fords and Roads— Did the Indo-Europeans Dwell by the Sea ? — Navigation, .......... 348 CHAPTER XI. THE CULTURE OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS AND THE PREHISTORIC MONUMENTS OF EUROPE, ESPECIALLY THE SWISS LAKE- DWELLINGS. General Character of the Swiss Lake-Dwellings— Oldest Stations — Metals and Weapons — Cattle-Breeding, Domestic Animals — Agri- culture — Food — Clothing — Dwellings — Pottery — Wagon-Building and Ship-Building — Ethnological Conclusions, .... 355 CHAPTER XI L FAMILY AND STATE. Hypotheses as to the Evolution of the Family — Our Object — I. Indo- Germanic Names of Kin : 1. Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, Brother, Sister — 2. Paternal and Maternal Uncles and Aunts, Nephew, Cousin, Grandparents, Grandchildren — 3. Relation by Marriage — Explanation of the Facts Ascertained — The Indo- Germanic Family Agnatic — II. Indo-European Marriage, Posi- tion of the Indo-European Woman : Purchase — Capture — Marriage" Ceremonies — Man and Wife — Sacrifices Common to the Two — Polj'ganiy — Levirate — Adultery in the Husband and the Wife — The Father's Right of Exposure— The Widow— III. Family and State : The Joint Family — The Bratstvo and the Sib — Blood Revenge — The Tribe — Regal Power — Had the Indo-Europeans a Common Name? 369 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XIII. RELIGION. PAOE Difficulty of the Task — I. A Short History of the Comparative Myth- ology of the Intlo-Eiiropean Peoples: Max Miiller, A. Kuhn, W. Schwartz, "W. Mannhanlt, E. H. Meyer, 0. Grnppe — II. Indo- European Etymological Equations touching the Belief in the Gods and Cults: Conclusions therefrom — III. Concluding Remarks : Priest and Physician — Sacrifice — Human Sacrifice — Mountain- and Forest-Cults — Question of Immortality — Ancestor Worship, . . 405 CHAPTER XIV. THE ORIGINAL HOME. Autochthony and Myths of Migration — The Most Ancient Abodes of the European Members of the Indo-Germanic Family of Peoples : Slavs, Teutons, Celts, the Balkan and Apennine Peninsulas — The Scene of the Joint European Culture bounded by the Danube, Carpathians, Dnieper, and Pripet — Original Home of the Indo- Iranian Peoples in East Iran — Prehistoric Place of Union between the Eastern and the AVestern Indo-Europeans in the South Russian Steppe, somewhere about half-way up the Volga, the most ancient name of which ('PS) is probably of Indo-European Origin — Life amongst the Primitive Indo-Europeans and the Nature of the South European Steppe — The Scythian Question — Conclusion, . 426 Index of Authors Quoted in Part I., ....... 445 Index of Words in Parts II. -IV., . 448 Corrigenda and Addenda, ......... 487 PREHISTORIC Al^TIQUITIES. PART I. THE HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC PALEONTOLOGY, CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF LINGUISTIC PALEONTOLOGY. Eighteenth century views about the linguistic and ethnological relationship of nations can nowhere be better or more compre- hensively studied than in the numerous writings of the most learned and distinguished student of language of that period, Johann Christoph Adelung. His principal work Mithridates, or the General Science of Language I^Afithridates ocler aUgemeine Sprachen- kunde, 1806-1816, frum the second part onwards continued by J. S. Vater from Adelung's papers, 3 vols., Berlin), stands mid- way between the old science of language and the new, and may be designated as a continuation, only more thorough and more methodical, of the idea of a universal glossary, which was suggested by Leibnitz, and first earned into execution in the St Petersburg Dictionary of the Czarina Katharine. The design at the bottom of this idea, viz., to establish the mutual relations of nations by means of a comparison of their languages, is characteristic of the position then filled by the science of language, Avhich was little more than that of handmaiden to ethnology. But the criterion of these comparisons was not, as in the St Petersburg Dictionary and elsewhere, collections of individual words, for Adelung does not attempt to conceal his grave suspicions of them ((•/'. Preface, p. viii). On the strength of the large number of translations in existence,* the Lord's Prayer in nearly five hundred languages and dialects was taken as the test of language, on the ground tliat only by means of a continuous piece of human speech is it possible to follow The person who first had the idea of using the Lord's Prayer as a test of language was J. Schihlherger, about 1477. On the collections of the L. P., see Mithridates, i. p. 646 seq. A 2 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. the movement and spirit of a language, and, above all, to trace its structure, external and internal (c/. Preface, p. xii). Our interest in this work, which may be read not without profit to this day, lies principally in the author's views of the relationship of the European and Asiatic peoples, and particularly of those among them which have been grouped together under the name of Indo-Eui'opean. To begin with, the fatal error that the language of the Bible must be regarded as the original language of mankind, an error first energetically combated by Leibnitz, may be regarded as vanquished. Even in his work, On the History of the German Language {Uher die Geschichte der deutschen Sprache), &c., which appeared at Leipzig in 1781, Adelung says, in the Introduction, p. 10: "People have at all times given themselves a great deal of unnecessary trouble in trying to find out what was the first language in the w^orld, because they believed that then it must be very easy to derive all the other laugi;ages from it Hebrew is certainly the oldest language of which we have any considerable remains ; but it is not therefore the most ancient," and he adds, in the Preface to the Mithrid., p. 11 : " I do not derive all languages from a single one ; Noah's ark to me is a closed fortress, and the ruins of Babylon need fear no molestation from me." Nevertheless, Adelung is firmly convinced of the Asiatic origin of the peoples of Europe. At that time proofs were not considered necessary for this view. "Asia," says Adelung in the introduction to Part L of the Mithridates, " has at all times been regarded as that portion of the world in which the human race had its origin, where it received its first education, and from the centre of which it poured forth its multitudes over the whole of the rest of the world," and in the introduction to the second part of this work, he says : " That portion of the globe which we, following the example of the Phoenicians, call Europe, is really but the western continua- tion of Asia Therefore, it has this quarter of the globe to thank for its population, and especially Central Asia " (though Paradise, according to Adelung, ih., i. p. 61, lay in Cashmere), "that great and ancient nursery of the human race for Asia, Europe, and America." Adelung also had ideas .about the order and direction in which the various peoples immigrated into Europe, cf Oldest History of the Germans, &c. [Aelteste Geschichte der Deutschen, &c., Leipzig, 1806, p. 121). He distinguishes in Europe, from east to west, six different races and languages, Iberians, Celts, Teutons, Thracians (more precisely the grovip formed by the Thracian, Pelasgic, Greek, and Latin languages), Finns, and Slavs, of which the Iberians, as dwelling farthest west, must have migrated first. Anyhow, the position of these races relatively to each other shows that their immi- gration followed two main lines of march : one, that of the Celts and Thracians (of, however, Mithrid., ii. p. 340) to the south, the other that of the Teutons, Slavs, and Finns to the north of the Danube. If we now inquire to what extent Adelung and his age had recognised the etymological kinship of the Indo-Germanic Ian- ADELUNG AND VATER. 3 guages, we have first to mention that the important resemblances of Sanskrit to the other languages were, thanks especially to the writing of Frater Paulinus a S. Bartholomseo,* by no means unknown. Adelung has a chapter (Mithrid., i. p. 149) entitled " Agreement of many words in Sanskrit with words of other ancient languages," which begins with the following sentence: "The great antiquity of this language is shown among other things by the agreement of so many of its words with words of other ancient languages, the only possible reason for which is that all these peoples at their origin, and before their separation, belonged to a common i*ace." Here, however, there is no recognition of the idea of an Indo-Germanic family of nations, as is shown by the cata- logues of words which follow, and in which Hebrew, Syrian, Turkish, and other words are brought in for comparison with Sanskrit. As to the rest, in regard to the Indo-GeiTuanic peoples, there were two cases of closer connection which were particularly asserted and maintained at that pei'iod : the first was the close relationship y between Latin and Greek, the second that which was supposed to exist between Persian and German. On the latter point, especially since the year 1597, a very extensive literature! had been amassed, and even Leibnitz was of the opinion (cf. Mithrid., i. p. 277) that the relation between German and Pei'sian was so close that Integri versus Persice scribi possunt, quos Germanus intelligat. The explanation of relations of this kind was at that period sought exclusively in processes of mingling, which the peoples in question were supposed to have gone through in historic or pre- historic times. Thus Adelung and Vater {Mithrid., ii. p. 457) explain Latin as a mixture of Celtic {Aborigines) and Greek {Pelasgi) elements, and the German constituents in Persian are brought into connection with the sojourn of the Goths on the Black Sea in the neighbourhood of Persia : " for, as they were a wild, rest- less, conquering race, ever seeking to expand at the cost of their neighbours, they cannot have spared Persia when in its neighbour- hood" {cf. Aelteste Geschichte der Deutschen, 1806, p. 550). Further, "Greek, to our astonishment, contains many Teutonic roots, perhaps one-fifth of its vocabulary, and yet we may not regard the one language as the mother of the other. Since the Teutons came from the east, they must have dwelt a long time in the north of Thrace, before they penetrated still further north, and as barbaric tribes cannot long behave as peaceful neighbours, they may have poured over the district south of them, and made themselves masters of it several times, and have left a part of their language behind them as a memento." Such was Adelung's opinion on this 1798. Diss, de antiquUatc et affinilate linguae Zendicce, Saniscridamicce et Gcrmanicm. Padua. 1802. Diss, de Latini sermonis origine et cum orientalibus Unguis connexione. Rome. t Given in Adelung, Aelteste Geschichte der Deutschen, &e., Leipzig, 1806, p. 360 seq. Cf. also Th, Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, p. 228 seq. 4 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. subject in the Oldest History of the Germans, ikc. (Aelteste Geschichte der Deutschen, ifec., p. 352), which appeared a short time before Part I. of the Mithridates. It is, therefore, very remarkable that the same author, in those passages of the Mithridates in whiqh he has to speak of the same subject, reaches another view of the matter, and one which comes very near the true state of the case. At any rate, in the Mithridates, i. p, 279, it strikes him as very surprising that the Teutonic elements in Persian look not like strangers, but " as though they were closely interwwen with the original structure of the language and its forms." For this reason, the following explanation seems to him to be far the most probable : " The Teutons, like all the peoples of the West, derive their descent from Asia, and if it is now impossible to determine the locality which they inhabited befoi-e their migrations, still there is no reason why it should not be placed in Central Asia close to the bounds of Persia and Thibet, a country whose unstable hordes have sometimes populated, and more than once shaken Europe. The Teuton, the Slav, the Thracian, the Celt, and so on, may thus have drawn /rom one and the same linguistic source, and at the same time as the Persian, and only have become estranged by time, climate, and customs." Thus, the learned German student of language had shortly before his death, independently as it seems, reached the same conclusion as that which the famous Englishman, Sir W. Jones, owing to his greater knowledge of Sanskrit, had pronounced * as early as the year 1786, — namely, that the points of agreement between this language and especially Greek and Latin, though also ancient German and Celtic (Persian and Slavonic are not mentioned by Jones in the passage in question), can only be explained on the assumption that they are derived from a common source, no2v perhaps no longer in existence. It was reserved for the nineteenth century to produce proof in the scientiiic sense, of the unity of the Indo-Germanic f languages. Thanks to the immortal Franz Bopp, the circle of Indo-European languages begins to be drawn closer and tighter. Doubt is now no longer possible as to the common origin of the languages dealt with in Bopp's Comparative Grammar (1833-35) : Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavonic, Gothic, and German, to which may be added, as dealt with in separate treatises, Celtic (1839), Old Prussian (1853), Albanian (1854-55), and in a second edition (1856-61), Armenian. But whereas with Bopp the assump- tion of a prehistoric unity of the Indo-Germanic peoples is but a background for the explanation of facts of language, on the founda- tion laid by him the idea gradually begins to be recognised as one of pre-eminent importance for history. Nothing, however, was more closely connected with the explana- * Cf. Th. Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachu:isse7ischaff, p. 347. t The expression Indo-Germanic seems to have been first used by Klaproth in his Asia Polyglotta, 2nd ed., 1831 (and also in the first edition, 1823 ?), and not as Spiegel [Arische Periode, vi.) thinks, by Pott for the first time. SIR W. JONES AND BOPP. 5 tion of the relationship of the Indo-Gcrmanic languages to each other than the question as to the starting-point, the original home of the Indo-Europeans. If one looked at a group of related words, such saj, as Goth, fadar, Lat. pater, G. Trarrjp, Sans. 2nta, Zend. pita, there were a priori two possible ways of explaining their relation : either one of the forms enumerated must be regarded as the parent of the rest, or they are all derived from some one j original form now no longer existing, and only recoverable by the ' comparison of languages. It was necessary to decide this question one way or the other before the position of the original Indo-Ger- manic home could be determined ; and although Sir W. Jones had divined the truth, there were not wanting people to claim one or other of the Indo-European languages as the mother of the rest. The honour of this post was assigned either to Sanskrit, to which was principally due the discovery of an Indo-European family of languages, or to Zend, which had all the greater reputation for sanctity and antiquity, because little was known about it to inquirers at the beginning of the present century. The derivation of the Indo-Germanic family from India was maintained by F. von Schlegel in his epoch-making work. The Language and Wisdom of the Hindus (Sprache wid Weisheit der huler, 1808, cf. vol. iii. ch. iii. p. 173). He explains the connec- tion of the languages, mythology, and religion of the Indo-Germanic peoples in an historical manner, by means of colonies, which were sent forth in the remotest past from populous India to Asia and Europe, and were there fused with the original inhabitants of the land, on whom they stamped their language and customs. Indi- viduals also, especially pi'iests, thinks Schlegel, may occasionally have journeyed forth as missionaries, and spread their native tongue. On the other hand, the greater antiquity of Zend, as compared with Sanskrit, is asserted by H. F. Link in a work which also was of very great value for that period. Antiquity and the Primeval World explained hy Nat^iral Science {Die Urivelt unci das Altertum, erldutert durch die Naturkunde, 2 Pts., Berlin, 1821 and 1822). As, however, according to him, "the original Zend language," the mother of Sanskrit, from which sprang Greek, Latin, and Slavonic — German is still in his eyes the daughter of Persian, which again is the outcome of a remarkable mixture of Zend and barbaric (i.e., Teutonic) elements — was spoken in Media and the neighbouring districts, he has no doubt that the original abode of the Indo- Europeans is to be looked for in the highlands of Armenia, Media, and Georgia, a view which at the beginning of this century generally prevailed amongst the most distinguished inquirers, Anquetil-Duperron, Herder, Heeren, and others. Here, too, as in Adelung's opinion also {cf. Mithrid., i. p. 5), was the home of the domesticated animals and cultivated })lants, and generally of all "the improvements in man's condition, which were transmitted to us " {cf p. 243). However, these purely hypothetical conjectures as to the original Indo-European home lost every shred of support the moment the 6 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. conviction spread that all the Indo-European languages, and there- fore Sanskrit and Zend, stood in the relation of sisters to one another. India alone was for some time longer, and by A. Curzon last of all {On the Oricjincd Extension of the Sanskrit Language over certain Portions of Asia and Europe, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xvi. p. 172, 1856), treated as the starting-point of the Indo- Europeans (c/. J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, ii. 2, p. 301 seq.). The iirst to tiy to obtain some firm ground for determining the position of the original Indo-Germanic home, without falling a victim to the erroneous idea that some one of the Indo-Germanic peoples was to be regarded as the parent of the rest, was J. G. Rhode in. his book The Sacred Stories of the Zend People {Die heilige Sage des Zendvolkes, Frankfurt, 1820 {cf F. Spiegel in Ausland, 1871, p. 55). He also first pointed to that portion of the interior of Asia which is still regarded by numerous scholars as the original home of the Indo-Europeans. Rhode begins by endeavouring to discover the geographical starting-point of the Zend people, in which he comprehends Bactrians, Medes, and Persians ; and with this view he employs the celebrated first Fargard of the Vendidad, in which, as is known, sixteen districts occur as the creation of Ormuzd, and as many plagues as sent in opposition by Ahriman. Now, in the enumeration of the districts Rhode sees traces of the gradual expansion of the Zend people, whose starting-point he considers to be the Airyana Vaejanh, first mentioned in that passage. As this Airyana Vaejanh is followed next by Sugdha, which is undoubtedly the Greek ItoyZiavq (O.P. Suguda, modem Samarkand), " Eeriene {sic) and Sogdiana must have bordered directly on each other, and it must have been possible for the nation to move directly from the first to the second. Eeriene Veedjo {sic), therefore, is to be looked for nowhere else than on the mountains of Asia, w^hence, as far as history goes back, peoples have perpetually migrated ; that is, on the cold and lofty plateaux and the summits of the mountains, covered with perpetual snow, at the sources of the Jaxartes and the Oxus" (p. 86). Now, as the evidence of langviage shows that Zend and Sanskrit are related to each other "as two sisters born of the same mother," once upon a time the Brahmins must have migrated from the elevated plateavix or the skirts of the mountains of Central Asia to the banks of the Ganges and the Indus (p. 96). Nay ! Rhode believes that he has even found in the Avesta the cause of the original people's sudden departure from the original home. A sudden lowering of the previously warm temperature of Central Asia compelled them to abandon their cold mountain home for the warmer districts of Sogdiana, Bactria, Persia, &c. In the same sense as Rhode, and abovit the same time, A. W. von Schlegel delivered himself in the Latin preface to a great work, which he designed, but never published, Etymologicum novum sive synopsis linguarum {cf. Indische Bihliothek, i. p. 274). "Quid igitur?" he says on p. 291, ^^num origines linguarum Pelasgi- THE ORIGINAL INDO-EUROPEAN HOME. 7 carum et Germanicarurn ah Indo et Gange repetere molimur ? Minime quidem. Nullam harum ah altera derivatam did posse censeo, sed omnes deductis in contraria rivulis ah eodem fonte Jluxisse." And further, p. 293, ^^ Neque tamen Germanos indi- genas cum Tacito crediderim, sed olim in Asia interiore, unde et Pelasgi stint profecti, vicinas his sedes incoluisse." More precisely, A. W. V. Schlegel decides for the district between the Caspian , Sea and the mountains of Central Asia, in a later paper, De \ Vorigine des Hindus (cf. Transactions of the Roycd Society of Litera- ture, London, 1834, and Essais Litteraires et Historique^, Bonn, 1842). An observation of the estimable Julius v. Klaproth deserves to be mentioned here, inasmuch as it is the first attempt to ascertain anything about the original home of the Indo-Europeans by mean of Comparative Philology and the geography of plants. As early as the year 1830 (cf Nouveau Journal Asiat., v. p. 112) this scholar, from the fact that the name of the birch was the only name of a tree in Sanskrit which reciured in the other Indo-Germanic languages (Sans, hhurja = lii\ss. bereza, &c.), drew the conclusion that the Sanskrit population of India must have come from the north. " These peoples did not find in their new home the trees which they had known in the old, with the exception of the birch, which grows on the southern slopes of the Himalayas." Further, according to Klaproth (Asia Polyglotta, 1831, p. 42) the Indo- Europeans had descended into the plains partly from the Himalayas, partly from the Caucasus, perhaps even "before the Noachian flood." Next, F. A. Pott delivered himself as to the geographical and ethnological area of the Indo-Europeans, both in the prefaces to his Etymological Researches {Etymologischen Forschungen, 1833 and 1836) and in his later treatise Indo-Germanic Family of Languages {Indogermanischer Sprachstamm, in the Allg. Encyclop., v. Ersch u. Griiber, 1840, ii. pp. 1-112). Indubitably, in Pott's opinion (Encyc, p. 19), the cradle of the Indo-Germanic family was in Asia, for v "ex oriente lujc, and the course of civilisation has always, on the whole, follow^ed the sun. The people of Europe once lay on the breast of Asia, and like children played around her, their mother ; for this we now no longer need to rely on confused and almost for- gotten memories, we have actual and historical proof before us in the languages of Europe and Asia. There or nowhere must we look for the playground, the gymnasium in which man first developed the powers of his body and his mind " (Etym. Forsch., i. p. xxi). In Asia, he decides for the district on the Oxus and Jaxartes, from the northern slopes of the Himalaya to the Caspian "** Sea. Here we may most safely imagine the parting-place to have been, from which the two main streams of the Indo-Germanic peoples seem to have moved in divergent directions {Encyc, p. 19). While Pott then maintained the Central Asiatic origin of the Indo-Europeans on the strength of general considerations, much the same as those to which Adelung had already given utterance, 5 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. Ch. Lassen endeavoured in his Indian Antiquity {Indische Alter- tumskunde, 1847, i. pp. 511-31) to support Rhode's view by new combinations. The way, indeed, in which India is distributed between the different peoples that inhabit it, is held to indicate that the " Aryans," whose complexion distinguishes them from the original inhabitants, must have come into the land from the north- west.* In this case, however, their journey from the land of the Oxiis must have led them through the western passes of the Hindu- Kush, through Cabul to the Punjaub. That, further, the Airyana Vaejahh of the Avesta was really situated where Rhode thought, in the north of Sogdiana, on the cold highland of the western slopes of Belurtagf and Mustag, and that it is here we must look for the original country, not only of the ancient Persians, but of the whole Indo-Germanic family (c/. Altertumsk., i. p. 527), is further shown, Lassen thinks, by the fact that the Tadschiks, who speak Persian, the old original inhabitants of Khasgar, Jarkand, Khoten, Aksu, &c., dwell on both sides of that lofty mountain, and spread thence over Central Asia. And to these peoples Klaproth in his Asia Polyglotta, p. 243, and Ritter, by whom the hypothesis of the Central Asiatic origin of the Indo-Europeans was introdviced into geography, (c/. Erdkunde, ii. p. 435, f.), had explicitly alluded as belonging to the Persian division of the Indo-Germanic family. Moreover, in several tribes, the Yueti, Yuetsihi, Yeta, the Szu, Se, Sai, and especially in the blue-eyed, fair-haired Usun (cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, ii. and vii., in the passages given in the Index under Usun and Yueti), which were first referred to by Abel Remusat on the strength of Chinese authorities, and which appear about the second century before Christ as coming from the East, and as in hostile relations with the northern kingdoms of Persia, the last waves of the Central Asiatic Indo-Europeans were seen ; nay ! people did not * In the year 1850, A. "Weber {Indische Stud., i. p. 161) thought he had discovered a fresh argument — it was subsequently adopted by Lassen {cf. Indische Altertumsk umle, 1. 2, p. 638) and others — to show that the Hindus came from the land beyond the Himalayas. He points, to begin with, to the ancient story of the flood in the ^atapatJmbrdhmana, I. 8, 1. 1, in which it is narrated how a fish advised Manu to build a boat because the flood would come. " When the flood rose, he (Manu) went on board. The fish swam up, and to its horn he fastened the boat's rope, and so he crossed this northern mountain" (the Himalaya). Manu descends thence into India and begets children. On the other hand, see Zimnier, Altindisches Lehen, 1879, p. 101. t With regard to the frequently recurring name " Belurtag," Bolortag, &c., a reference to H. A. Daniel, Handhuch der GeograqMe, 1880, p. 231, will set the matter right. He says : "From the elevated plateau of Pamir, the roof of the world, as the name signifies, Turan stretches west and north-west. Where the older maps mark a mountain-range running north and south under the name of Belurtag or Bolortag, — an error, since there is neither a mountain-range nor do the names occur there, — a waste plateau, about 400 kilom. wide, separates that portion of Central Asia which is subject to the Chinese EmjDire from the Ai'alo- Caspian depression, and connects the mountain-systems of the Himalaya, Mustagh, Hindu-Kush in the south with the Alai-Tagh and Thian-Schan in the north." Cf., however. Max Midler, India: ivhat can it tmch us? p. 267, note: "The Bolor, the very existence of which has been denied, has lately been re-established as the real name of a real mountain by Robert Shaw. He found that the name was applied by the Kirghis to the district of Kitral." POTT, RHODE, AND LASSEN. 9 hesitate to identify, as did Klaproth and Ritter, the Yeta with the (Jetce, the Se with the Sacce, the Usun with the Suiones, their leaders Kuenmi with the Teut. ktm-ig [Erdkunde, ii. p. 432), and so on. J. Grimm, too, in his Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, con- tributed considerably to the spread of these ideas, by identifying the Getce with the Goths. In the south-west of Persia, taken in its broadest signification, we have, however, according to Lassen, to place the original home of the second great linguistic family of the Caucasian race, the Semitic. For the Hebrew story of Eden points in this direction, and what the Belurtag was for the Aryans, Ararat was for the Semites. A common place of origin, and pre- historic contact between the Semites and the Indo-Europeans is supposed to be proved by a resemblance between their languages which goes beyond "grammatical structure." Thus, indeed, everything seemed to confirm the opinion that the Indo-Germanic peoples and languages had their roots in Asia, and J. Grimm was right in maintaining in his History of the German Language {Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, 1848) that this view had but few opponents. " All the peoples of Europe," he \^ says, p. 162,/., "came from Asia in the distant past; an irresist- ible impulse, the causes of which are hidden from us, set in from the east to the west. The further west we find a people pene- trating, the earlier it must have begun its travels, and the deeper the traces it may have left behind it on the way." The trifling and ill-founded opposition offered to this opinion of the first authorities on the subject (c/. Th. Poesche, Die Arier, 1878, p. 60) soon ceased entirely. If Comparative Philology at its first appearance thus raised questions of the very greatest importance in history and ethnology, which now seemed to be approaching a final solution, the further growth of the science was destined to be of importance for another branch of human knowledge, which was in urgent need of assist- ance, the history of primitive culture. As early as the year 1820, in a quarter apparently far removed from the new comparative method, that is, in the Malay and Polynesian languages, J. Crawfurd had in his comprehensive work the History of tlie Indian Archipelago, appended a tolerably extensive vocabulary to a general dissertation on the Polynesian languages, in which he endeavoured to trace the relationship of the most important terms of civilisation in this group of languages. Indeed, on the strength of his linguistic observations, he had even drawn a detailed description of the oldest civilisation of these peoples.* * Cy. ii. p. 85: " They had made .^onie advances in agricultm-e, under- stood the use of iron, had workers in this metal and in gold, out of which tliey probably male ornaments ; they were clothed in material woven from the fibrous bark of plants, which they wove on a loom, but ilid not yet know how to make cotton garments, which knowledge they only obtained later from the Indian mainland ; they had domesticated the cow and the bnlbdo, and used them as beasts of draught and burden, as also the pig, the fowl, and the duck, which served them as food." lO PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. Similai" attempts were not wanting in the domain of the Indo- Germanic languages. The first step towards arranging Indo- Germanic equations for purposes of the history of culture was taken by the learned and acute R. K. Rask, in a prize-essay which appeai'ed at Copenhagen in 1818 {Undersogelse oin des gamle Nordiske eller Islanchke S2)rogs Oj^rindehe, translated into German by J. S. Vater in the Vergleichungstafeln der Europaischen Stammsprachen, &c., Halle, 1882, see pp. 109-32), which contains indeed only etymologies confined to the European languages, but they are distinguished by what is relatively a very considerable degree of accuracy.* Two short papers bearing on linguistic palaeontology were A. W. V. Schlegel's Names of Animcds and Metals (Uber Tier- namen mid Navien der Metalle, Indische Bibliotelc, i. pp. 238-45). which were intended to illumine important chapters in the history of culture for the first time with the light of the science of language. In both papers Schlegel discusses the transference of certain names of animals and metals to other species of animals and metals, as, for instance the relation of the Greek cAe'^as : Goth, ulbandus, " camel," a word which he regards as " an ancient memory of Asia ; " of Goth, vulps : Lat. vulpes ; of Sans. dyas, Teut. eisen, Lat. aes, "copper," &c. Some of the etymologies, such as Lat. ursus, "bear" = O.H.G. ors, "horse," G. Kdfir]Xoj mology leaves the investigator entirely stranded, as in the case [l of Sans, dru "wood, twig, tree," Goth, tri^c "tree," G. 8pv<; "oak," |i so that the only result to be got at is that "our Indo-European ll ancestors dwelt in a region which was not a treeless waste." 1 1 When A. Knhn had thus to a certain extent made the question as |i to the civilisation of the primeval Indo-Germanic period the order 1 of the day in Comparative Philology, and when new affinities and connections were being discovered almost every day in the vocabu- B 1 8 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. lary of the Indo-Germaiiic languages, it was to be expected that the idea should occur of employing the whole of the material bear- ing on the subject for the composition of a general picture of Indo- Germanic civilisation. This task was undertaken in the most ample and thoroughgoing, but unfortunately most uncritical, way by the Genevan savant Adolphe Pictet, who had already shown his interest in historico-linguistic studies in some shorter dissertations — Etymo- logische Forschungen iiher die dlteste Arzneikunst hei den Indoger- manen {Etymological Investigations into the most Ancient Form of Medicine amongst the Indo-Europeans), K. Z., v. pp. 24-29, and Die alien Krankheitsnamen hei den Indogermanen (Ancient Names of Diseases amongst the Indo-Europeans), K. Z., v. pp. 321-54, etc. His work, Les origines Indo-Europeennes ou les Aryas Primitifs, essai de paleontologie linguistique (a term which had not been used before), Paris, 1859-63 (2nd ed., Paris, 1877, cf. on this point ch. iv. below), endeavoured in two large volumes to examine the whole vocabulary of the Indo-Germanic languages, with a view to reconstructing the primeval Indo-European period. It consists of fiye books, of which the first contains geographical and ethno- logical discussions ; the second deals with the natural history (minerals, plants, animals) of the primitive Indo-Germanic period (vol. i., 1859); the third discusses the material civilisation of the ancient Indo-Europeai;is ; the fourth, their social relations ; and the fifth and last, the intellectual, moral, and religious life of the primeval period (vol. ii., 1863). Now this arrangement of the subject-matter was a mistake. The author, for reasons which we shall examine more closely in our fourth chapter, having decided in favour of the ancient Bactria as the original home of the Indo-Germanic family, makes this geographical hypothesis the basis of his further reconstruction of the primeval period. Whatever seems to him to correspond to the geography or natural history of this portion of the world, he refei's without hesitation to the primeval period, even if the linguistic proofs, on which this paleontologie linguistique is based, note, should be altogether wanting. This holds good especially of what he says about the animal kingdom and the vegetable world. Thus he says of the camel (i. p. 382) : " Although the camel is not a European animal, and its name, camelus, is undoubtedly borrowed from the Semitic, it is nevertheless very probable that the Indo-Europeans were acquainted with it, as the two-humped camel is native to Bactria." By a similar mode of argument, the tiger (i. p. 425) is assigned to the primitive Indo-Germanic period. It obviously cannot be my task to examine this extensive work in detail. I shall rather content myself with a short account of Pictet's method, which can be better seen by the selection of an example than from the section (§ 2, i. pp. 11-25) which he devotes to stating it. This will be the best way of judging the results which the author reaches (cf. the last chapter, Re'sume general et conclusions). Such a treatment of Pictet's method is necessary PICTET AND LINGUISTIC PALEONTOLOGY. 1 9 even now, as the importance of the author is still much overrated — not indeed by specialists, but in wider circles {cf., e.g.^ B. Krek, Einleitung in die slav. Litteraturgesch., pp. 52, 65, &c.). As the fundamental principle of Pictet's researches is : " Partir toujours du mot Sanscrit, sHl existe, soit pour arriver a la restitution du theme 2^'>'''^nitif, soit pour en decouvrir V etymologie probable (i. p. 23), in oi'der to show that the Indo-Europeans were, as Pictet is convinced that they were, acquainted with agriculture, it is above all things necessary to discover in Sanskrit tlae European names of the cereals. But whereas the best Sanskrit scholar of that time, Ch. Lassen, had as early as the year 1847 come to the conclusion that " Ydca may be regarded as the oldest variety of grain cultivated by the Indo-Euroj^eans, because this is the only grain whose name has been preserved in all the related languages " \lnd. Altertumskunde, i. p. 247), Pictet promises, as the result of his comparisons, " that the ancient Indo-Europeans already possessed most of the cultivated plants which to this day form the basis of our agriculture." In this connection he relies, for wheat and barley, on the following designations, which apparently coincide in Sanskrit and the European languages : — I. Wheat (1) G. 0-1705 = Sans, sitagimhika, sitaguka or sitya, p. 262; (2) Goth, hvaiteis = Sans, gvetai^unga, p. 263; (3) Ir. m<:m?i = Sans. sumana, p. 264; (4) Ir. arbha, Lat. robus = Sans. arbha(l), p. 265; (5) Trupos = Sans, pilra, p. 266; (6) Buss, psenica = Sans. 2^sdna, p. 266. II. Barley: (I) G. {ca = Sans. ydva, p. 267; (2) Lith. mieziei = Sans, medhya, p. 268; (3) O.H.G. ^ers to = Sans, (/ras-^d; (4) G. Kpt6-^ = Sans. *p-i-dhd ; (5) Koa-n'j (Hesych.) = Sans. ^as-td ; (6) Lat. hordeum = Sans. hfdya ; (7) Cymr. haidd = Sans, sddhu, pp. 269-71. Of these equations, the phonetic difficulties and impossibilities of which we pass over, we must, to begin with, exclude as absolutely meaningless for the I'econstruction of the primeval period those which never have in Sanskrit stood for any kind of grain, such as pil7-a (Trupos) : root, j»ar, "a kind of cake;" psdna (pkrnica) : root, ^:>sc?, " eating " (only to be traced in Hemacandra^s Dictionary, 12th century a. D.); grasta (gerste) : root, gras, "that which has been eaten;" Qas-td : root, (^aiis, "laudatus;" hfdya {hordeum), "dear to the heart, lovely;" sddhu (Cymr. haidd), "leading straight to the end." Equally idle is the reference of words apparently isolated to original forms, in the manufacture of which the author has attained to a marvellous perfection. Especial use is made of compounds. In the same way that, according to him, KpiOrj "the wealth-giving " = *fri-fZ/id, he refers a word like hund to *kvan-dhd, paptaver to *pdpa-vara, ^^cAtSwv to *hari-ddna, »fcc. The numerous compounds of the primeval age, with the pronominal syllable ka as their first element, which seems to have meant "what!", are quite comic. "What food!" (quel aliment!); "*ka-bhara," ejaculated the ancient Indo-Europeans when they gave oats a name (O.H.G. habaro); "what nourishment!" (quelle nourriture !) ; " *ka-rasa," when they named millet (O.H.G. hirsi). These primeval compounds are supposed to have had 20 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. various fates in the separate languages. Sometimes it was only the first element (G. o-lto'; = sita-cimbika), sometimes only the second (Ir. viann = Sans, su-mana) that was preserved. The remarkable thing is, that the meaning of these words, which was peculiar only to the componnd (sita-fimbika, literally, "with white ears," su-mana " well-minded, charming, pretty " = wheat) should never- theless have survived in the separate halves. We now turn to those Sanskrit words in this collection which do really occur as the names of kinds of grain in Sanskrit litera- ture : sitagimbika, sitya, <^vetac^unga, stimana, medhya. Here, how- ever, we are confronted with the defect in Pictet's method, which makes his conclusions questionable almost from the first page to the last. This is, the utter disregard of the historical develop- ment which took place in Sanskrit, and especially in the meanings of words. "Whether a word is old or modern, whether its actual existence is ascertained and guaranteed, further, whether its meaning is original or was only, in the course of the three thousand years through which Sanskrit literature flourished, developed by some process of metaphor, symbolism, or even of mythology, or whether it is nothing but the invention of some scholiast for the purposes of explanation — all these are things about which M. Pictet does not bother himself" {A. Weber). Thus, none of the names which he quotes for wheat and barley occur as such in the language of the Vedas ; they can only be found even in late literature in dictionaries such as that oi Hemacandra (12th century A.D.), in the Qabdakalpadruma (not composed until the present century), and the Amarakosha. But even if one or other of these words should have been used in the mouth of the people as the name of a variety of grain, this signification is so clearly a secondary meaning (c/., e.g., mMhya) ; (a) sappy, strong, fresh, un- injured; (b) fit for offering in sacrifice, pure, &c.; (2) amongst other meanings, barley (in the (Qabdakalpadruma), that the idea of employing it for the reconstruction of the primeval period cannot possibly be entertained. That Pictet never came to see this is the more remarkable, because the two first parts of Bohtlingk and Roth's Sanskrit lexicon had appeared in the year 1859, and the third in the year 1863 ; from these he might have derived a store of the most profitable information, if not precisely on the subject of the names of the cereals, which we have quoted, at any rate about the history of the meanings of words in Sanskrit and the value of the sources of our knowledge of Sanskrit. How little profit Pictet was able to make of this work, pregnant as it was for the whole science of language, may, to conclude, be inferred from the sole equation which we have not yet considered (i. p. 4) :- — Ir. arbha,* arbhas, Lat. robus (?), Sans, arbha (!). * The Irish word is connected by Stokes {Irish Glosses, 1038) with the Latin arvum, by the side of the Welsh erw, " acre'^ (loan-word?). This, moreover, is satisfactorily guaranteed {cf. Windisch, Irische Tcxtc, 372, arbar, " grain," and O'R., Suppl., arhaim, " corn"). On the other hand, I have not found Irish Mann, "wheat," anywhere except in O'Reilly. PICTETS METHOD. 21 To the last Sanskrit word Pictet, apparently following Wilson's Dictionary, assigns the general meaning of grass. He remarks that this is not given in the St Petersburg Dictionary, but never- theless bases the most extensive combinations on it, and adds, naively enough : " le sens des herbes en general qiC omettent, je ne sais potirquoi, lesauteurs du dictionnaire de P6tershourg" (p. 196). As a matter of fact, then, the only equation which can be employed for historical inferences, is, as Lassen maintained. Sans. ydva = G. ^€a, &c. Pictet's method of procedure immediately provoked energetic jDrotests in Germany, A. Weber, in two searching reviews of the work {Beitrdge z. vergl. Sprachf., ii. and iv.), condemned very severely, but quite justly, the uncritical way in which the author had made employment of Sanskrit. The notice of the first volume by A. Kuhu {Beitrdge, ii. pp. 369-82) w-as less severe, but in the main fully agreed with Weber's. Kuhn, after some general remarks, proceeds to an examination of details, and it is interest- ing to note what his views are now (1862) on the varieties of grain known to the primeval Indo-Germanic period : " But as regards results obtained in this w^ay, the conclusion of the whole matter seems to be that neither animals, minerals, nor plants have names which agree in all the Indo-Germanic languages, whereas the names of the domesticated animals do, in the main, agree, and therefore point to the fact that these peoples wei'e still in the nomad stage when they separated from each other. Wide- reaching agreements are, indeed, found in the names of individual minerals and plants ; but, on the whole, either these agreements are confined to groups of languages, or it is often difficult to decide whether they really were originally common property, or have spread from one people to another by borrowing" (p. 371). In spite of the serious suspicions which were at once raised by specialists against Pictet's work, the views which the savant of Geneva had pronounced on the original condition of the Indo- Europeans soon found acceptance in a wider scientific circle ; in particular, French antln-opologists and ethnologists frequently treated Pictet's conclusions as a safe basis for their own investiga- tions. I will only refer here to two distinguished French historians of culture, F. Lenormant, in his work, The Beginnings of Culture {Die Anfdnge der Culiur, German edition, Jena, 1875), and F. von liougemont. The Bronze Age, or the Semites in the Occident (German trans., Giitersloh, 1869), the works of both of whom are most seriously influenced by Pictet's book. The same remark applies to Alphonse de CandoUe's well-known book, Der Ursprung der Kulturpjjianzen (translated by E. Goeze, Leipzig, 1884), which Pictet's most erroneous statements, accejjted as sterling coin, permeate in a most pernicious way. But in Germany also nearly every eminent student of language endeavoured to wox'k this newly discovered mine of Comparative Philology in the interests of the history of culture. About the same time as the second volume of Pictet's work^ there appeared 22 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. two German treatises dealing with linguistic palaeontology : On the Primeval Indo-Germanic Period, by F. Justi {JJher die Urzeit der Indorjermanen, Pawner's hist. Taschenbuch, iv. Folge, iii. Jahrgang, 1862, pp. 301-42), and Der wirthschaftliche Culttirstand des indog. Urvolkes {The Economic Condition of the Primitive Indo- Eur 02)eans), by A. Schleicher [Hildehrand's Jahrbilcher f. Nationalokonomie, i., 1863, pp. 401-11). The sketch which Justi gives of the primeval Indo-Germanic period does not differ essentially from Pictet's account, and is obviously influenced by it. Here we have pictured in glowing language the same simple but happy existence of a young and vigorous people, breeding cattle and working farms, with a developed family life and the beginning of a State organisa- tion. A little paradise is put before our eyes. A feeling of envy creeps over us, their sorely afflicted descendants, when we read of these ancestors that "the only ills that threatened the lives of these fortunate men, seem to have been the wounds received in war, and the weakness of old age " (p. 323). For explaining the meaning of a word, especial importance is laid by Justi on the root : The word father means "the protector, master," the mother is the managing, busy house-wife, who calls her spouse "lord and master;" the son is termed "the begotten, the scion," the daughter " the milk-maid ; " she remains by the side of her in- dustrious mother and helps her ; therefore the brother loves her and calls her the sister " who dwells with him," while she honours him with the grateful title of brother, "nourisher" (p. 318). The subject-matter is arranged with more skill than in Pictet, inasmuch as in Justi the question as to the original home, the "paradise," of the Indo-Europeans is not discussed until the picture of their social relations and the Indo-Germanic fauna and flora have been disposed of. It is interesting also to note an objection which Justi himself raises against himself, when he contrasts his high estimate of the I civilisation of the primeval period with the stage of culture in ^ which history shows some of the Indo-Germanic peoples to have been, an objection of great and far-reaching importance, as we shall see, which Justi indeed contrives to dispose of very summarily : " If, however, it is objected," he says, p. 320, "that many members of the Indo-European family in times known to history and relatively much less remote from our own, were still in the hunt- ing and fishing stage, we need only, in order to deprive the objec- tion of all its force, put the further question : why did the whole population of many localities in Italy consist almost exclusively of fishers, whilst the Italians, nevertheless, rank amongst the most civilised of peoples'?" Much more scepticism was shown by Schleicher, who, in his work Die deutsche Sprache {The German Language), 1860, p. 71, /., had not failed to touch upon the civilisation of the original Indo- Europeans. According to Schleicher's pedigree-theory, which we shall subsequently speak of in detail, the Slavo-Letto-German branch was the first to detach itself from the original language, and it was only later that the remaining portion of the original JUSTI— MAX MULLER. 23 language subdivided into the Hindu-Persian and Graecoltalo-Celtic branches. Accordingly, in reconstructing the primeval period, he justly only lays weight on such words as can be traced either in all three groups of languages, or at least in the Hindu-Persian as well as in the Slavo-Letto-German group. Agreements limited to the area of the European languages he does not regard as con- clusive, because he considers that terms for civilised ideas may have been borrowed by one nation from another to a considerable extent, just as a similar process of borrowing can be traced in the case of tales and Mdrchen in the most ancient times. Schleicher is also of opinion that it is impossible to draw negative conclusions about the civilisation of the primeval period from the absence of given agreements ; " for in the course of thousands of years many words may have been lost, many may have survived in one single language alone, and therefore have lost the means of demonstrat- ing to us their primeval character. For this reason, however, our picture of their civilisation can contain nothing which does not belong to it. We are safe from the danger of imputing too much to our original people, while we may be certain that there are many sides of its civilisation which we have not the means to ascertain " (p. 404). The result is that there are many important items of civilisation which Schleicher cannot bring himself to ascribe to the primeval period, but which Pictet had imputed to it, such as the plough, mill, gold and silvei", &c. The end of the sixties brought further contributions to the investigation of the primeval Indo-Germanic period, from Max Miiller, in an essay on Comparative Philology {Essays, ii. 18-42 of the German edition, 1869),* W. D. AVhitney {Languacje and the Study of Language, 1867), and Th. Benfey {Einleitung zu A. Fick's Worte7'btich cler Indog. Grundsprache in ihren Bestande vor der Volkertrennung, 1868, and Geschichte der Sprachivissenschaft, 1869, pp. .597-600). As we here have to do with three inquirers who together stand at the head of their science, it will be particularly interesting to consider side by side the views which they put forward almost simultaneously on the same subject. A. Fick will also have to be included, because it was on his vocabulary of the original Indo-Germanic language that Benfey's views were based. At the very outset of his investigations, Max Miiller declares, as Schleicher had declared before him, that the method employed in reconstructing the primeval period may not be reversed or used for drawing negative conclusions. " Because each of the Romance languages has a different name for certain objects, it does not follow that the objects themselves Avere unknown to the ancestors of the Romance peoples. Paper was known in Rome, yet it is called carta in Italian, pajiier in French " (Select Essays, i. p. 320). That does not, however, prevent him from occasionally making use of negative proofs of this kind. On the gi'ound that the names given to the sea by the different Indo-Germanic peoples dilfer from * In Enfjlish this treatise had been published in the Oxford Essay in 1856. Cf. Ma.x Miiller, Biographies of Words, p. 129, ff. 24 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. each other, or originally designated a dead stagnant water (Lat. mare), acquaintance with the sea is denied to the primeval period, and further geographical combinations based thereon. Whitney also was of opinion that the country inhabited by the Indo- Europeans did not yet extend to the sea-coast. A second negative conclusion is drawn by Miiller from the fact that the Indo-Europeans do not possess a common Avord for the numeral thousand (c/. also Justi, op. cit., p. 315), whereas Th. Benfey opines more cautiously that "of the various permissible, i.e., intelligible, names, none had driven out the rest and established itself as the only one in use." As regards the character of the vocabulary employed. Max Miiller seems not to consider the agreement of Sanskrit a conditio sine qua non of I'econstructing the civilisation of the primeval period. At least, he too ascribes the plough and the mill to the Indo-Europeans. Nor is complete agreement in root and suffix required of the civilised terms compared ; thus, acquaintance with gold is assigned with the greatest decision to the original period, although the formative elements in the series of words in question (Sans, luranya, G. ;)(pucrd§, Slav, zlato, Goth, gid'^ "differ widely from one another." Nor does A. Fick regard the agreement of Sanskrit as absolutely indispensable in order to incorporate a word into his index of the original Indo-Germanic language. Words such as those for "boar" (apra), "fish" {pislc), "goat" (plinta), "tree with edible fruit " (bhaga), and many others, are assigned to the vocabulary of the original language, although all of them are such as can only be proved by the agreement of some European languages. So, too, some word-forms which can only be traced in a few or even only in a single European language, are admitted into the dictionary of the original language if they recur in Sanskrit.* Great care, on the other hand, is taken about the agreement of words brought together, in their derivative syllables ; in this way Fick succeeds in establishing the same word with totally different suffixes for the original language ; thus the stem vat, from which Benfey infers that the Indo-Europeans were acquainted with the division of the year, appears in three forms : vat, vatas, vatasara. Notwithstanding, the endeavour to recover forms of words which did once really exist in the original language, makes Fick's com- parisons a safer basis for researches into the history of culture than were those made by his predecessors and simply directed to identifying a root. Let us now turn to the civilisation itself of the ancient Indo- Europeans : according to Max Miiller they must have lived in the profoundest peace for a long time before their dispersion. " Hence it is that not only Latin and Greek, but all Aiyan languages, have * To this B. Delbriick, in his criticism of Fick's work {K. Z., xviii. p. 73), objects: "Particularly must we pronounce against inferring Indo-Germanic forms from Grajco-Hindu-Persian parallels. For how do we know that they may not belong to a Graeco-Hindu- Persian period, and thus be about a couple of thousand years younger than the real Indo-Germanic period ?" MAX MULLER. 25 their peaceful words in common ; hence it is that all differ so strangely in their warlike expression. Thus the domestic animals are generally known in England and India by the same name, while the wild beasts have mostly different names even in Greek and Latin " {Select Essays, i. p. 343). According to Whitney, the domestic animals that had been tamed were the horse, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the pig, and the dog, to which Benfey further adds the goose and the duck. Agriculture, too, was already pursued, and wheat and barley cultivated (Benfey and Whitjiey) ; further all three inquirers agree that the Indo-Europeans even then possessed houses and walled strongholds or towns (Sans, ^wri = G. ttoAis). On the other hand, they speak with an uncertain voice on, and at different times give diflFerent answers to the question, what metals were known to the primeval Indo- Germanic period? Thus Max Miiller, in his essay referred to above (1856), had spoken of iron as a metal known to the Indo-Europeans. In his Lectures on the Science of Language (1866 German, 1864 English edition, ii. 218), on the other hand, he endeavours to provide ample demon- stration that iron was still wanting to the Indo-Europeans before their dispersion. Benfey actually comes to three diflFerent conclusions with regard to the equation Sans, dyas, Lat. aes, Goth. aiz. Whereas in the Preface, p. viii, he was of the opinion that it " probably " had the meaning of " bronze," in his History of Comjxirxitive Philology he extends its meaning to " metal generally," subse- quently, "bronze," "iron." Finally Chr. Hostmann [Archiv f. Anthropologic, ix. p. 192) declares: "Th. Benfey, who reserves explanation in detail for another occasion, authorises me to state that there is nothing in Sanskrit scholarship nor in linguistic research in the domain of the Indo-Germanic languages, incon- sistent with the results of my investigations, while as regards the knowledge of iron in the primeval Indo-Germanic period, they are rather in complete harmony." Whitney expresses himself with the most caution : " The use of some metals was certainly known ; whether iron was amongst them is open to question." Special attention is devoted by Max Miiller to the family life of the ancient Indo-Europeans. He does not indeed lay any weight on the mere fact that the names for father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, are identical in most Indo-Germanic languages. The high development and elevated morality of the Indo-Germanic family he rather sees, as we have noticed that Justi saw, in the meaning of the roots from which the Indo-Germanic family names are derived. " The name of milkmaid, given to the daughter of the house, opens before our eyes a little idyll of the poetical and pastoral life of the early Aryans. One of the few things by which the daughter, before she was mai-ried might make herself useful in a nomadic household, was the milking of the cattle, and it discloses a kind of delicacy and humour even in the rudest state of society, if we imagine a father callin<' his daughter his little milkmaid 26 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. rather than sutd, his begotten, or jilia, the suckling " {Selected Essays, i. p. 324).* A further proof of a well-ordered family life in the primeval period is seen by Max Miiller in the names which had even then been developed for i-elations springing fi'om marriage, i.e., relations which in English are expressed by the addition of the words " in-law." Terms such as " father-in-law " (Sans, ^vdgura, G. €Kvp6<;, Lat. socer), " daughter-in-law " (Sans. snushd'= G. vv6<;, Lat. minis), &c., are unknown to savages. This is supplemented by a remark of Benfey's (Preface, p. viii), that the monogamy of the Indo-Europeans is shown by the equations pdtni = irorvia " mistress," and pdti = TroVts " master." Arts of many kinds are ascribed to the Indo-Europeans by Benfey and Whitney: " They possessed weapons, especially arrows ; they painted and made poetry ; built waggons and boats with oars ; they wove and made themselves clothes and girdles. Finally, they had divided time into years and months " {Benfey). " The art of weaving was practised ; wool and hemp, and possibly flax, being the materials employed. The weapons of offence and defence were those which are usual among primitive peoples, the sword, spear, bow, and shield. Boats were manu- ftxctured and moved by oars Mead was prepared from honey, as a cheering and inebriating drink. The season whose name has been most persistent is the winter " (Whitney, Language and the Study of Language, p. 207). Whereas, according to Benfey, the Indo-Europeans were ruled by kings, whose wives were called " queens," and probably therefore shared their rank, Whitney finds no traces as yet of the develop- ment of a state organisation in the proper sense : " the people was doubtless a congeries of petty tribes, under chiefs and leaders, rather than kings, and with institutions of a patriarchal cast. Their religion was already sharply defined ; they had several gods with established names, definite religious forms and even formulae" {Benfey). By the side of the works of the three investigators named, who directed their efforts to producing a general picture of Indo- Germanic civilisation, we have now to mention a series of shorter essays, the object of which was rather to consider single phases of the most ancient civilisation of the Indo-Europeans. They treat with especial frequency of the Indo-Germanic animal kingdom. In the first place, we have to mention two papers by C. Fcirstemann, on Language and Natural History, K. Z., i. pp. 491-505, and iii. pp. 43-62, the latter of which is accompanied by notes by A. Kuhn. In these the Indo-Germanic names for animals are brought together, according as they are identical in all, most, or only single languages, in order to show thereby " the * The view that Sans. duMtdr "daughter" means "milk-maid" (root,, duh) was first put forward by J. Grimm, who even compared Lat. mulier: 7nulgere, and fcinijia : O.'E. fcm, fam, "milk." Cf. GescMchte der dcutsehen Sprachc, p. 1001. THE INDO-GERMANIC ANIMAL KINGDOM. 2/ possibility of producing a complete Indo-Gcrmaniclinguistichistory." He finds that throughout the whole area of the Indo-Germanic languages, i.e., in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Teutonic, the names for dog, cow, sheep, horse, and pig, bear, wolf, mouse, and otter {cf. K. Z., iii. p. 59) agree. The five animals first mentioned must, therefore, have been brought into the service of man before the separation of the languages. The same subject is discussed in several papers by F. Potts in the Beitrcige zur vergleichenden Sprachwissetischaft {Conti'ibutions to the Science of Language), which are distinguished less by definite historical results than by the fact that he has collected together much valuable material. The various sections grouped together under the general title Contrihittons to the History of Culture, treat of The Distinction of various kinds of Cattle, Gelding (ii. pp. 195-215), The Cultivation, of Bees (ii. pp. 265-82) — this includes a discussion on The Improve- ment of Fruit-trees (ii. pp. 401-23) — further of Dogs (iii. pp. 289- 326), Goats (iv. pp. 68-79), Birds (iv. pp. 79-98). A. Bacmeister deals with the Indo-Germanic animal kingdom from the side of language, in Ausland, in a more popular manner, under the following heads: (1) ass; (2) horse (Amhmd, 1866, pp. 924 and 997) ; (3) ape, lion, camel, elephant ; (4) domestic animals ; (5 and 6) origin of names of animals; (7) dog, wolf, fox {A%island, 1867, pp. 91, 157, 472, 507, 1133). The same subject is discussed by Franz Misteli {cf. Bericht iiher die Thatigkeit der St. Gallichen naturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft, 1865-66, pp. 139-69, and ib., 1866-67, pp. 31-59). In his method of proving the acquaintance of the Indo-Europeans with certain animals, Misteli models himself on A. Pictet. He too moves in the vicious circle which is conspicuous in Pictet. Since " on linguistic grounds " — what, is not stated — the home of the Aryans must be placed north of the Himalayas, on the boundaries of India and Persia (p. 141), therefore, the Indo-Europeans must have been acquainted with the tiger, as the habitat of this beast of prey extends to this district. It is, however, w'ell known that the tiger cannot pretend to a primeval name. The fox also, to say nothing of other animals, is assigned in the same way to the primeval Indo-Germanic fauna. For this animal too, when we consider his geographical distribution and reflect that geese and poultry were known as domestic birds to the Indo-Europeans before their dispersion (p. 157), Ave might expect a primeval name. But " crafty Master Eeynard tricks us even in matters of science." The only trace of the original state of things has, according to Misteli, been preserved in Lat. vulpes, which he compares with Lat. lupus, G. Xv'ko?, Sans. vrkas, to show that fox and wolf received the same name in the primeval period, viz., "robber" (root, vark). After these remarks it is unnecessary to say anything else of the collec- tion which he gives as the result of liis investigation (p. 58). According to it the following animals were known to the Indo- Europeans : — Beasts of Prey. — Tiger, dog, wolf, fox, marten, polecat, and 28 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. weasel — without satisfactorily distinguishing the two latter — otter, bear, hedgehog. Rodents. — Squin-el, mouse, hare, beaver. Solidungulous. — Horse. Ruminants. — Camel, stag, goat, sheep, cow. Cloven-footed. — Pig. It is interesting to note the side-glances which Misteli casts on the fauna of the Swiss lake-dwellings, for purposes of comparison. As, however, he ascribes to the primeval Indo-Germauic period the domestication of certain animals, such as the horse, pig, poultry, which according to Riitimeyer's investigations [Die Fauna der Pfahlhauten) were unknown to the most ancient periods of the lake-dwellings, it is not difficult to understand that, in his opinion, the Indo-Europeans cannot possibly be compared, as regards civi- lisation, with the lake-dwellers of the Stone age. In the same way, A. Schleicher (ojo. cit., p. 411), assuming that the Indo-Europeans, before their dispersion, were acquainted with metals and metal- lurgy, ascribes the prehistoric moiauments of the European Stone age to non-Indo- Germanic peoples. These important questions will engage our close attention subsequently. An entirely new side of Indo-Germanic civilisation was brought into prominence by R. Westphal in a paper on the comparative metrical systems of the Indo-Germanic peoples {Zur Verghichenden Metrik der indog. Volker, K. Z., ix. pp. 437-58). If, he inquired, a hundred different traits in the belief about the gods, in the structure of myths and sagas, can be traced back to the primeval period of the Indo-Germanic peoples, ought it not also to be possible to infer the form with which this most ancient of poetry invested its material 1 And, in fact, Westphal believes that he has detected this ancient form in the agreement of the three iambic verses of the Greeks (dimeter, acatalectic, and catalectic trimeter) with the three metres of the Vedas {Anushtubh and Gdyatri, Jagati, Virdj, and Trishtuhh), and further with the rhythmic verse of the ancient Persians. This ancient Indo-Germanic poetry was based neither on accent nor quantity, but was an affair of syllables purely. It has been preserved intact in the metres of the Avesta, and is reflected in the Vedic hymns also, so far as the second half of the iambic dipodia is quantitive, i.e., purely iambic. In Greek metre, also, this primeval principle of syllable-counting occasionally still manifests itself, e.^., in the license allowed by prosody at the beginning of a rhythmical verse {cf. p. 440). The scheme of the primitive Indo-European epic verse may be represented in accordance with these investigations, as follows : — Westphal's work has proved to be the foundation of a compara- tive study of Indo-European metres, which has lately become of importance for understanding the origin of the hexameter, for which I may refer to Frederic Allen (Ueher den Ursprung des INDO-GERMANIC POETRY. 29 homerischen Versmasses, K. Z., xxiv. p. 556, /.), and H. Usener {Altgriechischer Versban, Bonn, 1887). That the Indo-Europeans composed, i.e., possessed metrical songs, is, we may remark incidentally, the opinion of all the investigators whom we have thus far mentioned. Benfey and Fick endeavoured to support it by linguistic arguments, the former basing his statement that : " They (the Indo-Europeans) painted and com- posed poetry, especially hymns" obviously on Pick's equation, Sans, sumnd = G. v/avos ; the latter appending to his comparison of Sans, pacld " metrical unit, quarter of a verse," with Zend padlia, pad "word, song," ttovs "metrical foot, unit of verse," A.S. fit " poem, song " (?) the comment : " The remarkable recurrence in four languages of the application of ' foot ' to a portion of a verse shows the existence of metrical composition amongst the Indo- Europeans." A still further step was taken by A. Kuhn in a paper in his Zeitschrift (xiii. p. 491), for he endeavours to trace whole formulae back to the beginning of Indo-European poetry. He distinguishes even between two classes of remains from the most ancient poetry, first, riddles, things celestial, the creation of the world, &c., and next, spells for charming away diseases and evil spirits. As an example of the latter, the well-known Merseburg charm for a lame horse : Ben zi bena, bluot zi bluoda, Ltd zi giliden, sose gelimida sin, is compared with a very similar one in the Athar Veda (iv. 12) : " Let marrow join to marrow, anil let limb to limb be joined. Grow flesh that erst had pined away, and nov, grow every bone also. Marrow now unite with marrow, and let hide on hide increase." We have still to mention, in this place, an isolated paper by F. C. Pauli on the names given to the parts of the body by the Indo-Europeans (JJher die Benennungen der Eorperteile hei den Indogernmnen, Programm, Stettin, 1867, reviewed in K. Z., xvii. p. 233). A comparison of the primeval names of the parts of the human body, p. 27,/., shows that the Indo-Europeans possessed a fairly thorough anatomical knowledge of their bodies. If, before proceeding to a new work, of the very greatest importance for linguistic and historical research, we take a brief retrospect of our review thus far, we shall observe that all the investigators we have mentioned agree in regarding the level of Indo-Germanic civilisation as relatively high. A people possessing a well-regulated family and national life, familiar with cattle-breeding and agriculture, owning nearly all the domesticated animals which at the present day are in the service of man, experienced in mining, and working the most im- portant, if not all, of the metals — such a people seemed to be the fitting representatives of the primeval period of a race which was destined to play so important a part in the development of civilisa- tion. It was natural that by the side of such a picture, the state s< 30 PREHISTOEIC ANTIQUITIES. of things, which was revealed in the most ancient monuments of Europe by the steady growth of anthropological and prehistoric research, should stand in glaring and irreconcilable contrast. The sole possible explanation seemed to lie in the assumption of a double layer of population in Europe, a pre-Indo-Germanic, such as might have belonged to the lake-dwellings of Switzerland and the kitchen-middens of Denmark, and an Indo-Germanic, which appeared on European soil as the apostle of a higher culture. The investigators show more difference among themselves in the method of reaching the primeval pei-iod of the Indo-Germanic peoples by the aid of Comparative Philology, and this is the more intelligible because, strictly speaking, none of them had subjected it to serious examination from all points of view, linguistic and historical. Such an examination ought, indeed, to have been suggested by the difference in opinion as to the earliest cleavage of the original language ; for it was obvious that a totally different linguistic basis for the investigation of the primeval period must be given by the assumption that the original people first divided into a Hiudu-Perso-South-European and a North European division, fi'om what would be given by the assumj)tion that it divided into an Asiatic and an European half. In the face of this absolutely undecided dispute it would have been safest and most cautious only to employ such equations for the civilisation of the primeval period as were safely established by the agreement of the Hindu- Persian, North, and South European branches. Yet Schleicher and Fcirstemann alone carried out this idea. An equally careful examination would have had to be made of the formal elements of the comparative vocabulary. A. Kuhn had indeed insisted that identity of root was by no means enough to establish the primeval existence of the concept residing in the series of words, and that agreement in the sufSx was quite as necessary as agreement in root. Yet investigators like Pictet, Jiisti, Max Miiller, and others paid scarcely any attention to this requisite, and consequently Fick's book, in spite of its great defects, may be so far termed an advance, that it endeavours to class together those words in the Indo-European languages which agree in root and in formative syllables, and to offer them to the historian of culture as a foundation. On the other hand, agreement prevailed, in theory at least, with regard to the fundamental principle that concepts which could not be traced etymologically within the circle of the Indo- Germanic languages, were not to be employed for drawing negative conclusions about the primeval period, although in practice such conclusions were not unfrequently drawn. The last thing that investigators, so far, had troubled themselves about was to establish the original meaning of a series of etymo- logically-related words : in most cases they were quite content to transfer the meaning, which the equation had in historical times, to the primeval period without more ado. As Sans. j':)^(r^ = G. TToAts meant "town," the Indo-Europeans must have lived in towns ; as Sans, d^va, G. lttttos, &c., were employed of the domesti- V. HEHN. 31 cated animal, the horse must have been used as a domesticated animal in the primeval period, and so on. The merit of detecting and attacking this, the weakest, side of linguistic palasontology is due to a remarkable work, which imparted a new direction in every respect to research based on language and history : V. Helm's Cultivated Plants ami Domestic Animals in theif migration from Asia to Greece atid Italy, and the rest of Europe, Sketches from History and Language {Culturjyjianzen und Haustiere in ihren tjbergang von Asien nach Griechenland und Italien soivie in das iihrige Europa, Historisch-linguistische Skizzen, Ist ed., Berlin, 1870; 2nd ed., 1874; 3rd ed., 1877, from which we mostly quote; 4th ed., 1883; 5th ed., 1887). V. Hehn's main object, as the title of the book indicates, was not to reconstruct prehistoric periods of civilisation, but to show how a considerable number of the most important cultivated plants / and domestic animals migrated, some of them under the full light of history, from the civilised area of the Orient to the peoples of Europe, who were still plunged in the night of barbarism ; to act wherever they come as the most powerful of levers for the production of a higher civilisation. " What is Europe but the \ stock, barren in itself, on which everything had to be grafted from the Orient, and so brought to perfection." These words of Schelling are the motto of the book, and its real object is to prove their truth. Only, as the author is performing his task, in the most brilliant manner, by a combined knowledge of history, language, and natural history, perfectly astounding in its wealth, he cannot escape asking himself : What was the culture of the Indo-Germanic peoples like before they came in contact with the culture of the Oi'ieut 1 what was their civilisation at the time when they first penetrated into the wildernesses of Europe 1 what when they were still living with their eastern brothers in Asia ? Those passages of the book which are devoted to answering these questions will claim our special attention. V. Hehn does not base his views about the primeval period of the Indo-Europeans mainly on philological combinations : his work is styled Sketches from History and Language, not from language and history. But every indication of a less sunny prehistoric period which penetrates through the brilliant veil of classical antiquity is eagerly collected and brought into compai'ison with the scattered notices which have been transmitted by Greek and Latin authors, both of antiquity and of the Middle Ages, about the manners and customs of non-classical Europe, above all about the northern Indo-Germanic tribes, the Celts, Teutons, and Slavs. It is but seldom that he uses language as his starting-point ; he employs it, provided only it is adapted for the purpose, to explain, amplify, and sti'cngthen his picture. Philology and the science of language are here combined in a magnificent manner. It is on a foundation of this kind that V. Helm unrolls a picture of the primeval period, which certainly differs from that of investigators whom we may term mere comparative philologists, as does the 32 PREHISTOEIC ANTIQUITIES. darkness of night from the light of day. Hehu is well aware of this contrast, nor is there wanting a sharp polemic against the method visual up to that time of employing Comparative Philology for inferences about the history of culture. There are, if I am not mistaken, two charges particularly which he brings against it. " He," says V. Hehn, p. 488 of the 3rd edition, " who puts new civilised ideas into old words, will certainly re-discover our modem life without difficulty in the period of the earliest begin- nings." We have already seen that all the earlier students of language had unsuspiciously ascribed the domestication of the horse, for instance, to the primeval period, because the equation of the Sans, d^va and its cognates left nothing to be desired from the point of view of language. V. Hehn pronounces a very different judgment on the value of this piece of evidence : the equation quoted proves to him nothing but that the Indo-Europeans before their separation possessed a word akva and applied it to the horse ("the swift," root, ak). The domestication of the animal is not even hinted at in language, and should the history of culture succeed in proving that it was not until a relatively late i^eriod that the domesticated animal appeared among the Indo-Germanic peoples, the certain inference would be that the equation akva, &c., can only have been applied to the wild horse in the primeval Indo-Germanic period. Let us listen to V. Hehn's own words about another animal which is usually thought to have certainly accompanied the migrations of the Indo-Europeans, that is, the goat : " The Greek at^ atyo5 ' goat ' recurs in Sanskrit and in Lithuanian, and therefore goes back to a time antecedent to the separation of the peoples. It is not, therefore, a necessary uncon- ditional consequence that the primeval people possessed the goat as a domestic animal ; the name may have been given to any bounding beast of chase, and subsequently have been transferred to the domestic goat, w'hen it became known — a possibility which in similar cases should more often be borne in mind by those who, on the strength of the presence of common words, draw inferences about the state of culture of the primitive people with such certainty" (p. 516). In the same way doubt is cast upon the linguistic arguments for the agriculture of the Indo-Europeans. " That they (the Indo-Europeans of Greece and Italy) cultivated the soil, and subsisted on the fruits of Demeter, before they settled in their respective countries, in the Grteco-Italian period, nay ! even in the heart of Asia, is an assertion often made with more or less confidence, the proofs of which are for the most pai't scarcely valid. Greek ^eia, spelt, ^ciSwpos apovpa, the grain-giving soil, Lithuanian jawas, corn, pi. jawal, grain in general, as long as it is on the stalk, jatoiena, stubble, is indeed a correct equation, but it only shows that at the time when the Greeks and Lithuanians were still undivided, the name was given to some variety of grass, having perhaps edible ears (c/. Th. Mommsen above, p. 16). The same is the case with KpiQ-q, Lat. hordemn, O.H.G. gersta; the language of a nation whose occupation consisted in pasturing HEHN. ^^ animals must have been peculiarly rich in names of plants and grasses," &c. (cf. p. 58 seq.). 'Aypos, too, and its cognates originally only meant " field." Almost against his personal view, which is the opposite (cf. p. 487), Hehn, " in a subject which," as it seems, "allows at the most only of hesitating conjectures," admits a kind of half-nomad agriculture, on account of the kinship of G. dypo's, Lat. arare, &c., which, however, owing to the variation of the Sanskrit, proves nothing as to the primeval period ; but the hated occupation was again given up by the Grseco-Italians, when the new instinct to migrate began to work. The plants cultivated may have been the millet, bean, and rape (cf. p. 59). From the same point of view V. Hehn utters a warning against foisting modern meanings into old verbal roots, which, agi'eeing as they do in different Indo-European peoples, seem to prove that certain arts were practised in the primeval period. "As for weaving," he says, p. 497, "there seem to be pieces of linguistic evidence which point to the practice of this art before the dispersion of the peoples and before their migrations. If we did but know for certain that these words were applied in the primeval period, not to ingenious modes of twisting, plaiting, and sewing, but to spinning the thread on the spindle and to weaving, in the proper sense of the word, on the loom ! He who ascribes a knowledge of weaving to the original people should not forget that, from its rude beginnings to its perfection in historical times, this art has gone through many stages. How ready the imagination of the com- parative philologist is to picture a modern loom and flying shuttle," >tc. (cf. also Th. Mommsen, History/ of Borne, p. 17). The second point which distinguishes V. Hehn from earlier linguistic palaeonto- logists lies in the greater extension that he gives to the conception of loan-words. We are not here referring to the fact that V. Hehn, in cases where the phonetic form, as for instance in the case of the G. olvos (cf p. 68) and G. xp^tros (cf p. 498), etc., does not point decidedly either to original connection or to borrowing, is usually . glad to decide in favour of the latter, on the strength of general considerations drawn from the history of culture. What is new, though it had been previously indicated by Kuhn (cf. above, p. 21) and Schleicher (cf. above, p. 23), is the idea that the agreement of certain terms of civilisation which are confined to the European languages, and therefore hitherto had been explained by a reference to a European primeval pex'iod and to an original European language, might also be conceived to be due to the fact that, when the European peoples were differentiated locally and geographically, a root with a general meaning was specialised by one people and then spread by boiTowing from one people to another. V. Hehn ex- 1 tresses this idea as follows (p. 487) : " We must reflect that in those early periods languages had not yet moved far apart from one another, and that if an art, tool, &,c., was borrowed from a neighbour- ing people, the name which they had given it could easily and readily 'be transposed into the dialect of the borrowing people. If, for instance, one verb, niolere, with the meaning of grinding, break- c 34 PREHISTORIC ANTIQUITIES. ing in pieces, and another, severe, with the meaning of scattering, existed in all the languages of these hitherto pastoral peoples, and if one of tliem gradually learned from another the art of sowing and milling, it must, out of all the various stems of similar general meaning, in order to express the new process, have specialised the very one that had been used by its instructors. Similarity of ex- pressions therefore only proves that, for instance, the knowledge of the plough spread within the limits of the Indo-Germanic family in Eui'ope from one member to another, and that one member did not obtain it, say, from the south-east, from Asia, by the agency of the Semites from Egypt ; another from the south-west, from the Iberi, on the Pyrenees and the Rhone ; a third from a third unknown, original people,"