NATURE'S REALM. 
VoL. II. 
MAY, 1891. 
No. 5. 
PHYSIOGNOMY OF INDIANS. 
By R. W. SuuFretprt, M. D., C. M. Z. 8., Erc., Etc. 
{Member Anthropological Society of Florence, Italy, and the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C., etc.] 
Mr. Emerson was a physiognomist of no 
mean calibre, and his powers of discernment 
in such matters were excellent ; nor did he en- 
tirely ignore the more truthful chapters given 
us in the works of the phrenologist. In his 
“«Conduct of Life” he tells us that ‘‘ A dome of 
brow denotes one thing; a pot-belly another ; 
a squint, a pug-nose, mats ot hair, the pigment 
of the epidermis, betray character. People 
seem sheathed in their tough organization. 
Ask Spurzheim, ask the doctors, ask Quetelet, 
if temperaments decide nothing, or if there be 
anything they do not decide. Read the de- 
scription in medical books of the four temper- 
aments, and you will think you are reading 
your own thoughts which you had not yet 
told.” * * * ‘*Atthe corner of the street 
you read the possibility of each passenger in 
the facial angle, in the complexion, in the depth 
ma his eve” = * * “The military ‘eye I 
meet, now darkly sparkling under clerical, now 
under rustic brows. ‘Tis the city of Lacede- 
mon; ‘tis a stack of bayonets. There are ask- 
ing eyes, asserting eyes, prowling eyes, and 
eyes full of fate—some of good and some ot 
sinister omen.” And further along in the same 
worthy work he remarks: ‘A man finds room 
in the few square inches of the face for the 
traits of all his ancestors, for the expression of 
all his history and his wants.” * * * “The 
sculptor, and Winckelmann, and Levator, 
will tell you how significant a feature is the 
nose ; how its forms express strength or weak- 
ness of will, and good or bad temper. The 
nose of Julius Cesar, of Dante and of Pitt sug- 
gest ‘the terrors of the beak.’ What refine- 
ment and what limitations the teeth betray ! 
All this and much more besides by the same- 
subtle thinker may be observed in our every- 
day studies of physiognomy. But Emersom 
probably had only the Indo-European in his. 
mind when he wrote what we have quoted 
from him. His words will apply with quite as. 
much truth, however, to the members of any 
race, and they apply, as we shall soon see, 
with especial force to the Indian. When I say 
the Indian I mean any of our North American 
Indians. There is quite as much diversity ot 
character among the individuals that represent 
the various tribes of those people as there is to 
be found among the whites or Indo-Europeans. 
And, as character determines cast of counte- 
nance, we find an equally diversified physiog- 
nomy among them. Some Indians show in 
their faces more or less intelligence, honesty 
of purpose, good nature and eveness of tem- 
per; others, the moment they look at us, repel 
and revolt, for their features bear alone the 
impress of cunning, cruelty and savage de- 
pravity. Among the tribes in the Southwest, 
where they enjoy a sort of crude form of civili- 
zation of their own, which has long existed, the 
physiognomy in many cases becomes still more- 
distinctive. Here other factors come into play 
to help mould the countenance and to insure: 
its inheritance. Not only has the periodical 
conduction of war and all that war means, for 
generations, had its influence in this way, but 
to this element must be added others. 
For instance, many of the Navajos exhibit a 
genuine taste for the accumulation of wealth 
and worldly goods. Numbers of them are rich 
