592 THE " NATION " A8 AN ELEMENT IN ANTHROPOLOGY. 



In spite of these limitations, which differ widely in different tribes, 

 the general influence of the principle of consanguinity as the basis of 

 the social compact unquestionably aided through countless ages to 

 individualize the physical types of the human species, and thus to 

 develop and render liernument its races and varieties as we now know 

 them. 



So powerful was this prejudice in favor of the ancestral type, that it 

 was a general custom in i)rimitive times to destroy at or shortly after 

 birth any aberrant types, and to bring all into accord with the tribal 

 idea. For instance, in certain parts of Mexico there is a tendency to 

 congenital albinism in the native })opulation ; and before the coiKiuest all 

 children displaying tliis tendency were sacrificed to tlie gods before the 

 age of puberty. Among the Papuans, when a child is born of a lighter 

 color than the average of the tribe, it is assiduously held in the smoke 

 of green branches until it is tanned to the projier hue. Indeed, 

 whenever there was any material variation from the received type, 

 the infant was sure not to live to that period of life when he or she 

 could transmit it to offspring; and thus a potent factor in the evolution 

 of the species toward mo<lified forms was absent throughout all the 

 chiUlhood of the human race, owing to the conditions of tlie i)revailing 

 social compact. 



The somatologist will object to this, that in the very earliest times 

 and within limited areas we find that a wide diversity of typei)revailed. 

 For instance, I sujjpose the oldest remains of the hnnum race found ui» 

 to the present have been unearthed in Western Europe. I Jut these 

 venerable relics show tlie existence there in remotest times and at no 

 great distance apart (not more than a few days' walk of an active 

 pedestrian), of men with broad heads, and others with narrow heads, 

 with narrow faces and with wide faces, Avitli exjianded flat noses and 

 with narrow aquiline noses, of stature below the medium and others 

 above the medium ; and we may reasonably conclude from their descend- 

 ants that some were blonds with yellow hair, while others were swarthy 

 brunettes with locks like the raven's wing. So that Prof. Kollmann, 

 who has made this subject a special study, can not see his way clear to 

 admit less than four different races struggling for the soil of Western 

 Eurojie in prehistoric times. 



Yet if we may judge from some historic data and all analogy, these 

 ancient peoples, like all others, strove to retain in its purity the type 

 of their ancestors by a social organization looking to that end. 



Two customs prevail everywhere in primitive life which largely 

 counteract the result of consanguine marriages; the one is adoi)tion, 

 the other concubinage. Usually, in their unceasing wars, the males of 

 conquered tribes were killed and the women taken as ca])tives, thus 

 ii!troducing through the females of another line the peculiarities of 

 their variety or race. 



In some instances however, the males were in part preserved and 



