INDO-CHINESE. The name applied as a general term to the great majority of the native population of Farther India. or Indo-China. It originally indicated that these peoples were re lated by speech and physical characteristics to the Chinese. but in part also somatically and cul turally to the peoples of Hindustan. The Indo Chinese peoples speak what are called 'tonic mon osyllabic' languages, forming, with the Tibetan and Chinese groups, the extensive and important Sinitic or Tibeto-Chinese stock or family. The chief Indo-Chinese peoples are the following: Burmese, Siamese. Annamesc, Cambodians. Ton kinese, who have all in some respects reached the status of civilization. Related to the Siamese are the other Thai tribes. Shans and Laos, who preserve (some of them. at ]east) the primitive type of the Thai stock better than the Siamese, and are likewise less civilized, though in the past they have created or have twig' the hearers of several halt - e ivilizations. The l'ambodians, or Khmers, about whose linguistic and somatic rela there is mut• dispute, authorities crediting them with Aryan affinities. especially as to physical characters. have behind them the more or less indigenous culture represented by num•r ous inscriptions and by the remarkable temples and monuments of Angkor-Vat. eh., The vulture of the Indo-Chines• peoples has been largely in fluenced by both Bolin and China. while the more primitive Nlalnys have also hail a not insig nificant share in the physical and social com plexes there existing. 'file Khmers have in ear lier times borrowed not a little front Hindu 60IINTS, t 11011,01 Ilia. borrowing may not have been so great as has hitherto been assumed. The Bur mese owe a good deal of their civilization to India. the Siamese almost as much. though more indebted to China than the Burmese; while the social life and etilture of the Atilialliese is largely a reflection of Chinese. The Assalriese of the northwest, NV110 speak an Aryan language closely related to Hindi, are probably a mixture of sonic of the inure pritnitivc tribes and !Brutus. The exact relationship of some of the savage tribes of the northern parts of Farther India is not yet clear, but those not distinctly Thai are more closely connected with the pre-Sinitic inhabitants of Southern China and the Tibetan area. The Alois. by whieh general name a number of more Or ICS.; primitive tribes scattered over the eastern mountains and tablelands are known, are an aboriginal race with perhaps a C'alleasian strain.
Kuis of the Shan States are probably aborig inal like the Alois; the Luis of Cambodia have for some time liven rapidly assimilating in speech and otherwise to the Cambodians. The Alons. or 'falaing, of Burma, formerly had a much greater extension, but have been driven back by the more eivilizeil peoples and the mixed races of modern origin. The Tehiam or t•lio are the mod
ern representatives of the people who founded the ancient. Empire of Champa. are by some authori ties thought to possess Malay linguistic affinities. 'file Karens of Burma, who have recently I .y s.10W11 themselves to be so amenable to niissionary in fluenees, are related to the Iturtnese linguis tically and physically. but are of a more primi tive type. The numerous Chin tribes of the Northwest are probably closely related to the primitive Burmese, but some of them :Ire of very mixed type. The Lushai tribes are perhaps similarly related in general; they, together with the Sagas of the mountains of Afaniptir. are now more or less illiXed—soine of them have been thought to have Malay affinities. The Indo Chinese peoples as a whole are probably of Alon golian stork. with early and later of Aryans and non-Aryans from India, etc.. Alalays and possibly Negritos. besides interminglings with the more peoples of the Indo-Chi nese area. Like IlimInstan. Farther India has had a history of primitive neetipation, indig enous culture evolution., foreign conquests, na tive eOrribinations and disputes. etc. The more civilized peoples have more or less exploited for agricultural, eommercial, and labor purposes the less civilized; the Burmese and Siamese the Shang, the Annamese the Alois. the Laos the wilder peoples of their emintry; and to this general exploitation the Chinese. whose coining into this aria as colonists and traders antedates the Christian Era, have added much. Back of the modern •ivilizatam rat Burma, :slant, Annam„ Cambodia, etc., lie older lialt•eivilizations of the more primitive tribes—I:tuners, Shims, Laos, etc.—mho-e remains are of considerable ini• portalive and it great antiquity. Back of these again tire the monuments of prehistoric nom ill this part of the world—the kitchemmiddens of Cambodia. the stone monuments of the I?linsi country, etc., and. earliest of all, the chipped implements disciwered by No•tling in 1894 near ellatIgyoong, on the Irrawaddy, in Upper Burma. which are claimed to prove the existence of Ter tiar• man in this region. It is probably from some of the proto-Indo•Chinese or their closely allied predecessors that the Alalayan stock has sprung. Some of the Indo-Chinese. however. ex hibit closer somatic affinities with certain of the Alongolian natives of Northeastern Asia. such as the Tellukteht, (de. Consult: Von Ilellwahl, //inferindisrhe biinder and 1 ullrr (Leipzig, ISSO) ; Forbes, ('omparatire Grammar of the Languages of l'arther India ( London, ISM I ; Bastian, riiikersiiirnyne urn Brahmapaira 18:43) ; •hler, Iry Salicl durch Indo-China IS94).