Ethnology
Early
Inhabitants—Picts—Scandinavian Race—Authorities cited —Influence of
Scotch and Continental Peoples on Race— Difference of Race in different.
Islands—Modification of Races by climate, habits, &c.
THE doctrine that Europe
was, previously to the immigration thither of the Celts, inhabited by a
Turanian race, now represented by the Lapps and Finns of northern
Europe, and the Basques of the Pyrenees, seems to be fast gaining ground
amongst our best ethnologists. But as it is doubtful whether they
inhabited North Britain, and still more so whether they reached the
distant Shetlands, we need not take them into consideration, at all
events as influencing the existing race in these islands. According to
an old Shetland tradition, the early Pictish inhabitants were
exterminated by their Norse -successors, one after another, till only
two remained, a father and son, who dwelt in one of the castles or
broughs in the west part of the country, .and who were also put to
death, the reason of their execution being that they refused to tell
their Scandinavian conquerors the process by which they brewed ale from
heather. That the Norsemen suppressed and supplanted the Picts is
undoubted, but that they utterly annihilated them has long appeared to
me extremely unlikely. In no instance, as far as I can learn, do we find
a conquering race, however savage and bloodthirsty, completely sweeping
from the face of the earth that which preceded it. The vanquished have
frequently been put to the sword in large numbers, and generally driven
to the mountains, or reduced to slavery, but never exterminated by the
victors. In applying to literature for aid, I am glad to find this
opinion maintained by such able ethnologists as Dr Bernard Davis and Dr
Beddoe. Dr Davis says . . . “A thorough and long-continued intercourse
with Norway may well be regarded as having materially weakened and
diminished the aboriginal and Pictish element of the. population.” He
says, “The races were known to intermarry but very rarely.” Dr Beddoe
remarks, “If the Orcadians and Zetlanders be not quite so fair as might
beseem pure Scandinavians, something may be allowed, perhaps, for the
Ugrian thralls of the early colonists, or the relics of a primitive
Pictish population.”
The old Celtic race, thus
to a certain extent perpetuated, is still to be recognised in the
features of many of the peasantry, and we are greatly aided in
accounting for these Celtic features when we reject the doctrines
contained in the above-mentioned tradition. But despite the influence of
the aboriginal element, and the immigration during the last 300 years of
settlers from Scotland and elsewhere, the great bulk of the Shetland
people are, and have been for the last thousand years, Scandinavians. So
much do they resemble their continental kinsmen that an acute observer,
the late Dr G. W. Spence, said, “It was difficult to distinguish some
Shetlanders, by the eye, from Norwegians, and till they spoke he could
not tell which they were.”
Before proceeding further
with the ethnological peculiarities of the Shetlanders, it were well to
give a general description of the race to which they belong, and perhaps
this could not be better done than *by quoting the words of Captain
Frederick Thomas, R.N., a gentleman who has made good use of his
opportunities of observing the British Scandinavians in Orkney,
Shetland, and the Hebrides. The gallant captain thus •enumerates the
leading characteristics of the Norse race—“Rather above the average
height and weight, bony, muscular, and not given to obesity, nose long,'
straight, and well projected; chin broad and bulky, but not heavy; face
rather broad, but not flat; eyebrows somewhat arched; forehead broad and
square, not very high; head not small, good breadth between the parallel
protuberances, plenty of back head, flattish on the top; hair, abundant,
straight, and light or fair in colour ; hands large, and well made,
neither dumpy nor gracile; feet also large but not clumsy; skin also
fair, but not of a very clear fairness; expression matter of fact,
practical, and self-possessed; deliberate character, courageous, and
steady.” -Dr Arthur Mitchell, one of the Commissioners on Lunacy,
observed five hundred and thirty-one Shetlanders as to their hair and
eyes, and got the following percentage:—
Light eyes, ....... 82.8
Intermediate eyes......11.35
Dark eyes, . . . . . . 5.85
Fair hair with light eyes
was present in four hundred and five, or 76.4 per cent., of them, whilst
the combination called the Celtic eye was wholly absent. The average
height of seventy-nine Shetlanders was 5 feet 7.9 inches, or without
shoes 5 feet 7 inches; and the average weight of the same number 167.7
lbs., or 12 stones,2 which fully justifies the remark of Captain Thomas,
that the race to which they belong is above the average height and
weight.
Speaking of the
Shetlanders, Dr Beddoe further says, “Still ” (i.e., notwithstanding the
influx of the Scotch), “however, they must be mainly a Scandinavian
people, and, accordingly, I did find them, though not universally
xanthous as they are reported, a much fairer people than the western
Scotch.” Again, at page 23, he expresses the opinion, which, by a
remarkable coincidence, appears to be formed by most ethnological
observers visiting the islands — “The Shetlanders come nearer to the
English than to the Scotch in figure and features, and even in the
colour of their hair, which is rarely either black *or violently red,
and most commonly of a brownish yellow.” The features and expression of
countenance of this people could not be better described than in the
words of an accomplished Shetland clergyman, the late Rev. John Bryden
of Sandsting, who says—“They are of middle stature and well
proportioned, having brown or yellow hair; their features are rather
small than otherwise, and without that harshness which is characteristic
of the Anglo-Saxon descent.”2 In reference more particularly to the
countenance, the description of the Rev. William Miller, applied to the
Scandinavian race in a general way, may here be given :—“ The face is
broad and open, forehead more remarkable for breadth than height, and
complexion fair and often ruddy, never dark and sallow, like the Celtic.
But, perhaps, the most notable feature in their physiognomy is what I
would term the mobility of the countenance. The Celtic character flashes
out from the dark and deep-set eye, while the light blue or grey eye of
the Scandinavian is comparatively unexpressive. But this is compensated
by the exceeding expressiveness of the mouth and chin. The whole lower
part of the face has often, indeed, the appearance as if its very bones
were flexible, so easily can the observant and practised eye read in it
the signs of each thought or emotion as it passes through the mind.”1
Regarding two Shetland skulls which I recently presented to him, Dr
Mitchell writes me in the following terms:—“One of the skulls is an
excellent specimen of Dolichocephalism, and the other as good a specimen
of Brachycephalism. In the last the whole of the cerebral portion of the
occiput is a separate bone; and somewhat curiously in the other the
lambdoidal suture is filled from one end to the other with small wormian
bones, presenting the ledge, which is usual in such circumstances. Both
skulls are of large capacity, and indicate good intellectual powers. So
far as one can judge from their appearance, their owners must have been
alive fifty years ago.”
Thus the Shetlanders’
large head is indicated by his requiring a hat a size larger than the
Scotchman, and two or three sizes larger than his brother fisherman on
the east coast of Scotland. For the sizes of hats required by Scotland
and its fishing villages, I am indebted to Dr Mitchell’s pamphlet on
“Blood Relationship in Marriage considered in its influence upon the
offspring,” p. 36. Mr Burge’s inquiries also show that the Shetlander’s
head is rather shorter and broader in proportion than that of the
Scotchman. On the whole, we may conclude that the Shetlanders are
decidedly of the Scandinavian type of features and complexion, and I can
safely say, if not from personal experience of the people of many Mother
districts, from some inquiry, that nowhere can we find in Britain, at
all events, a peasantry presenting more beauty of face and form, and
more regularity and delicacy of features. They can still, like their
ancestors, be known
“By the tall form, blue
eye, proportion fair,
The limbs athletic, and the long light hair.”
Enter a church attended
by the lower orders in one of our manufacturing towns, after returning
from a trip to the Ultima Thule, and you will be struck with the red
heads, flat noses, bad figures, and the stolid expression of its female
worshippers, as compared with the # graceful figures, lively and
intelligent expression, and classic features of the maidens of Shetland.
But this leads us into moral and social influences which had better be
discussed in another chapter. The fair hair, blue eyes, and clear skin
of the Norsemen, both in Scandinavia and Shetland, certainly give some
weight to the doctrine that the nanthous complexion is produced by a
comparatively cold and damp climate. The influx of Scotch blood which
lias taken place during the last three centuries by the immigration of
Government officials, traders, and clergymen, has undoubtedly modified
and probably improved the race; and, considering the numbers of
strangers who during that long period have settled in the country, it
seems surprising, at first sight, why they have not assimilated the
Shetland more to the Scottish people, especially, as that learned
ethnologist, Dr Gustaf Kombst, tells us, that “ in crossing the two
shades the darker one (i.e. the Celtic) prevails over the fairer (or the
Scandinavian) in complexion, colour of eyes, and hair.” The explanation
of this apparent difficulty is, I think, to be found when we consider
the kind of “ Scotch ” who came over. Brand, writing in 1701, says,
“There be many who have lately come to it (Shetland) from Orkney,
Caithness, Sutherland, Buchan, and other places, especially in the north
of Scotland.” As is well known the people of these counties and
districts are, to a great extent, of Scandinavian origin, and therefore
the progeny of them by Shetland marriages would, to a great extent,
exhibit the characteristics of the Norsemen. The habits of these
immigrants would also very much diminish their offspring in number, for
they are described as “Scotch vagabonds;”3 and we can easily imagine
that the most respectable and industrious denizens of the north of
Scotland, even during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were not
likely to choose the Isles of Shetland as a field of immigration. But
there were some of the Scotch settlers in the seventeenth century who
did not deserve the opprobrious epithet applied in the County Acts to
the majority of them, for a few Shetland families at the present day can
trace their descent from Covenanting worthies, who sought in these
remote islands refuge from the troubles of that stormy period. The Saxon
pirates who infested their seas at an early period, and the large number
of foreigners from Holland, Hamburgh, Bremen, and other Continental
countries and ports, who carried on an extensive commerce with Shetland
till the middle of last century, would doubtless, to a slight extent,
influence the race, and infuse fresh blood into it; but all these
nations being Teutons like the Shetlanders themselves, would not
materially alter their physical qualities. Perhaps the tendency observed
by all races of men and animals when crossed, for the offspring to
return to the parent stock, may account for the permanence of Norse
features in Shetland. As an argument for the great preponderance of
Norse blood in the Shetland people, the prevailing surnames may be
mentioned. The great majority of these are patronymics as Magnus-son or
Manson, Ollason, Laurenson, Thomson, Peterson, &c. Until the last
generation the surnames, in many parts of the country, changed according
to the Norse fashion every generation; and eighty or a hundred years ago
this was universally the case. Thus the son of Magnus Johnson would be
John Manson, and his daughter Enga Manson or Magnusdaughter. Now,
however, the names are fixed, and I know of families who, thinking they
have an ugly surname as Bartleson, &c., regret the patronymic system did
not cease a generation sooner, when they might have received a more
euphonious name as Thomson, Robertson, &c. The patronymic affix of
“daughter” to a female name has also ceased. Norse Christian names are
also to be met with as Olla and Magnus (male), and Christian, Enga, Osla
(not Ursula), and Sweety (female).
In travelling through
Shetland, I have been frequently struck with the great difference in the
physical character of the people which prevails in the different
parishes and islands. On observing the inhabitants of the island of
Fetlar, on the north-east, and comparing them with those of Muckle Roe,
on the west coast, one would be inclined to declare them as belonging to
totally different nations. Thus, we find the men of Fetlar great, almost
gigantic, in stature, athletic, broad shouldered, deep chested,
powerful, and almost herculean in strength, noble looking, and, in fact,
presenting all the physical qualities required to make up a “perfect
model of a man,” so that any one of them might be chosen, like “Jupiter
Carlyle,” to sit for a statue of Olympian Jove. The men of Muckle Roe
are, on the other hand, little, dumpy, frequently bandy-legged,
ill-proportioned, have ill-formed features, and are incapable of great
or long-continued physical exertion, but handy at light work. What can
have produced such a difference in the inhabitants of two islands
belonging to the same group, and situated within twenty-five miles of
each other? Both are of Norse origin, as evinced by their blue eyes and
yellow hair. In both communities there is a slight intermixture of
Scotch blood, as shown by the names Gardner and Brown existing in the
one island, and Black and Fraser in the other. But here analogies end,
and contrasts begin in the circumstances of the two peoples. Fetlar is a
comparatively flat, low-lying island, very fertile, and may be said to
be exposed on all sides to the ocean, lying at least four miles away
from any other island; it is formed on the one side of gneiss and on the
other of serpentine. Roe, on the other hand, is formed of granite, is
extremely rugged and barren, is precipitous on the west, and only
habitable along its eastern and southern shores, which border a fine,
large, land-locked bay. At one point a person can walk across to the
neighbouring part of the mainland at low tide. The men of the
first-mentioned island have always been bold, hardy, deep-sea fishers,
earning their livelihood in open boats from forty to fifty miles from
land; and thence their hardihood, daring, and nautical skill, have been
constantly taxed. At the same time they have been prosperous small
farmers, enjoying the comforts of life, and living for a long time, at
all events, under good moral influences.
Thus, with these
circumstances, the most healthy climate in the world, and no means of
dissipation, they have enjoyed all the influences favourable to the
development of their physical frames, bodily strength and energy, mental
activity and moral purity. But the people of Roe have chiefly subsisted
by catching fish in the neighbouring land-locked bay, or acting as
menials about the house of their powerful proprietor, who, for many
generations, dwelt within a sling-throw of them. Near them, for probably
two or three centuries, existed the chief trading booth, where they
could readily obtain spirits from the Dutch. Church or school were
unknown in the island till twenty years ago, when a humble specimen of
the latter institution was set up, and there is no evidence to show that
they were in former times exposed to influences calculated to elevate
the character. Hence the people of Roe have been exposed to degrading
physical and social influences, and if we allow anything for endemic
influences, for the slight differences of climate in the two islands, or
attach any weight to the doctrine of Boudin that “man is (physically)
the expression of the soil on which he lives,” or believe that food has
an influence on the bodily character, we cannot have so much difficulty
in understanding why the sons of brother Vikings, who ploughed the sea
together a thousand years ago, presents such marked contrasts now.
Numerous authorities
might be cited to show that the influence of such causes as above
specified on man is generally recognised. I shall content myself with
two quotations from Waitz, who says—“ The important influence of diet
upon the body, and indirectly upon the mind, have never been doubted.”
Again, speaking of aliment and mode of life, he says—“By their combined
action they produce among men, originally of the same stock, a gradual
inequality, both in external and internal characters.” Everywhere over
the globe we have well-marked instances of race being altered by
climate, habits, and pursuits. Thus, “ the Turks by adopting a life of
civilisation in Europe now exhibit, in all essential particulars, the
physical character of the European model—said these are particularly
apparent in the conformation of the skull; ”while“ those (of the same
race) who still inhabit the ancient abodes of the race, and preserve
their pastoral nomadic life, present the physiognomy and general
characteristics which appear to have belonged to the original Turkomans,
and these are decidedly referable to the so-called Mongolian type.” In
the same way, the Finns, by civilisation, have become gradually
assimilated to the surrounding population ; while their Turanian
brethren, the Lapps, by continuing their nomadic habits, have undergone
no elevations in physical character. This transformation, but of a
retrogade kind, has been observed by an eyewitness amongst the Koranas,—“a
tribe of Hottentots, formerly considerably advanced in the improvements
which belong to pastoral life, but having been plundered and driven out
into the wilderness, they have adopted the habits of the Bushmen, and
have become assimilated in every essential particular to that miserable
tribe.” Again, the inhabitants of the Malays (Polynesian group of
islands), though they are proved by the community of language to be of
the same race, present great diversities of formation—some being as the
Tahitians and Marquesans, tall, well-made, and vigorous; and others
small and feeble, some of a copper-brown colour, others nearly black,
another set olive, and others almost white. Still their climate,
pursuits, and food, are very similar. Dr Carpenter, while maintaining
that all these tribes are from the same stock, ascribes the great
differences which now exist amongst them to climatic influence and mode
of life. One of the best instances we have of degrading physical and
moral influences affecting the bodily conformation of man is to be found
amongst les classes dangereuses of London and other large cities, who
gradually become prognathous, and otherwise assume the characteristics
of the lower orders of the race. In the island of Uyea, situated near
the well-known island of Unst, mice do not exist, and when introduced
they pine away and die. This remarkable phenomenon must depend on some
unknown endemic cause. It is said on good authority to exist in others
of the smaller islands besides Uyea. May not some similar endemic
influence affect favourably or otherwise human beings, in Fetlar or
Muckle Roe, for instance? My argument from the possible difference of
climate in these two islands is strengthened by the fact that different
climates prevail even in the same town of Brighton. |