GEORGIANS. The Georgians, or Kartveli ans, form the southern group of peoples of the Caucasus, which includes the following stocks, whose languages appear, though in part only dis tantly related, to have had a common origin: (1) The Georgians proper, or Grusians, with the Khevsurs, Thushes, Pshays, and other mountain tribes, the Imers, the Gurians, etc.; (2) the Min grelians, with the Lazes. Abkhasians, etc.; (3) the Suanitiatis, or Swans, of Kutais. Physically the Georgian peoples are of the white, not the yellow race, but rather mixed, the Georgians proper being brachyeephalie, the Imers .and Min grelians more or less doliehocephalic; the Imers, too, have a less oval face, but Paritiukhoff(1893) considers them to represent best the primitive Georgian race, while Ripley (1899) takes the Mingrelian as typical of this group. The physi cal beauty of the men and women of the Geor gians proper has long been famous. hut Chantre (1885) and after him Ripley style it "a perfectly formal, ,cold, and unintelligent beauty, in no wise expressive of character." Like the Circas sians, the Georgians furnished slaves and women for the harems of Turkey, Egypt, etc. The ugliest and most degenerate representatives of the group are to be found among the Suani tians, with whom goitre and cretinism prevail to a considerable extent. The Georgians have resided in their present habitat 4000-5000 years, and the human remains found in the caves Of Kutais suggest a longer period for man's existence in this region. Some authorities, hoW
ever, think that at the time of their appearance here the primitive Georgians were already some what cultured by earlier residence farther south in contact with ancient Aryan or Semitic civiliza tions in Asia Minor. Later on the Georgians seem to have furnished copper, antimony, etc., to fhese same civilized centres. Some hold that the primitive inhabitants of the region about Lake Van (the authors of the Vannic inscriptions, and the possessors of a certain amount of indigenous culture) and the so-called Mitani were of the Georgian stock. The Georgians proper are the best-known sections of the group. Russian inter mixture appears to have stimulated to a certain degree the poetical and general literary genius of this people. Besides the material about the Georgians in von Erckert's Der Kaukasus and seine Volker (1887), and Chantre's Recherches anthropologiques dens le Caucase (1885-87), reference may be made to Leist's Georgisch,e Dichter verdeutscht (1887) ; Wardrop's The Kingdom of Georgia (1888) ; Leist's Georgien: Xatur, Sitten and Bewohner (1885), etc.