152 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[July 2, 1900. 



ing, and that the American Indian is invariably yellow 

 But Mr. Im Thurn, who has had special opiaortunities 

 of observing them, describes the skin of the Indians of 

 British Guiana as cinnamon red; and a bust of a 

 Macusi boy, now in the British Museum, which was 

 modelled and coloured by Mrs. Im Thurn, is of a bright 

 claiTty-red. As these Macusi Indians are noted for their 

 frequent ablutions, it is evident that they exhibit the 

 natural hue of the skin; and it may accordingly be 

 taken as a fact that a reddish skin is characteristic of 

 at least some of the aboriginal tribes of America. 



Although there ai'e stated to be certain South 

 Amci'ican tribes in which it displays a tendency to 

 waviness, the scalp-hair of the typical American Indian 

 is of the long, coarse, straight, black type which forms 

 such a characteristic feature of the Chinaman. Hair 

 of this type presents a perfectly circular cross-section, 

 and therefore has no tendency to twist, but hangs as 

 straight down as that of a horse's mane or tail. It is 

 to be met with from Canada to Patagonia, all North 

 American Indians exhibiting this type in, perfection 

 (Fig. 1); while it is equally apparent in those curious 

 mummilicd and shrunken heads from Ecuador which 

 command such high prices at " curio " sales. In the 

 above instances the hair is allowed to grow long, when 

 its characteristic features are best displayed ; but in 

 many tribes of South America, such as the Tupis of 

 Brazil (Fig. 2), it is cut short, when a more European 

 appearance is given to the entire countenance. In both 

 the figures just referred to, the absence of hair on the 

 face, which forms such a marked chaa-acteristic of both 

 Mongols and American Indians, is very conspicuous ; 

 but it should be added that, like Chinamen, the majority 

 of the native tribes of America are in the habit of 

 plucking out the comparatively few hairs that make their 

 appearance on the face. As regards the cheek-bones, 

 these are always decidedly more prominent than in 

 Europeans, although less projecting than in Chinese. 

 Generally speaking, the degree of prominence is con- 

 siderably more marked in the tribes of North America 

 than in those further to the south, as may be seen by 

 comparing Fig. 1 with Fig. 2 ; and, indeed, this is just 

 what might be expected to occiu' on the hypothesis that 

 the American aborigines came by land from Asia, since 

 the further south they wandered the more widely they 

 would tend to depart in physical features from the Mon- 

 golian prototype. But in spite of this and other differences 

 to be noticed immediately, the retention of the Mongo- 

 loid type even among the natives of South America 

 is very noticeable ; Sir William Flower remarking that 

 no one can have seen a group of Botocudos from Brazil 

 or of natives of Tierra del Fuego without being struck 

 by their markedly Mongolian external features. 



Turning to the points in which American Indians 

 differ from their Mongolian cousins, the most important 

 are to be found in the retreating sloije of the forehead, 

 the development of distinct brow-ridges above the 

 eyes, the general absence of obliquity in the eyes them- 

 selves, and the much more prominent nose, which is 

 usually narrow, with a high bridge, and frequently an 

 aquiline profile, in which two lines meet at an obtuse 

 angle at the bridge. All these points of difference tend 

 to more or less completely obliterate the breadth and 

 flatness of face so characteristic of the oblique-eyed 

 Mongol. But here and there cases are recorded where, 

 instead of the small, sunken, and circular coal-black 

 eye, the eyelids assume the typical Mongolian folding 

 and obliquity, and thus communicate a strikingly Chinese 

 expression to the entire countenance. In this connection 



it has to be borne in mind that the Malays, who are 

 comparatively near relatives of the Chinese, have more 

 or less completely lost the oblique and slit-like " Mongol 

 eye," so that the disapjjeai'ance of the same feature in 

 the American tribes should be no cause for wonderment. 

 It might, of course, be urged that the " Mongol eye " 

 was acquired in Asia subsequently to the splitting-off 

 of the American branch, but the fact that the feature 



i'lQ. 2. — Male Indians of the Turi-nara Tribe of the Tupi Steele, 

 from the Rio Ncara, Para, Brazil. 



Phohtjraplud !nj Dr. E. Goeldi. 



in question occurs to a certain extent among the Eskimo, 

 an ancient Mongolian offshoot whose relationship to the 

 American Indians is not yet decided, seems to be de- 

 cidedly against such an hypothesis. 



Another point in which the American Indian differs 

 from his Mongolian prototype is his superior bodily 

 stature ; an average height of 5 feet 8 or 9 inches being 

 common over the greater part of the continent, while 

 in Patagonia it rises to as much as six feet. Here, 

 again, we have another instance of the extreme degree 

 of divergence from the Mongolian type occurring in the 

 part of the New World the most remote from Bering 

 Strait. In the Fuegians it is true that the height falls 

 so low as five ftet, but this inferiority of stature is ob- 

 viously due to the hard conditions under which these 

 degraded people exist. Compared with the squat and 

 flat-faced Tatar or Chinaman, the American Indian, in 

 the higher phases of his development, makes indeed a 

 far nearer approximation to tlie ideal standard of 

 physical beauty, although his features are frequently 

 by no means of a pleasing type, and the practice so 

 common in the northern half of the continent of wear- 

 ing the hair long, coupled with the absence of beard and 

 moustache, gives the men a somewhat feminine appear- 

 ance. 



Beai'iug in mind what has been said in regard to the 

 universal prevalence of a long-headed type among the 

 Eskimo, the fact that while the Mongols are a short> 

 headed peojsle, a large proportion of the American 

 aborigines have heads of medium length, can scarcely be 

 regarded as a distinctive featiu'e of first-class importance. 



