General History for Colleges and High SchoolsMyers, P. V. N. (Philip Van Ness)
History
General History for Colleges and High Schools
Myers, P. V. N. (Philip Van Ness)
World history
MIGRATIONS OF THE ARYANS.--The original seat of the Aryan peoples was, it
is conjectured [Footnote: Some scholars seek the primitive home in
Europe], somewhere in Asia. At a period that cannot be placed later than
3000 B.C., the Aryan household began to break up and scatter, and the
different clans to set out in search of new dwelling-places. Some tribes
of the family spread themselves over the table-lands of Iran and the
plains of India, and became the progenitors of the Medes, the Persians,
and the Hindus. Other clans entering Europe probably by the way of the
Hellespont, pushed themselves into the peninsulas of Greece and Italy, and
founded the Greek and Italian states. Still other tribes seem to have
poured in successive waves into Central Europe. The vanguard of these
peoples are known as the Celts. After them came the Teutonic tribes, who
crowded the former out on the westernmost edge of Europe--into Gaul and
Spain, and out upon the British Isles. These hard-pressed Celts are
represented to-day by the Welsh, the Irish, and the Highland Scots. Behind
the Teutonic peoples were the Slavonic folk, who pushed the former hard
against the Celts, and, when they could urge them no farther to the west,
finally settled down and became the ancestors of the Russians and other
kindred nations.
Although these migratory movements of the various clans and tribes of this
wonderful Aryan family began in the early morning of history, some five
thousand or more years ago, still we must not think of them as something
past and unrelated to the present. These movements, begun in those remote
times, are still going on. The overflow of the population of Europe into
the different regions of the New World, is simply a continuation of the
prehistoric migrations of the members of the primitive Aryan household.
Everywhere the other races and families have given way before the advance
of the Aryan peoples, who have assumed the position of leaders and
teachers among the families of mankind, and are rapidly spreading their
arts and sciences and culture over the earth.
EARLY CULTURE OF THE ARYANS.--One of the most fascinating studies of
recent growth is that which reveals to us the customs, beliefs, and mode
of life of the early Aryans, while they were yet living together as a
single household. Upon comparing the myths, legends, and ballads of the
different Aryan peoples, we discover the curious fact that, under various
disguises, they are the same. Thus our nursery tales are found to be
identical with those with which the Hindu children are amused. But the
discovery should not surprise us. We and the Hindus are kinsmen, children
of the same home; so now, when after a long separation we meet, the tales
we tell are the same, for they are the stories that were told around the
common hearth-fire of our Aryan forefathers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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