t^ VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



Among some mountain tribes of South America, and especially in Chili, the 

 natives are remarkable for the size of their limbs, which are so large as to appear 

 out of proportion to the body ; yet it is remarkable that the Americans seldom 

 attain a state of obesity. 



Notwithstanding the general custom of going barefoot, the American Indians 

 possess remarkably small feet, and their hands have the same delicate conformation. 

 Most travellers have noticed this fact, which is a characteristic of the race ;* yet 

 the Indian is generally stiff and awkward in his gait, owing to the prevalent habit 

 of walking with the feet turned inwards. 



The unsophisticated Americans might be divided into three great classes, 

 derived from the pursuits on which they depend for subsistence, viz : Huntings 

 Fishings and Agriculture. The first and largest class is devoted to hunting; and 

 it embraces most of the strictly nomadic tribes, and of course a great proportion 

 of the entire race. The several Dacota nations west of the Mississippi, together 

 with the Upsarookas, the Assinaboins, the Black Feet, and many other nations 

 both east and west of the Rocky Mountains, cultivate nothing whatever. They 

 live upon the flesh of the bujQfalo, the deer, the bear, and various other animals ; 

 and when these fail, they suffer all the privations resulting from famine and 

 disease. In the southern continent, vast hordes now derive a ready and unfailing 

 subsistence from the wild cattle which overrun the extensive plains or pampas of 

 Brazil and Patagonia ;t and a few tribes now domesticate these animals, and thus 

 avoid the labor of the chase and the lasso. Such are the Pehuenches of the 

 Chilian Andes, between the thirty-fourth and thirty-seventh degree of south 

 latitude. They dwell, says Molina, in the manner of the Bedouin Arabs, in tents 

 made of skins, disposed in a circular form, leaving in the centre a spacious field, 

 where the cattle feed during the continuance of the herbage. When that begins 

 to fail, they transport their habitations to another situation, and in this manner 

 continually changing place, they traverse the valleys of the Cordilleras.J 



In comparison with the hunting tribes, those which subsist exclusively by 

 fishing are not numerous ; for among the many nations who inhabited the Atlantic 



* De Azara, Voy. T. II, p. 32, 5S, 269.~Pr. de Wied, Voy. au Bresil, art. Botocudy.— Molina, 

 Hist, of Chili, I, p. 27G.— Humboldt, Voy. aux Reg. Equinox, III, p. 2S2, 



t The domestic breed of cattle was first introduced into South America by the Spaniards, and it 

 continues to increase beyond all calculation, notwithstanding the annual havoc made among these 

 animals for the purposes of food and commerce. 



t Hist of Chili, II, p. 224. 



