The Ethnology of Europe. R. G. Latham
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to which differences of what is called race is an element in national likes and dislikes, predilections or antipathies.
It cannot be denied that each of these is a point of practical as well as theoretical importance.
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The areas with which it is most convenient to begin, are those of the two isolated stocks, the Skipetar (Albanian), and the Iberian,—Albania and the Spanish peninsula. Of these Albania will be taken first.
Many writers have considered the Albanian and the Iberic stocks to be the two oldest in Europe; and there is no want of reasonable grounds for the doctrine. It is not, however, for this reason that they come first in the list.
Nor is it because the Skipetar of Albania are the more eastern of the two that they take precedence of the Iberians; although, in the eyes of such inquirers as deduce the European populations from Asia, their position on the frontier of Europe gives good grounds for doing so.
The true reason is practical rather than scientific, arising out of the line of criticism which will be found necessary for the forthcoming investigation.
It is so convenient to take Gaul next to the Spanish peninsula, Italy next to Gaul, and Greece next to Italy, that the necessity for breaking the continuity of the arrangement when we come to Albania must be avoided; and this is done by dealing with Albania at the very first, and getting its ethnology disposed of as a preliminary. It could not be taken in hand after that of Greece, for reasons which will appear when we come to that country.
The native name of the Albanians is Skipetar, or Mountaineer, and this is of some importance; as will be seen in the sequel. The word Albanian is, I think, Roman. Arvanitæ is the form found in the Byzantine writers. This is converted by the Turks into Arnaout. It is unlucky that the word is one which appears elsewhere, viz., in Caucasus, where the ancient name of the modern province of Daghestan is called Albania in the classical writers. So is Scotland; and so also part of England; Albyn being the Gaelic name out of which our French neighbours get their Albion perfide, for the purposes of rhetoric and poetry. It cannot be denied that the occurrence of forms so similar is strange; and it is against the chances that it should be accidental. The explanation which suggests itself is as follows. Pliny mentions a people termed Albanenses, as one of the Liburnian tribes; whilst Ptolemy gives us a town called Albanopolis in the southern part of Illyricum. Now, as we know that the name is not native, as we seek for it in vain amongst the early Greek writers, and as the opposite coast of Italy was occupied by the Cisalpine and Cispadane Gauls, we have reasons for considering Albyn as applied to Scotland, and Albyn as applied to the mountainous country on the eastern side of the Adriatic and Ionian seas, to be one and the same word, referable to one and the same Keltic group of tongues. Hence, it contains the root Alp=mountain, and translates the native name Skipetar=mountaineer, &c.
Like all such coincidences it has done mischief in the way of ethnology. Though few have derived the Skipetar from Scotland, many have done so from Caucasus—and that on the strength of the name. Yet it is as little native in the one locality as the other, since no nation of Daghestan calls itself Albanian, a fact which precludes all arguments in favour of a real community of origin from the similarity of name in limine; or rather a fact which ought to do so, for the Caucasian origin of the Skipetar still has its supporters.
Their present area extends from Montenegro to the Gulf of Arta; the northern frontier being Slavonic, the southern Greek. Eastwards it reaches the back-bone of Turkey, or the watershed between the small rivers which empty themselves into the Adriatic, and the larger ones which fall into the Ægean—a very Switzerland for its ruggedness. Hence, the Skipetar are a nation of Highlanders, more so than any other population of Europe, since the Basques of the Pyrenees are inconsiderable in area, and the Swiss are divided between the Germans, the French, the Roman, and the Italian families. They lie, too, more to the south than any other mountaineers, and it is not very fanciful to imagine that if they were Lowlanders, their skin and hair would approach that of the Greeks, with some of whom they lie under the same parallel. If so, their mountain habitat counteracts the effect of their southern sun, by a species of compensation common in many parts of the world.
The testimony of travellers to their belonging to the fair-complexioned and grey-eyed populations is pretty general, although Skene gives the Mirdite tribe a swarthy complexion and black eyes. The evidence, too, as to their bulk and stature varies; some writers giving them spare, light, and tall forms, others making them shorter, and more square-built than the Greek. That the eye has less animation, and the countenance less vivacity (in other words, that the Albanian is heavy-featured as compared with his quick-witted neighbours) is certain.
Both the men and women are hardy, and expose their bodies freely to the atmosphere, accustoming themselves to an out-door life amongst their flocks and herds, and dwelling, when indoors, in rude huts. Like the Swiss, they willingly let out their valour and hardihood in military service; and the best and most unscrupulous soldiers of the sultan are those recruits, who partly by force, partly by pay, are brought from Albania. Hence we find Albanians far beyond the pale of Albania; in Greece, in Thrace, in Asiatic Turkey, in Egypt, and even in Persia. The tribes, too, amongst themselves indulge in the right of private quarrel, rarely rising to the dignity of warfare, but more like the old border-feuds of England and Scotland. With the Slavonians of Montenegro, different from themselves in blood and political relations, the warfare is more bitter and serious, and the Albano-Slavonic frontier is the continual scene of aggression and reprisal and intrigue.
It was only under their famous chieftain, George Castriote, or Scanderbeg, that the Skipetar played the part of a nation of any importance in European history, and here their actions were what we expect beforehand—those of brave mountaineers, to whom war is a habit, and with whom dependence has always been but nominal. To the intellectual and moral history of Europe they have contributed nothing. Their alphabet is the Greek, slightly modified, and their literature either unwritten, or confined to ecclesiastical subjects.
Creeds sit easy upon them. Before the Ottoman conquest they were Christians, partly of the Greek, partly of the Roman church. At present they are divided between the three, the majority being Mahometans.
The Skipetar language has long drawn the attention of philologists; for it has long been known to be as little like the Greek and Slavonic of the parts around, as it is to the Turkish. The notion that it was a mere medley of the three soon disappeared; and when the Albanian became recognised as a separate substantive language, its remarkable isolation was a source of great doubt and perplexity. The latest author who has investigated it, Xylander, considers it to be Indo-European, and in this Prichard agrees with him. I think, however, that it cannot be placed in that group without enlarging the extent of the class, i.e., without changing the meaning of the term. Whatever it may be, it is not intermediate to the Latin and Greek, a fact of which the import will be seen when we come to the ethnology of Greece and Italy.
The Skipetar fall into the following divisions, clans, or tribes.
1. The Gheghides, containing—
a. The proper Gheghides, the most northern of the Skipetar, conterminous with the Slavonic countries of Montenegro, Bosnia, and Herzegovna, bounded on the south by the river Drin—
b. The Mirdites, south of the Drin, in the province of Croia, who like the Gheghides, are Christians.
The Gheghides, as a class, are dark-skinned and black-eyed.
2. The Toskides of Toskuria, or the country between Croia and the Vojutza, the least mountainous part of Albania and containing the valleys of the Sternatza and the Beratina, are more light than dark, with blue or grey eyes.
3. The Liapides of Liapuria, or the valley and water-shed of the Deropuli and the parts about Delvinaki, are the worst-looking and most demoralized of the Skipetar. Such at least is their character.
4. The Dzhami of Dzhamuria are the most agricultural. They extend from the Liapides on the north, to the Greek frontier southward, Parga and Suli being two of their towns.
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