The Races and Peoples of

South-east Asia
by BERTIL LUNDMAN*
I
Now we move to a region with usually abundant summer
rains. This fact has favored the cultural development of the area
to a high degree. It is probably more meaningful to divide the
area into two sub-regions: the mainland, except the Malacca
peninsula, on the one sideand the remaining region up to the
border of Oceania, above all, New Guinea.
The linguistic distribution is on the whole rather simple. One
exception is the linguistic affinity of some of the still almost
unexplored smaller tribal groups in the interior of Indo-China.
Farthest to the northeast we have three languages, each of which
stands by itself: the Ainu, the Japanese, and the Korean. The
great Sino-Tibetan language family today dominates almost the
entire mainland, apart from certain areas in Indo-China. There
some scattered languages of the Austro-Asiatic language family
are spoken. These languages, however, are now being displaced
by languages of the Sino-Tibetan family. In Indonesia languages
of the Austronesian language family are exclusively in use. Only
on the easternmost islands, above all on the Moluccas, are
languages spoken which are isolated or possibly related to the
West Papuan languages.
II
Different types of the hypsicephalic or high-skulled SoutheastMongolid racial group are encountered everywhere in Japan
(excluding the Ainu), Korea and China, and also in the larger
parts of Indo-China and Indonesia. In Indonesia, however, they
are mixed in places with older, more primitive races. The highheadedness of the Chinese in contrast to the peoples of Central
Asia was well-known to them since ancient times!
The Japanese language is considered by some students to be
related to the Tungusic as well as to the Korean languages.
However, the relationship is not firm to either of these two
languages. Perhaps Japanese, and also Korean, is a form of
polished, hybrid language. Anthropologically, the Japanese most
resemble the South Chinese. In the best rice-growing regions
the Japanese are predominantly South Chinese or Malaid (the
* Translated from the German by Donald A. Swan.

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so-called "Satsuma"-type) in racial type. The inhabitants of

the mountain regions of Japan are more long-headed and
narrower-faced. These Japanese, however, show less frequent
but more certain Ainu traits (such traits even appeared in the
case of Emperor Mutsuhito).
The Ainus are the original inhabitants of the Japanese
Islands, although there may once have been Negritos on the
southern islands. The Ainus are nowadays often strongly mixed
with Mongolic elements. However, it is evident that they have
always been rather polymorphic. Some Ainus seem almost North
Indid in appearancewith narrow noses and in part also narrow
faces. Other Ainus appear more Australidwith thick lips and
very broad faces (but not Mongolid).
To return to the Japanese, there are also among them,
especially in the old nobility, very narrow-faced individuals with
narrow, arched noses, but still a more or less Mongolid position
of the eyes. This is the so-called "Choshu"-type, or more
correctly the "Jakunin"-type. This type is also present, but to
a smaller degree, in most of the regions of China. Then, there
are some, rather scarce, almost light Japanese types with a
fairly Nordic-like facial profile.
The Koreans resemble both the Japanese and Chinese.
However, they often show a more stocky " boreal" body build.
The Koreans are, on the average, more short-headed than the
other two East Asian peoples.
Ill
China is racially much more variegated than one in the West
is accustomed to believe. The North Chinese are tall, and in
part long-faced and narrow-nosed. The Central Chinese are
broader in facial, nasal, and bodily form. Both of these groups,
however, are predominantly mesocephalic in head shape. The
small, lively South Chinese are mostly brachycephalic. They have
Malaid strains, which are evident in the less pronounced
Mongolid eye-form. Naturally, there are also in China other,
individual types. They even include different Europid racial types
in the southwest of China.
The Chinese language exhibits a great abundance of dialects.
Among these, moreover, there are in the remote southeast
regions of China more rule-governed languages. All this is masked
in the written literature with its catchwords, whereby the possibility stands open to everyone to express these in his dialect.
These catchwords (Wortzeichen) may possibly have originated
through Oriental influence diffused over the " silk-routes ". The
South Chinese probably once spoke other languagesperhaps
even belonging in part to other language families. The old
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domesticated animals and cultivated plants of South China

such as the buffalo, pig, dog, silkworm, rice, yam, tea and so on
are distinguished from those of North China.
Westward and southwestward from China, and partly also
in the mountains of South China, a multitude of tribes press into
one another. So far as is known, these tribes speak languages
more or less related to the Chinese. Here maize (corn) was
already being cultivated in certain regions shortly after the
middle of the sixteenth century. The grain was even cultivated
in several varieties. It is thus surprising that some investigators
were of the view that this kind of grain became known to the
Old World only through the discovery of America. Then, perhaps
maize (corn) reached Central America from Southeast Asia with
the South Chinese sea voyages around the beginning of the
Christian Era. However, there are also investigators who hold
that a rapid post-Columbian introduction of this grain is not
impossible.
Linguistically the inhabitants of Tibet also belong to this
group. The land has many Europid strains. According to the
blood group relationships, these strains have mostly come from
the west and not from the south(due to acclimitization difficulties?). Consequently, a Europid influenced Tibetid hybrid-race
has been created. This hybrid-race is long-faced and narrownosed, but predominantly Mongolid in eye form and hair form
similar to the North Sinids. The same strains are also present in
the border regions between Indo-China and Southwest China.
Perhaps the Jakunin-types in Japan originated in this region.
IV
Further south, in Indo-China, peoples and tribes from the
north have submerged most of the old culture-areas in countless
wavesat least during the last millennium. In earlier times
peoples speaking Austro-Asiatic languages were the predominant
residents of these regions of Indo-China. They had probably
migrated to Indo-China across the same routes at a still earlier
time in history. These regions of Southeast Asia were later
invaded by the Siamese in the fourteenth century and the
Burmese in the seventeenth century.
The older peoples of Southeast Asia became strongly
influenced by a culturaland in part also a racialinvasion
from India around the beginning of the Christian Era. Shortly
thereafter, powerful states were founded in this region. Their
major cities with a once legendary splendor now lie abandoned
in large part. The famous city of Angkor of the Khmer Empire,
located in present-day Cambodia, is one such example.
Here, however, the old Austro-Asiatic language and the old,
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still brachycephalic Khmerid racewhich is characterized as

half-Veddid and half-Southeast-Mongolidsurvive in ever
greater number. This is also true in part in Siam. Moreover,
there are now only remnants of the Austro-Asiastic language
family. These include the Mon language spoken by tribes at the
mouth of the Irrawaddy River in Burma and many other places
in the mountains further in the interior of the peninsula.
Austro-Asiastic languages are also spoken on the distant Nicobar
Islands and by the primitive tribes in Malacca. The Annamite
language of the east coast of Indo-China is viewed as a typical
example of a now homogeneous language of mixed origin.
The racial relations in Indo-China are more complicated than
the linguistic relations. Nowadays the Mongolid types are everywhere somewhat in the majority. However, even in the land of
Tonkin in the furthest north of Indo-China, the Mongolid types
are not so pronounced as in China. The eyelid cleft is not so
narrow and slanted. The face is often less ilat.
Naturally, the invasions from the north signified a strengthening of the Mongolid portion of the population. However, it
appears that Mongolid elements were more or less presentin
addition to the Veddid raceeven among the older " AustroAsiatic " peoples. This is also indicated by the presence of a still
more evident Mongolid strain than their surroundings in some
living-isolated peoples, such as the Munda tribes of northern
India. The Diego-factor is even found among these tribal groups.
Within this Southeast-Mongolid basic stock, a contrast
becomes especially evident. It is between the pronounced
Mongolid type on the fertile plains of Indo-China and the somewhat less pronounced Mongolid type in the mountains. In
addition, we have here and there in the mountains dwarfed
racial types. Among these types, the whole tribe appears as if it
consisted almost entirely of small, robust children! This is
evidently the result of a local dwarfing process. Some tribes in
southernmost Annam can be viewed as " Polynesian returnmigrants." This interpretation receives unexpected support from
the high cranial capacity of these tribes. This contrasts completely with the low cranial capacities of the surrounding tribes
of this region of Indo-China.
V
Indonesia, together with the Malacca peninsula, has approximately the same cultural and racial history as Indo-China.
Linguistically, however, Indonesia is more homogeneous. The
only language spoken throughout the islands is Indonesian, which
is a branch of the great Austronesian or " South-Sea-Island "
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language family. This language family is distributed throughout

the islands of the South Seasfrom Madagascar in the west up
to Easter Island in the east. The other principal branch of this
language family is the Oceanic. Of the many languages and
dialects used in these islands, two have attained the character of
a great culture-language: Javanese and Malay. The latter was
originally spoken only on southern Sumatra and earlier on the
Malacca peninsula. However, today Malay is widely distributed
in Indonesia as the language of trade and commerce.
Racially, we have seenas already indicatedcorrespondences
to the stratification of races which we have delineated for IndoChina. We find the more brachycephahc and more strongly
Mongolid Malaids in the regions of higher culture and the more
dolichocephalic and less pronouncedbut still predominantly
MongolidDayakids in the less civilized regions in the interior of
Indonesia. In some parts of Indonesia very small, dwarfed,
strongly Mongolid tribes are to be found.
The Mongolid type, however, is still somewhat more diluted
as a rule in Indonesia than in Indo-China. This is especially true
of the interior of the island of Borneo. There some of the tribes
appear almost entirely Europid, with strikingly light skin color.
Furthermore, there does not appear to be any conspicuous
primitive stratum of Veddid, or even Negritid, groups.
In addition to the above-named primitive peoples, we find in
certain regions of the southwestern islands of Indonesiaabove
all on Sumatra, Java, and Balimore or less distinct Indid, and
even Gangid, strains. This is a consequence of the migration to
these regions of Indonesia of peoples from India. Here, as also
in the case of Indo-China, the invaders from India introduced a
higher culture and founded in the early post-Christian centuries
powerful states.
At the same time, some of the Indo-Melanid Dravidian
groups came with the migrants from India. Their share of the
invaders can still be observed in the racially-mixed, living populations of these regions of Indonesia. The dominant religion in
these areas for several centuries became Hinduism. Later
Buddhism reached Indonesia. Towards the end of the Middle
Ages, Arab merchants and missionaries succeeded in converting
most of the Indonesian peoples to the Islamic religion. Only on
the island of Bali has Hinduism maintained its hold on the people
up to the present day.
VI
There are in Indonesia countless older and more primitive
strains than those found in Indo-China. Above all there are many
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Veddidsespecially in the interior of the Malacca peninsula, on

the Celebes Islands, and also on the Little Sunda Islands. However, Veddid strains are also intermixed in the peoples of higher
culture.
There are also Negrids in Southeast Asia. However, they
are to be found almost only as marginal, dwarfed groups
(" Negritos") in the inaccessible regions of the interior of
Malacca and in the mountains of most of the Philippine Islands,
as well as on the eastern Little Sunda Islands. The natives of the
Andaman Islands form an exception to this, so that they still
possess a unique, isolated language. To the extent that they have
avoided later racial mixtures, the Negritos are often strikingly
Negrid in their physical traits, such as: skin color, hair texture,
and form of the lips. On the Andaman Islands fatty buttocks
(Fettsteiss) are also found. In the rest of Indonesia, only weak,
almost vanished Negrito strains can be ascertained. The same is
true in the south of Indo-China.
Occasionally, the remarkable " Cubiform " type {not race)
appears in pariah-like groups. This type is characterized by an
abnormally elongated face, with almost ape-like, projecting jaws.
It is apparently a hereditary, pathological type, although based
upon strong mixed-Veddid foundations. Such an extreme prognathism is very rare in the rest of the world, except among the
even more strongly prognathous Australian aborigines.
The easternmost islands of Indonesia, which are freer from
influences of the older High Cultures, harbor some attractive
Europid Nesids. These peoples apparently migrated to Indonesia
from the Himalayan lands rather early in historybefore the
mostly Mongolid waves of later migrants. Naturally, there are
also some Dayakids and Malaids in these eastern islands. The
latter, however, are mostly late migrants. There are also remnants
of Veddids and occasionally of Negritos.
Furthermore, the Papuans have established themselves in part
as sea-pirates. Isolated from the rest of the islands, they have
been brought here earlier as slaves. This is also true of a few
Australian aborigines. Some of the later peoples are descendants
of Portuguese and Chinese traders. Thus, we have an extremely
variegated racial mixture, which has often existed for a very
long time. As a consequence of the relatively strong inbreeding
which followed, the most unusual local types (Gautypen) have
arisen from these race mixtures. For example, the mean cephalic
index among two neighbouring tribes on one of these islands is
some 71-72 for one tribe and 88-89 for the other tribe. Yet, there
is allegedly no cranial deformation. The same result occurs at
times among other groups.
The major portion of the living population of tropical

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Indonesia originates from the north. Thus, all of the Mongolids

and part of the Europidsfor example, those from the island of
Borneoare apparently still not completely adapted to the
tropical climate. Consequently, the often, strikingly gloomy
emotional disposition of these people, together with their often
weak constitution, and their unusual, psychological addiction to
narcotics could be interrelated and result from the lack of biological adaptation to their tropical milieu.
The populations of the Philippine Islands are significantly
healthier and stronger than the rest of the peoples of Southeast
Asia. Perhaps this is in part due to the greater winter coolness
of the region. On the other hand, this is evidently conditioned
still more by the migration routes. According to the evidence of
pre-history, the Mongolids of Borneo and the Philippine Islands
have migrated to these regions from east and southeast China
across Formosa. Therefore, these peoples from the beginning
possessed no strains from the weak Veddids. The Mongolids of
Sumatra and Java, in contrast, migrated from southern IndoChina across Malacca and Sumatra. This is also confirmed by
prehistoric fossil finds. Consequently, these Mongolids were intermixed with Veddids from the beginning.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Renato Biasutti, Le Razze e i Popoli del/a Terra, Unione TipograficoEditrice Torinese, Turin, Italy, 1959.
Carleton S. Coon, The Living Races of Man, A. Knoff, New York,
1965.
Egon von Eickstedt, Rassenkunde und Rassengeschichte der Menschheeit, Enke, Stuttgart, Germany. 1933-1934.
Egon von Eickstedt, Rassendynamik
von Ostasien, W. de Grayer,
Berlin, Germany, 1944.
Gerhard Heberer, Gottfried Kurth, and Use Schwidetzky, Antltropologie: A zu Z. Fischer Bucherei, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1959.
Bertil Lundman, Geograpliiiche Anlliropologie, Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart, Germany, 1967.
George Montandon. La Race, Les Races, Payot, Paris, 1934.
Use Schwidetzkv, Das Menschenbild
der Biologic, Gustav Fischer,
Stuttgart, Germany, 1959.

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MAP 1
The language regions of Asia (Lundman, 1961).
U=UraUc; D=Dravidian; A=Andamanish;
K and Ket.=Ketoish; M=Austronesian (including the Mon group);
=Burusaskish.

^ ^ > v^

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MAP 2
The racial regions of Asia (Lundman, 1961).
V=Veddid race; M=Malaid race; =Negritos.

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FIGURE 1
Gobid racial type.

FIGURE 2
Kumid racial type.

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 ^ i . -

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t "i*^f

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FIGURE 3
North-Sinid racial type.

FIGURE 4
Palaungid racial type.
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'!^t

-A),'

,r mm
SJ Ins
FIGURE 5
Dayakid racial type.

FIGURE 6
Malaid racial type.

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.'y'

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"

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FIGURE 7
Veddid racial type (Ceylon)

/ if,''<''-/ ,
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FIGURE 8
Negrito racial type (Malacca).

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-W^-vT^i

FIGURE 9
Malid racial type (India).

FIGURE 10
Indo-Melanid racial type (India).

FIGURE 11
Polynesid racial type.

FIGURE 12
South-Australid racial type.

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1t\
^ - 1 , - -

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FIGURE 13
Cubiform racial type (Sumatra and Java).

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An Israeli Dilemma
by ROBERT G. LENSKI
Controversy continues to be lively regarding the right of the
individual to determine how many children he or she will produce.
At one extreme, the opponents of abortion and birth control
maintain that God's " will " and the fetus's right to life take
precedence over a desire to maximize one's progeny. Advocates
of coercive population control, meanwhile, maintain that such
social values as a decent environment and international stability
take precedence over a desire to maximize one's progeny. These
two orientations might be described as the right- and left-wing
positions in the population debate, although the extent of their
congruence with broader political and economic alignments
remains largely conjecture.
Between these two radically divergent perspectives I'es a
thirdthe moderate view of the broad population " center."
Population moderates in the United States, aided by the 1973
Supreme Court abortion ruling, have triumphed, and individual
choice in reproductive decision-making is largely ascendant over
the alternate values of fetal rights, social rights, or theological
imperatives. That so many poor people in the United States
continue to have more children than they want simply proves, of
course, that individual prerogative has yet to be fully achieved.
The inhibiting factor here, though it is seldom articulated, is a
widespread reluctance to let government play an adequate role in
providing birth control information and devices to those ignorant
of or unable to afford them.
For most Americans, however, the Supreme Court ruling
made a vital difference. The average citizen can freely implement
his or her personal decision, whether it be to have two children,
or five, or noneor to " leave it to God." In the past, the choice
was usually between varying degrees of inconvenience and risk,
and an unwanted child.
It is possible that this new era of individual supremacy in
population decision-making will be followed by a temporary
return to the recently scrapped dictates of God and fetus. In the
long run, however, the future almost certainly belongs, here as
elsewhere, to the " societalists'"those who are disposed to
recognize the social dimensions of problems in which others
perceive only an individual or personal dimension.
' A word which, to my knowledge, has not been used before, but which
fills a real need.

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