I. I considered that I ought to give a somewhat detailed account of our knowledge of fossil human races. The interest and novelty of the subject induced me to do so, and its moderate extent rendered it possible. But I cannot treat the history of present races in the same manner. If I wished to study them singly, I could scarcely devote more than a few lines to each. Even if I grouped them intofamilies, I should only be able to give an incomplete and vague account of them, unless I went much beyond the limits of this work.
It seemed to me then preferable to adopt the practice of botanists and zoologists, who always begin with a general account of the nature and significance of the characters of the group which they wish to discuss. These notions, when affecting the whole group, are moreover always necessary. They alone allow us to grasp and comprehend certain general results. They become still more indispensable, whenraces derivedfrom one and the same species are under discussion, because they bring forward and render evident the unity of specific origin of these races, just as much as direct proofs.
II. If we were familiar with primitive man, we should regard as characterising races, everything which separates them from this type. From want of this natural term ofcomparison, we have taken theEuropean Whiteas normal, and compared the remaining human groups with him. This leads to a tendency, which must be pointed out at once.
Influenced by certain habits of thought, and by a self-love of race which is easily explained, many anthropologists have thought that they could interpret the physical differences which distinguish men from one another, and consider simple characteristic features as marks of inferiority or superiority. Because the European has a short heel, and some Negroes have a long one, they have wished to consider the latter as a mark of degradation. The remarks which were made upon this subject, with so much justice, by Desmoulins with reference to the Bosjesmans were forgotten. Because the greater number of civilizations have risen among dolichocephalic nations, a head elongated from before backwards has been regarded as a superior form. It was forgotten that the Negroes and the Esquimaux are generally dolichocephali of the most pronounced type, and that European brachycephali are in every case the equals of their dolichocephalic brethren.
All analogous interpretations are absolutely arbitrary. In fact, superiority between human groups depends essentially upon intellectual and social development; it passes from one to another. The Chinese and Egyptians were already civilized, when all Europeans were true savages. If the latter had judged our ancestors as we too frequently judge foreign races, they would have found many signs of inferiority in them, commencing with the white skin of which we are so proud, and which they would have been able to regard as betraying an irremediable degeneration.
Is the fundamental superiority of one race really betrayed outwardly by some material sign? We are still in ignorance upon this point. But when we examine it more closely, we are led to think that it is not so. In expressing myself thus, I know that I am separating myself from the opinions which are generally admitted, and am at variance with men whose works I value most highly. But I hope to give decisive proofs in my favour further on.
Differences of every kind nevertheless exist between one human group and another. These must be taken for what they are, forcharactersofrace, forethnical characters. It is the duty of the anthropologist especially to recognise these differences, to make use of them for defining the groups, then to connect or separate, according to their affinities, the races thus characterised. In other terms, his work is the same as that of the botanist or geologist describing and classifying plants and animals.
Men of an impatient or venturous disposition will perhaps reproach me with making anthropology toodescriptive. I shall only make a partial defence against the accusation. Provided that the description embraces the entire being, it enables us to become acquainted with it. If we take our stand on this point of view, we remain on the ground of positive knowledge, and run less risk of losing ourselves in hypotheses.
I still consider it the right and almost the duty of the anthropologist, to investigate the causes which may have given rise to the appearance of the features which characterise races. The study of the actions of the conditions of life sometimes gives valuable indications on this subject. The evolution of the human being from his appearance in the embryonic state to the adult state, especially furnishes facts of great interest. A simplearrest, a slightexcessin the evolutive phenomena, are, it appears to me, the causes of the principal differences which separate races, and particularly the two extremes, the Negro and the White.
I know full well that a wish has been felt to go further back. Under the more or less perceptible influence of transmutationist doctrines, terms of comparison in the estimation of these differences have too often been sought for among animals, and especially among apes. Eminent men, without even adopting these doctrines, frequently use the expressions,simian character,animal character. Why forget the embryo or the human fœtus? Why not remember even the infant? Question their history. It furnishes all the elements of ahuman evolution theory, certainly much more preciseand true than thesimian theory. This is again a result which will be made clear, I hope, by the facts which I shall have to mention.
But whether or not I may be able to explain the appearance of the features which distinguish races from each other, and whatever origin may be attributed to them, I shall only take the wordcharacterin the sense which is given to it in botany and zoology.
III. An animal species is not characterised solely by the peculiarities manifested by its physical organism. No history of bees or ants omits to speak of their instincts, or to show how these differ in different species. With much stronger reason ought we to point out in the history of human races the characteristic points in their intellectual, moral, and religious manifestations. Of course, when approaching this order of facts, the anthropologist ought none the less to remain exclusively a naturalist.
This very simple consideration is sufficient to determine the relative value which ought to be attributed in anthropology to characters of different orders. Here, as in botany and in zoology, the first place ought to be given to the most persistent characters. Now, a man, tribe, or an entire population can in a certain number of years change its social state, its language, religion, etc. They do not on that account modify their external or anatomical physical characters. It is therefore to the latter that the anthropologist will attach most importance, contrary to what the linguist, the philosopher, or the theologian would certainly do.
Nevertheless we shall see that, in some very rare cases, the linguistic characters preponderate over the physical characters, in the sense that they furnish more striking indications on the subject of certain ethnical affinities. Considered from a physical point of view, man exhibits characters which may be divided into four distinct categories, namely: external characters, anatomical characters, physiological characters, and pathological characters.
IV.External characters.—Height.All breeders regardheight as characteristic of race among animals. It is also one of the traits which are most striking in man. This character sometimes shows that it is very evidently dependent upon the conditions of existence. Sheltering and feeding somewhat carefully the mares of La Camargue, has been sufficient to raise the height of this excellent breed of horses. With man, M. Durand (de Gros), confirming an observation already due to Ed. Lartet, has shown that, in the Aveyron, the populations of the limestone cantons are sensibly taller than those of the granite or schistose cantons. He agreed with the statement of Dr. Albespy, that liming lands in the non-calcareous portions of this district has raised the height by two, three or even four centimetres (·78, 1·17, 1·57 inch) on the lands where the practice has existed for the longest time.
But on the other hand, it is indisputable, that races of very different height live side by side, without its being possible hitherto to point out the cause of this diversity. The dwarfed Negroes, the Akkas and Obongos, seem to be placed under conditions precisely similar to those under which much taller neighbouring tribes live.
I have given above 163 statures of human races. I have insisted with sufficient strength upon the consequences which follow from them; from the point of view of the gradation and intercrossing of characters. But we can extract from these numbers some other results which are not less interesting.
The general mean given by these numbers will be 1m·635 (5ft 4·37 inch). I regard it as a little too great, the measures being wrong rather for the short races, than for the tall. Nevertheless it cannot be very far from the truth, and may be accepted provisionally.
It is seen from the table that the Roumanians and the Magyars represent, from this point of view, exactly the mean stature.
The oscillations of the mean statures above and below this general mean, extend in the case of the Patagoniansto +0m·115 (4·53 inch), and in the case of the Bosjesmans to -0m·265 (10·43 inch). The individual oscillations are +0m·295 (11·71 inch) for the inhabitants of Tongatabou, and -0m·495 (1ft 7·49 inch) or -0m·635 (2ft 1 inch) for the Bosjesmans.
We see from the table that the oscillations below the general mean, are less numerous than those above it. This result may be connected with the fact which I have just pointed out. Nevertheless it appears to me probable that the number of races above the mean stature, is greater than those below it. The difference in number is compensated for by the more than double extent of the oscillations below the mean.
Between the highest mean observed among the Southern Patagonians, and the lowest mean among the Bosjesmans, we find a difference of 0m·554 (1ft 9·8 inch). The difference between individuals will be 0m·930 (3ft 0·6 inch). But I think that it ought to be reduced to 0m·790 (2ft 7·1 inch), adopting as a mean the height 1m·14 (3ft 8·88 inch) given by Barrow as the height of a Bosjesman woman who had had several children. We are thus certain that we are not taking a case of teratological dwarfishness as a possible normal state.
Travellers have not often measured separately the height of men and women. Uniting the facts of this nature which I have been able to collect, we find 0m·141 (5·57 inch) as the mean difference between the heights of the sexes, and 0·973 as the mean ratio, the woman being everywhere shorter than the man. Among the Lapps, according to Capel Brooke and Campbell, the mean difference is as high as 0m·278 (10·94 inches); in Austria, it is as low as 0m·037 (145 inch) according to Liharzik.
V.Proportion of the body and of the limbs.In all the races of our domestic animals, the relative development of the different parts of the body, theproportions, have a characteristic value, which is equal and frequently superior to that of height. No one would think of separating the greyhound from the harrier. It ought to be exactly the same with man. With the animal, races are formed by aselection more or less open, and undertaken for a fixed purpose. The proportions of the different parts of the body thus acquire a fixity, which cannot be found in human races on account of the absence of selection.
This variability is found even in the simplest relations, and in those which might be considered fundamental. Such is the relation of the height of the head to the total height. Gerdy, who has taken up this question in a special manner, has found that the height of Frenchmen is rarely beyond 7½ heads, most frequently a little more than 8 heads, and sometimes 9. The artistic ideal is no more fixed than the reality, in spite of the mathematical rules laid down, from Vitruvius to Liharzik and Silberman. The table drawn up by Audran shows the variation from 719/48heads (the Egyptian Termes) to 743/48(the Farnese Hercules). The difference between these two extremes is exactly half a head. Painters have taken still more liberty. Raphael has only given a height of 6 heads to some of his figures, and Michael Angelo has given them 8 or more.
The Pythian Apollo (742/48heads), the Laocoon (727/48), are neverthelesschefs-d’œuvre, and we rightly bestow an equal amount of admiration upon the two Italian masters. The reason is just the same as with the rest of organised beings: man’s organism is not subject to absolute laws, nor to a rigorously fixed development.
Doubtless there have been noticed among some human races differences of proportion generally sufficiently marked to serve as characters. But it just as often happens that with some individuals the order of these differences is inverted. It is another example of intercrossing.
Thus the African Negro has generally the upper limb, from the shoulder to the wrist, relatively longer than the European White, and we shall return to this point further on. Nevertheless, from the measures of Quételet, it follows that a Negro, well known in the studios, where he acted as a model, had much shorter arms than the soldiers, and than a Belgian model, who were taken as terms of comparison.
Moreover, the numbers found by Quételet place the individuals, upon whom his observations were made, in the following order:—1st, mean of ten Belgian soldiers; 2nd, an Ojibbeway chief; 3rd, a Belgian model, and a Zulu Kaffir; 4th, an Amaponda Kaffir; 5th, the Negro model; 6th, three young Ojibbeways; 7th, Cantfield, the Hercules of the United States. Here intercrossing again appears in a well marked manner, and it is in the White race that the Brussels savant has found the two extremes.
In the general characteristic of negro races, we often find quoted the slight development and the relatively high position of the calf of the leg. I have no definite information upon the latter of these characters. As for the former, it has been represented to be too general. Two Blacks, the Amaponda Kaffir, and the Negro model in the tables of Quételet, present the maximum 0m·410 (16·14 inches), and the minimum 0m·328 (12·92 inches) of development of this part. They are separated from each other by the Belgians, the Ojibbeways, and Cantfield.
Finally, themeanstaken for the different parts of the body will doubtless give results useful for the distinction of races. But still, account will have to be taken of many of the conditions. All hunting peoples, including the Australians, according to travellers who have been among them, could furnish models for the sculptor, and are generally remarkable for the symmetry and beauty of their proportions. In this respect civilized populations, especially those of our great towns, present a deplorable inferiority. Is ourfundamental typedegraded in this respect? Certainly not. But civilization itself, by the facilities of existence which it procures, by the vices which it induces, by the weakly individuals which it preserves, introduces into the race the elements of degradation. Here again appears, in all its fulness, the influence of the conditions of life.
VI.Colouring.With all anthropologists I recognise the high value of the colour of the skin as a character. Nevertheless, its importance must not be exaggerated. We nowknow that it does not result from the existence or disappearance of special layers. Black or white, the skin always comprises a whitedermis, penetrated by many capillaries, and anepidermis, more or less transparent and colourless. Between the two is placed themucous layer, of which thepigmentalone in reality varies in quantity and colour according to the race.
All the colours presented by the human skin have two common elements, the white of the dermis and the red of the blood. Moreover, each has its own proper element, resulting from the colourings of the pigment. The rays reflected from these different tissues combine into a resultant which produces the different tints and traverses the epidermis. This latter plays the part of roughened glass. The more delicate and the finer it is, the more perceptible is the colour of the subjacent parts.
This arrangement explains why, among certain coloured races, for example, among the Sandwich Islanders, the upper classes, who do not live an exposed life, often exhibit the colour in a most pronounced form. Among themsun-burningmasks the colour of the pigment, as it masks with us the colour of the dermis and its vessels.
From the preceding, we can also understand why the White alone can be said toturn paleor toblush. The reason is, that in him the pigment allows the slightest differences in the afflux of blood to the dermis to be perceived. With the Negro as with us, the blood has its share in the colouring, the tint of which it deepens or modifies. When the blood is wanting, the Negro turns grey from the blending of the white of the dermis with the black of the pigment.
It is well known that from the point of view of the colouring, human races can be divided into four principal groups: white, yellow, black, and red races. But we must guard against attaching an absolute sense to these expressions. Every grouping of races founded solely on colour would break close relations, and would lead to comparisons whichwould evidently be at variance with the sum of the remaining characters. Nevertheless, this systematic point of view brings to light some interesting general facts.
The races of a white colour present sufficient homogeneity. From the sum of their characters, they belong almost exclusively to the type which borrows its name from this kind of colouring. It is, moreover, useless to insist upon the differences of tint which the latter exhibit, from the English or German woman of the upper classes to the Portuguese, and especially to the Arab. Nevertheless, in the northern regions and in Central Asia, some populations, the Tchukchees for example,appearto unite with a white colour certain characters which connect them with the yellows.
In the purest white, the epidermis easily loses its transparency as soon as the colour deepens. The sub-cutaneous veins can then only be recognised by their swelling. It is only with individuals whose skin is very fine and transparent, that the course of the veins is marked by the well-known bluish colour. Whenever this trait is exhibited by any population whatever, it may with certainty be connected with the white type. For this reason I have not hesitated to place among the Allophylians some of the most savage tribes of the north western shores of North America, and the Tchukchees, of whom I have just spoken.
The populations with a black skin are far from being as homogeneous as the preceding. Allblack menare notNegroes; there are some, who, from the sum of their more important characters, are closely connected with the white stock. Such, for example, are the Bicharis and other negröid populations, on the borders of the Red Sea, whose skin is much blacker than that of some negroes, but whose hair and characters are perfectly Semitic.
Among Negroes properly so called, the tints vary, perhaps, much more than with the White. Without going further than Cairo, individuals may be seen, who, without any traces of the mixture of races, are of a brown colour witha considerable mixture of black. The Yolofs are of a bluish black, resembling the wing of a raven, and Livingstone speaks of some tribes on the Zambesi who are the colour ofcafé au lait. But, perhaps, mixture of races has some action in this extreme modification of the colour.
Populations with a yellow skin present facts analogous with the preceding, but not so numerous nor so striking. Perhaps this difference is only due to the difficulty of recognising the shades of the fundamental colour. Nevertheless, a more or less pronounced yellow colour equally characterises the great Mongolian stock, and the Houzouana or Bosjesman race, which it is impossible to separate from the Negroes. On the other hand, this same tint is so well marked among the mulattoes that they are often designated by the name ofyellows, in distinction to the Blacks and the Whites.
Of the four groups into which the colour of human races may be divided, the least characteristic is the red. It has been attempted to make it the attribute of the Americans. This is a mistake. On the one hand, in America the Peruvian, Autisian, Araucanian, and other races are more or less deep brown, the Brazilio-Guaranians of a yellowish colour slightly tinted with red, etc. On the other hand, in Formosa a tribe has been found as red as the Algonquins, and more or less copper tints are met with among Corean, African populations, etc.
Moreover, the red tint appears as the sole effect of the crossing between races, neither of which possess it. Fitzroy informs us that in New Zealand it frequently characterises the half-breeds of English and Maories. This fact also explains why it should be met with among many of the populations mentioned above. With man it is one of those facts which show how intercrossing can give rise to the appearance of new characters.
Finally we see that the colour of the skin, although furnishing excellent secondary characters, cannot be taken as a starting point in the classification of human racesFor man, as well as for plants, we ought to recall the aphorism of Linnæus: “nimium ne crede colori.”
The same may be said still more emphatically of the colour of the eyes. Doubtless, the black colour is generally found among coloured races, and sky-blue scarcely exists except among fair populations. The former tint appears even to be constant among the yellows and certain allophylian Whites. But, even among the Negroes, we often meet with brown eyes, and sometimes with grey eyes.
Just as with the colour of the skin, the colour of the eyes is a resultant due to the combination of the tints reflected by the different layers of the iris, intensified by the colour of the blood and seen through the transparent cornea. Hence arises the difficulty experienced by painters in rendering the general effect.
VII.The skin and its principal annexes.The skin, which covers the entire body, is a real covering composed of organs which are anatomically and physiologically distinct. The principal one is thecutaneous organorskin properly so called, to which are annexed theorgans productive of villosities, thesudoriparous glands, thecutaneous glands, and some others which do not concern us.
In extreme cases, the surface of the skin is sometimes dry and rough, sometimes supple and like satin. The first variety is generally met with among Arctic races, the second among inhabitants of hot countries, as the Negroes and Polynesians.
The two facts are easily explained by the sole action of the temperature. Cold contracts the tissues, drives the blood towards the interior, or checks its circulation towards the surface of the body. It must consequently diminish the functional activity of the skin properly so called, and partially diminishperspiration. Heat, on the contrary, causes a flow of blood to the surface of the body, and renders the functions of the skin, and especially the perspiration, more active. The latter, by the productionof a constant evaporation on the surface of the body, maintains the suppleness of the epidermic layer, and the general freshness which causes Negresses to be sought after in harems.
From this action of heat, and the increased activity of the cutaneous organs which is its consequence, other results follow which explain some of the facts noticed by travellers and anthropologists.
Pruner Bey has insisted strongly upon the thickness of the cutaneous layers, and especially upon that of the dermis in the Negro. Is not this thickness the natural consequence of the flow of nutritive principles brought by the blood, which is incessantly passing to the surface of the body to keep up the perspiration?
It has long ago been remarked that the Negroes and other races inhabiting hot countries perspire much less than the inhabitants of temperate climates. This is accounted for by the preceding facts. The blood, which is constantly brought to the surface and into the cutaneous organs, does not flow so copiously in the sudoriparous glands, which are deeply buried beneath the adipose tissue. Betweentranspirationandperspiration, in consequence of the position of the organs, a real equilibrium should exist.
Probably, one of the difficulties of acclimatisation arises from the fact that the proportional activity of these two functions has to be changed when we pass from a temperate to a tropical climate, orvice versa. The researches of Krause show that the body of a European contains more than 2,281,000 sudoriparous glands. The total volume of all these small organs would amount to about 40 cubic inches. A sudden change in functions could not therefore be unimportant. Moreover, the sebaceous glands, which are smaller but more numerous than the sudoriparous, participate in this change, which can only result in a serious shock to the organism.
The villosities are either very rare or absolutely wantingon the surface of the body of a Negro, except some parts which in man are always covered with hair. On the other hand, the glandular cutaneous covering is highly developed in his case.
Both these facts may also be referred to the same cause, and are explained by the balancing of connected organs. The blood, when brought to the surface of the body, abandons thebulbs of the hairwhich are too deeply planted; but, for the same reason it flows into the sebaceous glands, which are situated near the surface. It easily follows that the former suffer atrophy, and the latter experience an exceptional development.
This development accounts for the exaggerated odour which is peculiar to the Negro. It is known that a slave-ship may be recognised by this smell. But African populations are not the only ones which are characterised in this manner. Humboldt informs us that the Peruvians distinguish the odour of a native, a white, and of a negro, calling themposco,pezuna, andgraïo. Amongst ourselves, every individual has his own peculiar odour, which is easily detected by the delicate sense of smell of the dog.
VIII.Villosities, beard, hair.Villosities in man represent the hair of the mammalia; but whilst the latter are always covered, with the exception of some special races, such aschiens turcs,calongocattle, etc., man is generally only covered to any notable extent upon certain places. In the African Negro, and most of the yellow races, it only exists upon the normal parts of the body. Nevertheless the practice of epilation, which is common to a great number of coloured populations, has caused the frequency and intensity of this character to be exaggerated. Eckewelder represents Red-Skin warriors, in their leisure moments, as occupied in tearing out the smallest hairs with pincers especially made for the purpose.
White races are generally more or less hairy, and this trait has long been known to be developed to a very exceptional degree among the Aïnos. The photographs of ColonelMarshall show that the Todas are their equal in this respect. In certain individuals among the latter the villosities form a real fur, especially on the lower limbs.
Of all the villosities of the human body, those which cover the face and cranium have justly attracted most attention. All races have hair; but a considerable number in Asia, America, and Africa, have been noticed to be entirely without beards. Pallas, Humboldt, Brasseur de Bourbourg and Pruner Bey, have contradicted these assertions, and shown that the absence of beards is entirely due to carefulepilation. All human races are more or less provided with a beard. Nevertheless great differences are known, even among races belonging to the same fundamental type. Certain Melanesian Negroes present a striking contrast in this respect to their African brothers.
The hair of the head is much more constant in respect to quantity than that of the beard. Nevertheless it appears to be sensibly thicker among some arctic races, who have moreover a more abundant down than races in temperate climates. In this respect there is perfect agreement with the known facts among animals.
With certain Negro races, the Bosjesmans of South Africa, the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, the Papuans of Melanesia, and some African tribes, the hair forms upon the head small islands, separated by spaces which are perfectly smooth. Hence results the heads of hairen grains de poivrenoticed by different travellers. Amongst most African Negroes, and amongst the Yellows and the Whites, the distribution of the hair, on the contrary, is uniform.
The variation of the colour of the hair is well known. Some general facts may nevertheless be collected from the midst of all these special cases. I have said already that we find isolated cases in all races of individuals with hair of a more or less reddish colour. Fair hair has for a long time been regarded as the appanage of a small number of Aryan groups. Nevertheless, according to Pruner Bey, we also meet with it sometimes among the Asiatic Semites, and weknow for certain that they are very frequent among the Kabyles. Facts such as Pierre Martyr, P. Kes, James, etc., have noticed among the Parians, the Lee Panis,the Kiawas, etc., will no doubt one day be explained by migrations and intercrossings. It seems to me, for instance, almost evident that the Scandinavians must have introduced their fair hair among several tribes of the American shore, and that the facts noticed by Pierre Martyr are one of the proofs of their extension beyond the Gulf of Mexico.
There is also something characteristic in the form of the hair taken as a whole. Everyone knows the falsely calledwoolly headof the Negro, which is covered with very short and crisp hair. The very long and harsh hair of yellow, American, and other populations, contrasts in a striking manner with the preceding. That of the white races, which is frequently curly, almost takes the mean between these two extremes.
This general aspect ordinarily corresponds with the differences of structure and general form of the hair. Brown has already proved that a horizontal section of the hair varies from an elongated ellipse with the Negro, to a circle with the Red-Skin, and that the hair of the Anglo-Saxon is a mean between the two. Pruner Bey has resumed this study, and described the form of a horizontal section of the hair in several races belonging to the three fundamental types. He has proved that the elongated ellipse characterises Negro races in general, as well as the Hottentot-Bosjesman; that the oval forms belong essentially to Aryan populations; that more or less regularly circular forms characterise yellow, American, and other races, and that in this respect the allophylian white races (Basques) appear to resemble the preceding.
Brown and Pruner Bey moreover agree in the statement that a mixture of forms is found upon the heads of half-breeds. Exactly the same often happens in the crossing of the merino with races of sheep with a coarse wool.
I have hitherto only spoken of the characters furnishedby the beard and the hair when grown freely. But it is well known that the love of adornment, one of the most characteristic instincts of man, endeavours to modify nature in these two directions. This results in characters, which are doubtless artificial, but which have sometimes a real value. This side of the question has often been attacked, and M. E. Cortambert has made it the object of a work, in which he has given a summary of the work of his predecessors in addition to his own.
IX.Characters of the cranium and of the face.From the point of view of descriptive anthropology as well as from an anatomical point of view, the head is composed essentially of two regions, the cranium and the face. The former is covered solely by the hairy skin which follows all its contours, and it in reality therefore only presents osteological characters. The general form, proportions, etc., are almost the same in the living man as in the skeleton. I will therefore go into greater detail upon this subject when treating of the latter. Here 1 will only remark that the inequality of the skin and of some subjacent muscular fibres necessitates some corrections in the comparison of measurements taken from the living head and from the skull. For example, the presence of the temporal muscles increases to a sufficiently sensible extent the transverse maximum diameter. Consequently the ratio of the latter to the anterio-posterior diameter becomes raised. This ratio, which constitutes thecephalic index, is one of the characters which anthropologists employ most frequently, and it was important to determine the correction to be made in case of comparison. Broca has shown that it is two units when the ratio is expressed in the manner which I shall mention further on.
The case is different with the face. Here the super-imposed soft parts play a part of which the importance has been alternately exaggerated or neglected. William Edwards considered that races should be determined, as we judge of individuals, solely by the facial characters. Serres, startingfrom the fact that the bony framework determines the general form and the proportion of the face, required that osteological characters only should be taken into account. Both were too exclusive.
Doubtless the skeleton is important in the most superficial characters of the face. But the muscles, the cellular and adipose tissue, and the cartilages are much more developed on the face than upon the cranium; and from their greater or less extension, from their various relations, differences of feature result which constitute so many characters. Unfortunately it is often very difficult to define the latter. The most detailed descriptions are rarely sufficient, and the most exact measurements are far from giving an idea of certain variations of the human figure. For example, they cannot make the difference intelligible, which is nevertheless very sensible to the eye, which distinguishes the nose of a negro of Guinea from that of a Nubian negro.
The nose is nevertheless one of the features of the face which is best adapted for investigations of this kind. Its length is determined by the point of attachment of the nasal bones to the frontal bone and the position of the nasal spine; its breadth at the bridge depends upon the angle formed by the nasal bones; its breadth at the base is more or less related to the anterior opening of the nasal fossæ. But the form and development of the cartilages, as well as the thickness of the nostrils upon two very similar skulls, can modify considerably the type itself of this organ; and the exterior nasal index can give no idea of these variations. The study of Topinard upon this subject, nevertheless, possesses a real interest; but from the point of view of the characterisation of races, the researches made by Broca upon the nasal osteological index, which we will discuss further on, has a much more important value.
The characters drawn from the nose, which are observed upon the living body, are however most important. This organ is more or less pressed in, broad and flat among almost all Negroes, the greater part of the Yellow races,and certain allophylian Whites; it is on the contrary narrow and prominent in fair white races. These two general types moreover present variations of which drawings only can give any idea.
I may say the same with reference to the mouth. The thousand differences of form and dimensions which it can exhibit, from the negro of Guinea with his enormous and, as it were turned up lips, to certain aryan or semitic Whites can neither be measured nor described. We can only point out the general characters when they become very pronounced. It may, however, be remarked that the thickness of the lips is very marked among all negroes, in consequence of their projection in front of the maxillary bones and the teeth.
The mouth of the Negro presents another character which seems to me to have been generally neglected, and which has always struck me. It is a kind of clamminess at the outer border of the commissures, and which seems to prevent the small movements of the corner of the mouth which play such an important part in the physiognomy. The dissections of M. Hamy have explained these facts. They have shown that in the Negroes the muscles of this region are both more developed and less distinct than in the Whites.
Independently of the colour of the iris, the eye also exhibits differences which constitute so many characters, having at times a real value in the development of the eyelids, and in the dimensions of the palpebral fissure. Everyone knowsChinese eyes, which slope from below upwards, and from inwards outwards. They have been regarded as peculiar to Yellow races, whether pure or mixed. Nevertheless these oblique eyes are found pretty frequently in Europe, principally among women, and are united to a fairness and freshness of colour which are almost exceptional, as well as to features unanimously regarded as most pleasing.
The general form of the countenance, and some other peculiarities drawn from the prominence of the cheek bones,from the form and prominence or retreat of the chin, etc., favoured some considerations analogous to the preceding. But here again the external characters are wanting in the precision which we shall find in the osteological characters.
X.Characters drawn from the trunk and limbs.When speaking of proportions I have already pointed out some of these characters; I will return to them when speaking of the skeleton. I will here only make a few remarks, and point out two remarkable features.
One of the peculiarities, which, in our European eyes, chiefly contribute to bodily beauty, is the width of the chest, of the waist, and of the hips. A body of a uniform breadth we consider ungraceful. It is a feature which is met with among several yellow and American races. The comparison of these dimensions will furnish indices which it is interesting to compare. But we have only taken that of the chest, or more generally its circumference. To judge from the numbers given by various authors, the Negroes of Fernando Po would have the most fully developed chest. With them, its circumference would be 95·2 c.m. (37·48 inches). The English would come next, and the minimum observed would be among the Todas, whose thorax would only have a circumference of 81·8 c.m. (32·2 inches).
The Hottentot, and especially the Bosjesman women, exhibit, in a high degree, two peculiarities, which have for a long time been considered special to them, but which have been met with elsewhere: I meansteatopygiaand theHottentot’s apron(tablier). The first consists of a strange development of the fatty folds in the buttocks, from which results an enormous protuberance. The Hottentot Venus, of which a model exists in the Paris Museum, gives a good example of it, but it appears that this character can be still more exaggerated. It is the reproduction in man of a feature noticed by Pallas as characteristic of certain races of sheep of Central Asia, among which the atrophy of the tail coincides with the appearance of enormous fatty protuberances.
Steatopygia has been noticed among various black and Negröid populations. It was very noticeable in a queen of Poun, figured upon the Egyptian temple built by M. Mariette, for the Exhibition of 1867. Livingstone assured us that it had begun to manifest itself among certain women of the Boers, who are nevertheless of a quite pure white race. But nowhere is it so pronounced as among the Bosjesman women, and it constitutes one of the most striking characters of the race.
It is not exactly the same with “tablier,” resulting from the exaggerated development of the labia minora, which project out of the vulva and hang down in front of the thighs. This feature is found more or less developed in a number of races, and has given rise to the practice of circumcision among women. In Europe there is doubtless scarcely an accoucheur who has not noticed it on some occasion in some perfectly pure Whites. Nevertheless it seems that among the Bosjesman women it sometimes reaches a development which is not noticed elsewhere. In the Hottentot Venus, of which the Paris Museum possesses a model, the length from the right reaches 55 millimetres (2·16 inches), and from the left 61 millimetres (2·4 inches); the breadth is 34 millimetres (1·33 inch) from the right, and from the left 32 millimetres (1·26 inch). The thickness, which is uniform, is 15 millimetres (·58 inch).