WCP2789

[1]

ARAM-GAH,

79 BROADHURST GARDENS,

SOUT HAMPSTEAD, N.W.

Nov. 22. 99

Dear Dr Wallace,

I hope you will excuse this familiar address, as I find it impossible to regard you otherwise than as an old and esteemed friend. In the collections you mention there are no portraits of Khmers or any other Cambodians. Whether such are to be had in London or elsewhere, I cannot say. I have myself never seen any beyond rough or "artistic" cuts in some French books about their Indo-Chinese [illeg.]. My conclusions regarding the Caucasian affinities of the [2] *My theory of the evolution of black, white & yellow, not one from the other, but independently from their several Pleistocene precursors (the generalised human type) seems to meet such cases as these. The white man is then, not a late arrival on the scene, but of equal antiquity as the others, and so starts simultaneously with them on his life history.

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\2 Khmers, Kuys &c are based entirely on the statements and descriptions mostly of French writers whom I largely quote in my "Relations of the Indo-Chinese and Inter-Oceanic Races and Languages" (Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Feb.1880) wh. I suppose you have seen. This view is now strongly supported by the observations of Anderson,¹ Kreitner,² Prince Henri d' Orléans³ and other recent travellers, who established the presence of a Caucasian element widely distributed over South-East Asia. I refer to some of these in my Ethnology and Man Past and Present which no doubt you have also seen. I wd direct your attention especially to p. 193 and 205-6 of the last mentioned [3] \3 book. This diffusion of the proto-Caucasian in Neolithic beings right through Asia to Malaysia and Polynesia may I think now be accepted as placed beyond reasonable doubt. I have converted Dr Hamy⁴ and the late M de Quatrefages⁵ and also my editor, Dr Guillemard,⁶ to this view, which lies at the base of many of my speculations. Of course it falls in completely with your inference regarding the Caucasian affinities of the Australians. Only here I shd suggest a strong intermixture of other elements, especially proto-Negro (Papuasian) and perhaps others in same districts. Some old skulls from South Australia are of the Neanderthal type (Ethnology p. 292-4, 424 &c). You ask, do not the Ainas and Todas belong to the same group? In my opinion most [4] decidedly, and I think I establish this connection in Man P. and P. of both I have excellent photos shd you like to see them, also of Australians, tho' not better than those in Spencer's⁷ collection to which you refer. I have Hitchcock's⁸ Report, and some of his heads are quite magnificent, as are also the Todas in the Madras Gov^t. Museum, of whom I have facsimiles. To deny the Caucasic affinity of these sporadic groups seem to me paradoxical. And why shd not the vigorous proto-Caucasians have been diffused thoughout Asiatic lands afterward overran by proto-Mongols from ^their Tibetan cradle?* The oldest skull from Siberia are not brachy but dolicho (Man P. & P. p. 270). In Korea also the Caucasic element saute aux yieux.

Your's very faithfully | A. H. Keane⁹ [signature]

* see top of p. 2.