Evening star., 1939-04-02

DIR. ALES HRDLlCKA.
tinct New Stone Age speech of South
western Europe.
The term is derived from the "aarya"
of the invaders of India. Their language,
Sanscript, is perhaps the most primitive
and fundamental form of this linguistic
family. The next closest, nobody knows
just why, is the Lithuanian spoken by
dominantly Slavic people and sup
posedly not especially early comers in the
western migration. Strictly speaking a
Lithuanian is, of all living peoples, the
"Aryan" par excellence. And a Finn is
not an Aryan, although he is very close
racially to the Scandinavians of today.
A speaker of Yiddish Is most assuredly
an Aryan. So, for that matter, is an
American colored man who speaks Eng
lish-and whose ancestors as far back
as he has any knowledge of them have
spoken English.
Strictly speaking. nobody is an Aryan.
He is an "Aryan- speaking person. But
the present effort seems to be to shift
the meaning of the word to signify race
the present descendants of primitive
speakers of some Aryan dialect. 1t is
coming to mean, in the German interpre-
tation, an absolutely uncontaminated
Caucasian-a white man with no racial
mixture from way back.
AS Washington anthropologsts in
touch with German contemporaries in
terpret the present trend of this racial
propaganda, the claim that is being set
up is that the present inhabitants of
Germany are the purest of all white
men, through force of circumstances.
1t makes no particular difference
whether they are Nordc or Alpine, Teu-
ton or Slav. Certainly throughout his
toric times they have lived in sheltered
white island" The Slavs to the east
ward have been in contact with the
Tartars and Mongols, and have absorbed
some of these strains in their own blood,
while acting as an almost impenetrable
barrier against any such infiltration into
Germany. The same is true of the Medi-
terraneans to the south. They have pro-
tected Germany from the negroid ele-
ments of the worlds population, absorb
ing some themselves but protecting the
blood purity of Germany. Europe to
the westward also has been in contact
with other elements, Mediterraneans
filtering up the coast. Scandinavia,
homeland Of the Nordics, has been in
contact with the Lapps. The United
States and Canada have had the same
sort of contacts with the aboriginal In
dian, to say nothing of the fact that both
have been melting pots of all the earths
races. South America is almost pre-
dominantly of Indian blood. Germany
alone can claim absolute purity, for what
ever it is worth, and is making a fetish
of it.
Argument Is Cockeyed.
The argument, of course, is cockeyed
in good many places, in spite of its
superficial plausibility. But this is the
sole base Of the much stressed German
racial claims. 1t is what is being taught
German school children. The anthropol-
ogy of "Mein Kampf" is not very likely
to get much recognition outside of the
Reich.
1t is only within historical times that
even Northern Germany itself has been
"Teutonized" by steady encroachment
on the preponderant and peaceful Alpine
opulation-sometimes an encroachment
of war and rapine, sometimes an en-
croachment of intermarriage and peace
full relations. To the eastward, however,
the Alpines, in their "Slavic" phase have
held their own. The Teuton might claim
to be the "Aryan," the master, but the
Alpine was the "Slav," the glorifed, and
the glorifled has seen no reason to yield
to the master.
OF all the Slav peoples the most stub
bornly independent and progressive have
been the Czechs, trampled time after
time and buried in the grave of alien
rule. But always they have burst the
bonds and risen again. They constitute
the westernmost extension of the Slav
peoples, retaining the Slav speech, that
variation of Aryan which seems to crate
so harshly on the ears of their fellow
Aryan-speakers to the westward.
They are relatively late comers. Per-
haps the foremost authority on racial
history in the United States, himself of
Czecho- -Slovakian birth, is DR.. Ales
Hrdlicka curator of physical anthropology
of the United States National Museum.
Says DR.. Hrdlicka of his people:
''The racial history Of Czecho- -Slovakia.