Race Life of the Aryan Peoples
Encyclopedia
Race Life of the Aryan Peoples is a book written by Joseph Pomeroy Widney
, published in New York by Funk & Wagnells in 1907, of the history of the Aryan race
, a hypothesized race commonly described in the late 19th and early 20th century as consisting of native Indo-European Language-speaking peoples of Caucasian ancestry, i.e., those ethnic groups that are the native speakers of Indo-European Languages
regarded as descended from the original speakers of Proto-Indo European.
At the time the book was published, the Aryan race was generally regarded as one of the three major branches of the Caucasian race
, along with the Semitic race and the Hamitic race; racial sub-categories that are regarded nowadays by some as scientific racism
.
In this massive best-selling two volume work, Joseph Pomeroy Widney
, the chancellor of the University of Southern California
, describes what he believed was the origin of the "Proto-Aryans" in Central Asia about 7000 years ago, and how they spread out and formed the great "Aryan empire
s." He included empires which were predominately Indo-European language-speaking: The Hittite empire, Persian empire, Mauryan empire
, Macedonian empire
, Roman empire
, Gupta empire
, Spanish empire
, French empire
, and British empire
, finally resulting in the colonization of North America by the "Aryans", with the entire process culminating in the manifest destiny
of the "Aryan Americans" of the United States to establish an American Empire.
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The book also discusses the "racial characteristics" of the various subgroups of the Aryan race and their constituent ethnic groups. Widney believed that these characteristics were determined by the soil
and climate
of the original homeland of each subgroup or individual ethnic group. The original 19th century and early 20th century use of the term Aryan (the original meaning of the term in English), as noted above, refers to "the early speakers of Proto-Indo European and their descendents". Today in academic discourse these human beings would generally be referred to as the Indo-European peoples. These ethnic group
s are indicated below:
The Eastern branch includes the Indo-Aryans
(including the Sinhalese and Maldivians) and the Iranian peoples
(including Kurds); the Western branch includes the Armenians
, Balts, Slavs, Gypsies, Albanians
, Greeks
, Romanics, Teutonics
, Celts
, Anglo-Americans
(includes the European-Americans and the Anglo-Canadians), Québécois
, North American White Hispanics, White Latin American
s, Anglo-Australian
s, Anglo-New Zealander
s, Anglo-African
s, and Boers.
Today, as of 2011, the total population of the Indo-European peoples is approximately 2,405,000,000 people, of which over half, about 1,334,000,000, are those belonging to the Eastern branch of the Indo-European
peoples, i.e., the Indo-Iranian peoples; and the rest, about 1,071,000,000, are those belonging to the Western branch of the Indo-European peoples, the European peoples. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_ethnolinguistic_groups_with_populations&oldid=426512237
. It is the tale of the fathers told to the sons. But side by side with the spoken epic is another, unspoken, yet truer and deeper. It is the tale of the race life, not told in words, but lived in deeds done. And the epic lived is always more wonderful than the epic told. The true epic is found, not in the story of the battles or of the deeds of the rulers, but in the race life. In the perspective of time men become less, man grows greater. Race life is broader, deeper, richer than the life of any man, or of any men. The great men of a race are only an evolution of its race force; and the reserve force is greater than its product. They are indices, race marks. The great man is as the mountain peak; for the mountains that loom up above the widespread plain are not the land; they are only the land-marks, marks of the land. Kings are the accident; the people, the law. The Greek colonies, not Ilium
and Atreides Agamemnon, are the true epic of Hellas, vastly more marvelous. So of the Aryan folk; not the Vedas
, not the Avestas, not the Iliad
, or the Nibelungenlied
, or Beowulf
, but the marvelous tale of what the Aryan man has lived—how he has subdued the wild and waste lands—how he has made the desert
to blossom as the rose
—how he has built up empire with ax and plow, and has sailed the unknown paths of the seas
—these are his true race epic. The others are only as the fairy tales which old wives tell to their children. We read between the lines of the written epic to find the truer and greater epic which lies beyond. This book is an attempt to unfold somewhat of the race epic which the Aryan peoples have lived. ---Joseph Pomeroy Widney Los Angeles, January 1907.
WHO ARE TRUE ARYAN PEOPLES? 1
ORIGINAL HOMELAND OF THE ARYAN PEOPLES 9
THE TYPE OF MAN TO WHICH IT GAVE BIRTH 26
THE INDO-ARYAN 30
THE IRANO-ARYAN 39
THE GOING OUT FROM THE OLD HOME WESTWARD TO THE SEA 46
THE EUROPEAN HOME 82
THE GRAECO-LATIN ARYAN 84
THE CELTO-ARYAN 162
THE SLAV 177
THE TEUTO-ARYAN 199
NORSE MAN 215
THE NORSE MAN 237
THE ENGLISH MAN 252
ENGLE-LAND AND THE ENGLE-MAN 257
THE ENGLISH MAN OF BRITAIN 264
THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 276
THE NEW FAITH 294
THE PEOPLE VERSUS ECCLESIASTICISM 302
THE PURITAN 309
ENGLISH SPEECH 319
ENGLISH LITERATURE 327
WORK—AND THE BURDEN OF THE YEARS 339
THE NEW RACE HOME OVERSEAS 1
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN, 17
THE WESTWARD MARCH INTO A NEW CONTINENT 30
IN THE HEART OF THE CONTINENT 56
THE MARCH INTO THE DESERT 64
THE AMERICAN ARYAN 70
PHYSICAL SURROUNDINGS IN THE NEW RACE HOME 74
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS 87
SPEECH AND LITERATURE 110
POLITICAL CHANGES AND SLAVERY 123
THE FUTURE AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 135
THE RACE PROBLEM IN AMERICA, 158
AMERICA FOR AMERICANS, 176
THE PACIFIC SEAS, 180
IMPERIALISM, 202
ALL ENGLAND, 213
EARTH HUNGER 226
RACES THAT ARE PASSING 232
ARYAN VERSOS ARYAN 277
RACE READJUSTMENTS 296
WAR AND WORLD POWERS 306
RACE TYPES AND RACE PROBLEMS 312
FORECASTINGS AND DAY DREAMS 322
EPI-LOGOS 352
THE VISION OF THE EPHEMERIS ET SAECULA SAECULORUM 356
Joseph Pomeroy Widney
Joseph Pomeroy Widney, M.D. D.D. LL.D was a polymathic pioneer American physician, clergyman, entrepreneur-philanthropist, proto-environmentalist, prohibitionist, racial theorist, and prolific author....
, published in New York by Funk & Wagnells in 1907, of the history of the Aryan race
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
, a hypothesized race commonly described in the late 19th and early 20th century as consisting of native Indo-European Language-speaking peoples of Caucasian ancestry, i.e., those ethnic groups that are the native speakers of Indo-European Languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
regarded as descended from the original speakers of Proto-Indo European.
At the time the book was published, the Aryan race was generally regarded as one of the three major branches of the Caucasian race
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
, along with the Semitic race and the Hamitic race; racial sub-categories that are regarded nowadays by some as scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
.
Outline of the content of the book
Joseph Pomeroy Widney
Joseph Pomeroy Widney, M.D. D.D. LL.D was a polymathic pioneer American physician, clergyman, entrepreneur-philanthropist, proto-environmentalist, prohibitionist, racial theorist, and prolific author....
, the chancellor of the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, describes what he believed was the origin of the "Proto-Aryans" in Central Asia about 7000 years ago, and how they spread out and formed the great "Aryan empire
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
s." He included empires which were predominately Indo-European language-speaking: The Hittite empire, Persian empire, Mauryan empire
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in ancient India, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty from 321 to 185 BC...
, Macedonian empire
Macedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....
, Roman empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, Gupta empire
Gupta Empire
The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed approximately from 320 to 550 CE and covered much of the Indian Subcontinent. Founded by Maharaja Sri-Gupta, the dynasty was the model of a classical civilization. The peace and prosperity created under leadership of Guptas enabled the...
, Spanish empire
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
, French empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
, and British empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, finally resulting in the colonization of North America by the "Aryans", with the entire process culminating in the manifest destiny
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
of the "Aryan Americans" of the United States to establish an American Empire.
Ethnic groups traditionally regarded as included in the Aryan race
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
and climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
of the original homeland of each subgroup or individual ethnic group. The original 19th century and early 20th century use of the term Aryan (the original meaning of the term in English), as noted above, refers to "the early speakers of Proto-Indo European and their descendents". Today in academic discourse these human beings would generally be referred to as the Indo-European peoples. These ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
s are indicated below:
The Eastern branch includes the Indo-Aryans
Indo-Aryans
Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian family of Indo-European languages...
(including the Sinhalese and Maldivians) and the Iranian peoples
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
(including Kurds); the Western branch includes the Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
, Balts, Slavs, Gypsies, Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, Romanics, Teutonics
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, Celts
Modern Celts
A Celtic identity emerged in the "Celtic" nations of Western Europe, following the identification of the native peoples of the Atlantic fringe as "Celts" by Edward Lhuyd in the 18th century and during the course of the 19th-century Celtic Revival, taking the form of ethnic nationalism particularly...
, Anglo-Americans
English American
English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....
(includes the European-Americans and the Anglo-Canadians), Québécois
French-speaking Quebecer
French-speaking Quebecers are francophone residents of the Canadian province of Quebec....
, North American White Hispanics, White Latin American
White Latin American
White Latin Americans are the people of Latin America who are white in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country...
s, Anglo-Australian
Anglo-Celtic Australian
Anglo-Celtic Australian are citizens of Australia with British and/or Irish ancestral origins.-Demography:From the beginning of the colonial era until the mid-20th century, the vast majority of settlers were British or Irish...
s, Anglo-New Zealander
New Zealand European
The term New Zealand European refers to New Zealanders of European descent who identify as New Zealand Europeans rather than some other ethnic group...
s, Anglo-African
Anglo-African
Anglo-Africans are primarily White African people of largely British descent who live or come from Sub-Saharan Africa and are Anglophone. A large majority live in South Africa...
s, and Boers.
Today, as of 2011, the total population of the Indo-European peoples is approximately 2,405,000,000 people, of which over half, about 1,334,000,000, are those belonging to the Eastern branch of the Indo-European
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
peoples, i.e., the Indo-Iranian peoples; and the rest, about 1,071,000,000, are those belonging to the Western branch of the Indo-European peoples, the European peoples. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_ethnolinguistic_groups_with_populations&oldid=426512237
Introduction to the book
Every masterful race of the world’s history has its epicEpic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
. It is the tale of the fathers told to the sons. But side by side with the spoken epic is another, unspoken, yet truer and deeper. It is the tale of the race life, not told in words, but lived in deeds done. And the epic lived is always more wonderful than the epic told. The true epic is found, not in the story of the battles or of the deeds of the rulers, but in the race life. In the perspective of time men become less, man grows greater. Race life is broader, deeper, richer than the life of any man, or of any men. The great men of a race are only an evolution of its race force; and the reserve force is greater than its product. They are indices, race marks. The great man is as the mountain peak; for the mountains that loom up above the widespread plain are not the land; they are only the land-marks, marks of the land. Kings are the accident; the people, the law. The Greek colonies, not Ilium
Ilium
-Places:* Ilion or, Latinized, Ilium, another name for the legendary city of Troy, hence the title of Homer's Iliad*Ilium , an ancient city in Epirus...
and Atreides Agamemnon, are the true epic of Hellas, vastly more marvelous. So of the Aryan folk; not the Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
, not the Avestas, not the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
, or the Nibelungenlied
Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....
, or Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, but the marvelous tale of what the Aryan man has lived—how he has subdued the wild and waste lands—how he has made the desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
to blossom as the rose
Rose
A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows...
—how he has built up empire with ax and plow, and has sailed the unknown paths of the seas
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
—these are his true race epic. The others are only as the fairy tales which old wives tell to their children. We read between the lines of the written epic to find the truer and greater epic which lies beyond. This book is an attempt to unfold somewhat of the race epic which the Aryan peoples have lived. ---Joseph Pomeroy Widney Los Angeles, January 1907.
Contents of Volume I
- Epos iii
- CHAPTER I
WHO ARE TRUE ARYAN PEOPLES? 1
- CHAPTER II
ORIGINAL HOMELAND OF THE ARYAN PEOPLES 9
- CHAPTER III
THE TYPE OF MAN TO WHICH IT GAVE BIRTH 26
- CHAPTER IV
THE INDO-ARYAN 30
- CHAPTER V
THE IRANO-ARYAN 39
- CHAPTER VI
THE GOING OUT FROM THE OLD HOME WESTWARD TO THE SEA 46
- CHAPTER VII
THE EUROPEAN HOME 82
- CHAPTER VIII
THE GRAECO-LATIN ARYAN 84
- CHAPTER IX
THE CELTO-ARYAN 162
- CHAPTER X
THE SLAV 177
- CHAPTER XI
THE TEUTO-ARYAN 199
- CHAPTER XII
NORSE MAN 215
- CHAPTER XIII
THE NORSE MAN 237
- CHAPTER XIV
THE ENGLISH MAN 252
- CHAPTER XV
ENGLE-LAND AND THE ENGLE-MAN 257
- CHAPTER XVI
THE ENGLISH MAN OF BRITAIN 264
- CHAPTER XVII
THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 276
- CHAPTER XVIII
THE NEW FAITH 294
- CHAPTER XIX
THE PEOPLE VERSUS ECCLESIASTICISM 302
- CHAPTER XX
THE PURITAN 309
- CHAPTER XXI
ENGLISH SPEECH 319
- CHAPTER XXII
ENGLISH LITERATURE 327
- CHAPTER XXIII
WORK—AND THE BURDEN OF THE YEARS 339
Contents of Volume II
- CHAPTER I
THE NEW RACE HOME OVERSEAS 1
- CHAPTER II
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN, 17
- CHAPTER III
THE WESTWARD MARCH INTO A NEW CONTINENT 30
- CHAPTER IV
IN THE HEART OF THE CONTINENT 56
- CHAPTER V
THE MARCH INTO THE DESERT 64
- CHAPTER VI
THE AMERICAN ARYAN 70
- CHAPTER VII
PHYSICAL SURROUNDINGS IN THE NEW RACE HOME 74
- CHAPTER VIII
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS 87
- CHAPTER IX
SPEECH AND LITERATURE 110
- CHAPTER X
POLITICAL CHANGES AND SLAVERY 123
- CHAPTER XI
THE FUTURE AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 135
- CHAPTER XII
THE RACE PROBLEM IN AMERICA, 158
- CHAPTER XIII
AMERICA FOR AMERICANS, 176
- CHAPTER XIV
THE PACIFIC SEAS, 180
- CHAPTER XV
IMPERIALISM, 202
- CHAPTER XVI
ALL ENGLAND, 213
- CHAPTER XVII
EARTH HUNGER 226
- CHAPTER XVIII
RACES THAT ARE PASSING 232
- CHAPTER XIX
ARYAN VERSOS ARYAN 277
- CHAPTER XX
RACE READJUSTMENTS 296
- CHAPTER XXI
WAR AND WORLD POWERS 306
- CHAPTER XXII
RACE TYPES AND RACE PROBLEMS 312
- CHAPTER XXIII
FORECASTINGS AND DAY DREAMS 322
- CHAPTER XXIV
EPI-LOGOS 352
- CHAPTER XXV
THE VISION OF THE EPHEMERIS ET SAECULA SAECULORUM 356
Editions
- Race Life of the Aryan Peoples Volumes 1 and 2 (Hardcover) Funk & Wagnalls (1907) (ASIN B000TYHFXM)
- 100th Annversary edition: Race Life Of The Aryan Peoples Volumes 1 and 2 (Hardcover) Kessinger Publishing (2007) (ISBN 0-548-10878-1)
See also
- Anatolian hypothesisAnatolian hypothesisThe Anatolian hypothesis is also called Renfrew's Neolithic Discontinuity Theory ; it proposes that the dispersal of Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in Neolithic Anatolia...
- Indo-Aryan migrationIndo-Aryan migrationModels of the Indo-Aryan migration discuss scenarios of prehistoric migrations of the proto-Indo-Aryans to their historically attested areas of settlement in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent...
- Kurgan hypothesisKurgan hypothesisThe Kurgan hypothesis is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language...
- Proto-Indo-EuropeansProto-Indo-EuropeansThe Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
- Social DarwinismSocial DarwinismSocial Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
External links
- H.G. Wells describes the origin of the Aryans (i.e., the Proto-Aryans, the term then used as a synonym for Proto-Indo Europeans):
- Widney, Joseph PJoseph Pomeroy WidneyJoseph Pomeroy Widney, M.D. D.D. LL.D was a polymathic pioneer American physician, clergyman, entrepreneur-philanthropist, proto-environmentalist, prohibitionist, racial theorist, and prolific author....
New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1907 In Two Volumes: Volume One--The Old World Volume Two--The New World ISBN B000859S6O: