NO. II MELANESIANS AND AUSTRALIANS HRDLICKA 39 



of the tribe they met with and had no interpreter ; and the encounter 

 took place in 1602, 97 years after the importation of Negroes into 

 the .West Indies "" and scores of years after their introduction into 

 Mexico. A Httle out-of-the-way settlement of escaped slaves would 

 then have been quite possible ; but there is no corroboration of any 

 such people in this region by either the early missionaries or other 

 writers. A fact which might possibly be drawn upon in this connec- 

 tion is the presence in the collection from this territory in the U.S. 

 National Museum of two evidently Negro skeletons ; but this collec- 

 tion was made 200 years later, after the Negro had effected a wide 

 penetration. 



SKIN, HAIR, NOSE, AND OTHER FEATURES 



The basic pillar of anthropology is variation, and there is no an- 

 thropologist who is not deeply cognizant of this principle. The entire 

 organic evolution, including that of man, is based upon and made 

 possible only by individual and groupal variability. This means that 

 however pure, i. e., free of mixture, human or other beings may be, 

 there will be no two individuals, nor even any two features, exactly 

 alike ; and the same applies even more strongly to any two families, 

 clans, tribes, or other groups. The demonstration of these facts is all 

 about us. Further, it is well known that the normal genetic variations 

 are influenced by the environment including habits, food, and even 

 pathology. 



But the lessons of all this are often forgotten, even by scientific 

 workers. Thus the skin color of the Indian ranges normally and 

 outside of all admixtures from yellowish-tan to the dark brown of 

 solid chocolate. It is especially dark in hot and dry regions, such 

 as Arizona and the Californias, and that particularly in the old men, 

 who used to go almost or wholly naked. But the color is never black. 

 It could only be compared with that of the not infrequent fullblood 

 Negro who is dark brown rather than black. Between the color of 

 such a Negro and that of a dark fullblood Indian there is but little 

 difference, and it means no more that the Indian has any Negro blood 

 than that the Negro has any Indian admixture. They are both within 

 the possibility of normal plus environmental and conditional range of 

 variation of their two races. These are simple facts, with many 

 analogies in other parts of the world. 



°' " As early as 1505 Negroes were sent to the Antilles to work in mines." The 

 Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3, pp. 397-398. See also page 41. 



