Original Book Cover

THE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES.

EDITED BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.

THE RACES OF MAN.

My object in the present work has been to give in a condensed form the essential facts of the twin sciences of anthropology and ethnography. The very nature of such an undertaking condemns the author to be brief, and at the same time somewhat dogmatic; inevitable gaps occur, and numerous inequalities in the treatment. To obviate, partly at least, such defects, I have endeavoured not merely to present the actual facts of the subject, but also to summarise, with as much fidelity as possible, the explanations of these facts, in so far as such may be educed from theories among which there is often sufficient perplexity of choice. In many cases I have ventured, however, to give my personal opinion on different questions, as, for instance, on the signification of the laryngeal sacs among anthropoid apes, on many questions of anthropometry in general, on the classing of “states of civilisation,” on fixed and transportable habitations, on the classification of races, on the races of Europe, on the Palæ-American race, etc.

My book is designed for all those who desire to obtain rapidly a general notion of ethnographic and anthropological[Pg viii] sciences, or to understand the foundations of these sciences. Thus technical terms are explained and annotated in such a manner that they may be understood by all.

Those who may wish for further details on special points will be able to take advantage of the numerous bibliographical notes, at the foot of the pages, in which I have sought to group according to plan the most important or accessible works. I believe that even professional anthropologists will be able to consult my work profitably. They will find condensed in it information which is scattered over a vast crowd of notes and memoirs in all languages. I trust also that they may appreciate the Appendices, as well as the lists in the text itself, in which are collected from the best sources some hundreds of figures relating to the chief dimensions of the human body.

The illustrations which complete and elucidate the text have been selected with very great care. With two or three exceptions, the “types” of the different peoples are photographs of well-authenticated subjects, often such as have been observed and measured by competent authorities, or by myself.

I attach too much importance to the systematic illustration of anthropological works not to fail to express here my sincere indebtedness to the institutions and individuals who have been good enough to lend me blocks and photographs. I have thus to thank the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Anthropological Society and the Anthropological School of Paris, the India Museum, the Museum of Natural History of Paris, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, Dr. Beddoe, Prince Roland Bonaparte, M. Chantre, Drs. Collignon and Delisle, Herr Ehrenreich and[Pg ix] his editors Fr. Vieweg & Sons, Professor Haddon, Dr. Lapicque, Mr. Otis Mason, Dr. Sören Hansen, MM. S. Sommier, P. and F. Sarasin and their editor Herr C. Kreidel of Wiesbaden, Dr. Ten Kate, Mr. Thurston, Miss Godden, Miss Werner, and Messrs. Harper & Bros.

I desire also to thank in this place Dr. Collignon, Mr. Havelock Ellis, and M. Salomon Reinach, for the trouble they have taken in revising the proofs of certain parts of my work.

J. DENIKER.

[Pg xi]

[Pg 1]

THE RACES OF MAN.

Difficulties in applying to Man the terms of zoological nomenclature—Criterion of species—Terms to give to the “Somatological Units” constituting the genus Homo—Monogenesis and Polygenesis—The “Ethnic Groups” are constituted by the different combinations of the “Somatological Units” or “Races”—Somatic characters and ethnic characters.

THE innumerable groups of mankind, massed together or scattered, according to the varying nature of the earth’s surface, are far from presenting a homogeneous picture. Every country has its own variety of physical type, language, manners, and customs. Thus, in order to exhibit a systematic view of all the peoples of the earth, it is necessary to observe a certain order in the study of these varieties, and to define carefully what is meant by such and such a descriptive term, having reference either to the physical type or to the social life of men. This we shall do in the subsequent chapters as we proceed to develop this slight sketch of the chief general facts of the physical and psychical life of man, and of the most striking social phenomena of the groups of mankind.

But there are some general terms which are of more importance than others, and their meaning should be clearly understood from the first. I refer to expressions like “people,” “nation,” “tribe,” “race,” “species,” in short, all the designations of the different groupings, real or theoretic, of human beings. Having defined them, we shall by so doing define the object of our studies.

[Pg 2]

Since ethnography and anthropology began to exist as sciences, an attempt has been made to determine and establish the great groups amongst which humanity might be divided. A considerable diversity of opinion, however, exists among leading scientific men not only as to the number of these groups, of these “primordial divisions” of the human race, but, above all, as to the very nature of these groups. Their significance, most frequently, is very vaguely indicated.

In zoology, when we proceed to classify, we have to do with beings which, in spite of slight individual differences, are easily grouped around a certain number of types, with well-defined characters, called “species.” An animal can always be found which will represent the “type” of its species. In all the great zoological collections there exist these “species-types,” to which individuals may be compared in order to decide if they belong to the supposed species. We have then in zoology a real substratum for the determination of species, those primordial units which are grouped afterwards in genera, families, orders, etc.

Is it the same for man? Whilst knowing that the zoological genus Homo really exists quite distinct from the other genera of the animal kingdom, there still arises the question as to where the substratum is on which we must begin operations in order to determine the “species” of which this genus is composed. The only definite facts before us are these groups of mankind, dispersed over the whole habitable surface of the globe, to which are commonly given the names of peoples, nations, clans, tribes, etc. We have presented to us Arabs, Swiss, Australians, Bushmen, English, Siouan Indians, Negroes, etc., without knowing if each of these groups is on an equal footing from the point of view of classification.

Do these real and palpable groupings represent unions of individuals which, in spite of some slight dissimilarities, are[Pg 3] capable of forming what zoologists call “species,” “sub-species,” “varieties,” in the case of wild animals, or “races” in the case of domestic animals? One need not be a professional anthropologist to reply negatively to this question. They are ethnic groups formed by virtue of community of language, religion, social institutions, etc., which have the power of uniting human beings of one or several species, races, or varieties,[1] and are by no means zoological species; they may include human beings of one or of many species, races, or varieties.

Here, then, is the first distinction to make: the social groups that we are to describe in this work under the names of clans, tribes, nations, populations, and peoples, according to their numerical importance and the degree of complication of their social life, are formed for us by the union of individuals belonging usually to two, three, or a greater number of “somatological units.” These units are “theoretic types” formed of an aggregation of physical characters combined in a certain way. The separate existence of these units may be established by a minute analysis of the physical characters of a great number of individuals taken haphazard in any given “ethnic group.” Here are, then, entities, theoretic conceptions exactly like “species” in zoology; only instead of having within our reach the “types” of these species as in zoological collections, we are obliged to rest content with approximations thereto, for it is a very rare occurrence to meet with an individual representing the type of the somatological unit to which he belongs. Most frequently we have to do with subjects whose forms are altered by blendings and crossings, and in whom, setting aside two or three typical traits, we find only a confused mixture of characters presenting nothing striking. Ordinarily, the more peoples are civilised the more[Pg 4] they are intermixed within certain territorial limits. Thus the number of “somatological units” is so much the greater when the “ethnic groups” are more civilised, and it is only among entirely primitive peoples that one may hope to find coincidence between the two terms. In reality, those peoples are almost undiscoverable who represent “somatological units” comparable to the “species” of zoology.

But, it may be asked, do you believe that your “somatological units” are comparable with “species”? Are they not simple “varieties” or “races”?

Without wishing to enter into a discussion of details, it seems to me that where the genus Homo is concerned, one can neither speak of the “species,” the “variety,” nor the “race” in the sense that is usually attributed to these words in zoology or in zootechnics.

In effect, in these two sciences, the terms “species” and “variety” are applied to wild animals living solely under the influence of nature; whilst the term “race” is given in a general way to the groups of domestic animals living under artificial conditions created by an alien will, that of man, for a well-defined object.

Let us see to which of these two categories man, considered as an animal, may be assimilated.

By this single fact, that even at the very bottom of the scale of civilisation man possesses articulate speech, fashions tools, and forms himself into rudimentary societies, he is emancipated from a great number of influences which Nature exerts over the wild animal; he lives, up to a certain point, in an artificial environment created by himself. On the other hand, precisely because these artificial conditions of life are not imposed upon him by a will existing outside himself, because his evolution is not directed by a “breeder” or a “domesticator,” man cannot be compared with domestic animals as regards the modifications of his corporeal structure.

The data relating to the formation of varieties, species, and races can therefore be applied to the morphological study of man only with certain reservations.

[Pg 5]

This being established, let us bear in mind that even the distinction between the species, the variety (geographical or otherwise), and the race is anything but clearly marked. Besides, this is a question that belongs to the domain of general biology, and it is no more settled in botany or in zoology than in anthropology. The celebrated botanist, Naegeli, has even proposed to suppress this distinction, and definitely show the identical nature of all these divisions by instituting his great and small species.[2]

The idea of “species” must rest on the knowledge of two orders of facts, the morphological resemblances of beings and the lineal transmission of their distinctive characters. Here, in fact, the formula of Cuvier is still in force to-day in science. “The species is the union of individuals descending one from the other or from common parents, and of those who resemble them as much as they resemble each other.”[3] (I have italicised the passage relating to descent.) It is necessary then that beings, in order to form a species, should be like each other, but it is obvious that this resemblance cannot be absolute, for there are not two plants or two animals in nature which do not differ from each other by some detail of structure; the likeness or unlikeness is then purely relative; it is bound to vary within certain limits.

But what are these limits? Here we are on the verge of the arbitrary, for there exists no fixed rule determining the point to which individual unlikeness may go in order to be considered as characteristic of a species. A difference which entitles one zoologist to create a species hardly suffices, according to another, to constitute a “variety,” a “sub-species,” or a “race.” As to the second criterion of species drawn from the[Pg 6] transmission and the descent of characters, it is theoretic rather than practical. Without dwelling on the numerous examples of “varieties” as fertile among themselves as “species,”[4] let us ask ourselves how many zoologists or botanists have verified experimentally the fertility of the species which they have created. In the large majority of cases, the species of plants and animals have been established solely from morphological characters, very often from the examination of dead specimens, and without any guarantee that the beings in question proceeded from common parents and that when crossed they would be fertile or not.

In the case of man, as in that of the majority of plants and animals, fertility or non-fertility among the different groups has not been experimentally proved, to enable us to decide if they should be called “races” or “species.” To a dozen facts in favour of one of the solutions, and to general theories in regard to half-breeds, can be opposed an equal number of facts, and the idea, not less general, of reversion to the primitive type.[5] And again, almost all the facts in question are borrowed from cross-breeding between the Whites and other races. No one has ever tried cross-breeding between the Australians and the Lapps, or between the Bushmen and the Patagonians, for example. If certain races are indefinitely fertile among themselves (which has not yet been clearly shown), it may be there are others which are not so.[6] A criterion of descent being unobtainable, the question of the rank to be assigned to the genus Homo is confined to a morphological criterion, to the differences in physical type.

[Pg 7]

According to some, these differences are sufficiently pronounced for each group to form a “species”; according to others they are of such a nature as only to form racial distinctions. Thus it is left to the personal taste of each investigator what name be given to these.

We cannot do better than cite upon this point the opinion of a writer of admitted authority. “It is almost a matter of indifference,” says Darwin, “whether the so-called races of man are thus designated, or ranked as ‘species’ or ‘sub-species,’ but the latter term appears the most appropriate.”[7] The word “race” having been almost universally adopted nowadays to designate the different physical types of mankind, I shall retain it in preference to that of “sub-species,” while reiterating that there is no essential difference between these two words and the word “species.”

From what has just been said, the question whether humanity forms a single species divided into varieties or races, or whether it forms several species, loses much of its importance.

The whole of this ancient controversy between monogenists and polygenists seems to be somewhat scholastic, and completely sterile and futile; the same few and badly established facts are always reappearing, interpreted in such and such a fashion by each disputant according to the necessities of his thesis, sometimes led by considerations which are extra-scientific. Perhaps in the more or less near future, when we shall have a better knowledge of present and extinct races of man, as well as of living and of fossil animal species most nearly related to man, we shall be able to discuss the question of origin. At the present time we are confined to hypothesis without a single positive fact for the solution of the problem. We have merely to note how widely the opinions of the learned differ in regard to the origin of race of certain domestic animals, such as the dog, the ox, or the horse, to get at once an idea of the difficulty of the problem. And yet, in these[Pg 8] cases, we are dealing with questions much less complicated and much more carefully studied.

Moreover, whether we admit variety, unity or plurality of species in the genus Homo we shall always be obliged to recognise the positive fact of the existence in mankind of several somatological units having each a character of its own, the combinations and the intermingling of which constitute the different ethnic groups. Thus the monogenists, even the most intractable, as soon as they have established hypothetically a single species of man, or of his “precursor,” quickly cause the species to evolve, under the influence of environment, into three or four or a greater number of primitive “stocks,” or “types,” or “races,”—in a word, into somatological units which, intermingling, form “peoples,” and so forth.

We can sum up what has just been said in a few propositions. On examining attentively the different “ethnic groups” commonly called “peoples,” “nations,” “tribes,” etc., we ascertain that they are distinguished from each other especially by their language, their mode of life, and their manners; and we ascertain besides that the same traits of physical type are met with in two, three, or several groups, sometimes considerably removed the one from the other in point of habitat. On the other hand, we almost always see in these groups some variations of type so striking that we are led to admit the hypothesis of the formation of such groups by the blending of several distinct somatological units.

It is to these units that we give the name “races,” using the word in a very broad sense, different from that given to it in zoology and zootechnics. It is a sum-total of somatological characteristics once met with in a real union of individuals, now scattered in fragments of varying proportions among several “ethnic groups,” from which it can no longer be differentiated except by a process of delicate analysis.

The differences between “races” are shown in the somatological characteristics which are the resultant of the continual struggle in the individual of two factors: variability, that is to say, the production of the dissimilar; and heredity, that is to[Pg 9] say, the perpetuation of the similar. There are the differences in outer form, in the anatomical structure, and in the physiological functions manifested in individuals. Thus the study of these characters is based on man considered as an individual of a zoological group. On the other hand, the differences between the ethnical groups are the product of evolutions subject to other laws than those of biology—laws still very dimly apprehended. They manifest themselves in ethnical, linguistic, or social characteristics. The study of them is based on the grouping of individuals in societies.

To study these two categories of characteristics, either in their general aspect as a whole, or in describing successively the different peoples, is to study mankind with the object of trying to assign the limits to the “races” constituting the ethnical groups, and to sketch the reciprocal relations and connections of these groups with each other.

The science which concerns itself more especially with the somatological characteristics of the genus Homo, whether considered as a whole in his relation to other animals, or in his varieties, bears the name of anthropology; that which deals with the ethnical characteristics is called ethnography in some countries and ethnology in others.

This latter science should concern itself with human societies under all their aspects; but as history, political economy, etc., have already taken possession of the study of civilised peoples, there only remain for it the peoples without a history, or those who have not been adequately treated by historians. However, there is a convergence of characters in mankind, and we find even to-day the trace of savagery in the most civilised peoples. Ethnical facts must not then be considered separately. We must compare them either among different peoples, or, down the course of the ages, in the same people, without concerning ourselves with the degree of actual civilisation attained.

Certain authors make a distinction between ethnography and ethnology, saying the first aims at describing peoples or the different stages of civilisation, while the second should[Pg 10] explain these stages and formulate the general laws which have governed the beginning and the evolution of such stages. Others make a like distinction in anthropology, dividing it theoretically into “special” and “general,” the one describing races, and the other dealing with the descent of these races and of mankind as a whole.[8] But these divisions are purely arbitrary, and in practice it is impossible to touch on one without having given at least a summary of the other. The two points of view, descriptive and speculative, cannot be treated separately. A science cannot remain content with a pure and simple description of unconnected facts, phenomena, and objects. It requires at least a classification, explanations, and, afterwards, the deduction of general laws. In the same way, it would be puerile to build up speculative systems without laying a solid foundation drawn from the study of facts. Already the distinction between the somatic and the ethnic sciences is embarrassing; thus psychological and linguistic phenomena refer as much to the individual as to societies. They might, strictly speaking, be the subject of a special group of sciences. In the same way, the facts drawn from the somatic and ethnic studies of extinct races are the subject of a separate science—Palethnography, otherwise Prehistory, or Prehistoric Archæology.

The object of this book being the description of ethnical groups now existing on the earth, and of the races which compose them, the title of “Ethnography” might fitly be given to it in conformity with the classifications which have just been mentioned. Nevertheless, it contains in its early chapters a summary, as it were, of what these classifications style[Pg 11] “General Anthropology and Ethnology,” for the descriptions of the several peoples can scarcely be understood if we have not in the first instance given at least a general idea of the somatic as well as the ethnic characters which serve to distinguish them.

[Pg 12]

DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OF MAN AND APES.

Monkeys and anthropoid apes—Erect attitude—Curvature of the spine—Brain—Skull—Teeth—Other characters—Differences less accentuated in the fœtus and the young than in the adult.

DISTINCTIVE MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS OF HUMAN RACES.

Stature: Individual limits—Dwarfs and giants—Average stature of different populations—Influence of environment—Differences according to sex—Reconstitution from the long bones—Teguments: Skin—Hair of head and body—Four principal types—Microscopic structure—Correlation between the hair of the head and the pilosity of the body—Pigmentation: Colouring of the skin, the eyes, and the hair—Changes in the pigment.

THE physical peculiarities distinguishing man from the animals most nearly allied to him in organisation, and those which differentiate human races one from another, are almost never the same. I shall in a few words point out the former, dwelling at greater length on the latter, which have a more direct connection with our subject.

From the purely zoological point of view man is a placental or Eutherian mammal, because he has breasts, because he is more or less covered with hair, because his young, nourished in the womb of the mother through the medium of the placenta, come fully formed into the world, without needing to be protected in a pouch or fold of skin, as in the case of[Pg 13] the marsupial mammals (implacentals or Metatherians), or completing their development in a hatched egg, as in the case of the monotremata or Prototherians.

In this sub-class of the placental mammals, man belongs to the order of the Primates of Linnæus, in view of certain peculiarities of his physical structure—the pectoral position of the breasts, the form, number, and arrangement of the teeth in the jaw, etc.

The order of the Primates comprises five groups or families: the Marmosets (Hapalidæ), the Cebidæ, the Cercopithecidæ, the anthropoid apes (Simidæ), and lastly, the Hominidæ.[9] Putting aside the first two groups of Primates, which inhabit the New World, and which are distinguished from the three other groups by several characters, let us concern ourselves with the apes of the Old World and the Hominians. Let us at the outset remember that the monkeys and the anthropoid apes exhibit the same arrangement of teeth, or, as it is termed, the same “dental formula,” as man. This formula, a character of the first importance in the classification of mammals, is summed up, as we know, in the following manner: four incisors, two canines, four premolars, and six molars in each jaw.

The Cercopithecidæ walk on their four paws, and this four-footed attitude is in harmony with the structure of their spine, in which the three curves, cervical, dorsal, and lumbar, so characteristic in man, are hardly indicated; thus the spine seems to form a single arch from the head to the tail. As to this last appendage, it is never wanting in these monkeys, which are also provided with buttock or ischiatic callosities, and often with cheek-pouches.

The anthropoid apes form a zoological group of four genera only. Two of these genera, the gorilla and the chimpanzee, inhabit tropical Africa; the two others, the orang-utan and[Pg 14] the gibbon, are confined to the south-east of Asia, or, to be more precise, to Indo-China, and the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. We can even reduce the group in question to three genera only, for many naturalists consider the gibbon as an intermediate form between the anthropoid apes and the monkeys.[10] The anthropoids have a certain number of characters in common which distinguish them from the monkeys. Spending most of their life in trees, they do not walk in the same way as the macaques or the baboons. Always bent (except the gibbon), they move about with difficulty on the ground, supporting themselves not on the palm of the hand, as do the monkeys, but on the back of the bent phalanges. They have no tail like the other apes, nor have they cheek-pouches to serve as provision bags. Finally, they are without those callosities on the posterior part of the body which are met with in a large number of Cercopithecidæ, attaining often enormous proportions, as for instance, among the Cynocephali. The gibbon alone has the rudiments of ischiatic callosities.

If we compare man with these apes, which certainly of all animals resemble him most, the following principal differences may be noted. Instead of holding himself in a bending position, and walking supported on his arms, man walks in an erect attitude—the truly biped mode of progress. In harmony with this attitude, his vertebral column presents three curves, cervical, dorsal, and lumbar, very definitely indicated, while they are only faintly marked in the anthropoids, and almost absent in the monkeys. This character, moreover, is graduated in man; in civilised man the curvature in question is more marked than among savages. There is no need, however, to see in that any “character of superiority.” It is quite simply an acquired formation; it is more marked in civilised man just because it is one of the conditions of the stability of the vertebral column, a stability so essential in sedentary life, while a curvature less marked gives much more flexibility[Pg 15] to the movements, at once so numerous and varied, of the savage.[11]

But to what does man owe this erect and biped attitude? Professor Ranke has put forward on this subject a very ingenious hypothesis.[12] According to him, the excessive development of the brain, while conducive to enlargement of the skull, would at the same time determine the change of attitude in a being so imperfectly and primitively biped as was our progenitor. In this way would be assured the perfect equilibrium on the vertebral column of the head, made heavy by the brain. Without wishing to discuss this theory, let me say that several peculiarities in the anatomical structure of man, compared with those of anthropoid apes and other mammals, give it an air of plausibility.

In fact, while with the majority of mammals the equilibrium of the head is assured by very powerful cervical ligaments, and with anthropoid apes by very strong muscles, extending from the occiput to the spinous processes of the cervical vertebræ, twice as long as those of man (Figs. 1 and 2, a), which prevent the massive muzzle from falling upon the chest and pressing on the organs of respiration,[13] we see nothing of a similar kind in the genus Homo—no cervical ligament, and no powerful muscles at the nape of the neck. The very voluminous brain-case of man suffices to counterbalance the weight of the much reduced maxillary part, almost without the aid of muscles or special ligaments, and the head balances itself on the vertebral column (Fig. 2).

This equilibrium being almost perfect, necessitates but very thin and flexible ligaments in the articulation of the two occi[Pg 16]pital condyles of the skull on the atlas. The slight muscles to be found behind the articulation are there only to counterbalance the trifling tendency of the head to fall forward.

In connection with this point, we must remember that Broca and several other anthropologists see, on the contrary, in the biped attitude, one of the conditions of the development of the brain, as that attitude alone assures the free use of the hands and extended range of vision. Somewhat analogous ideas have lately been put forward by men of science of the first rank like Munro and Turner.[14]

In any case, let us remember in regard to this point, that at birth man still bears traces of his quadrupedal origin; he has then scarcely any curves in the vertebral column. The cer[Pg 17]vical curve only shows itself at the time when the child begins to “hold up its head,” in the sitting posture to which it gradually becomes accustomed—that is to say about the third month. On the other hand, as soon as the child begins to walk (the second year), the prevertebral muscles and those of the loins act upon the lower regions of the spine and produce the lumbar curve.

Thus, perhaps, the chief fact which determines the erect attitude so characteristic of man is the excessive development of his brain, and the consequent development of the brain-case.

It is in this excessive development of the brain that the principal difference between man and the anthropoid apes must be sought. We know in fact from the researches of numerous anthropologists (see Chapter II.) that the average weight of a man’s brain in European races (the only races sufficiently known in this respect) is 1360 grammes, and that of a woman’s is 1211 grammes. These figures may rise to 1675[Pg 18] grammes in certain instances, and fall to 1025 in others.[15] Brains weighing less than 1000 grammes are generally considered as abnormal and pathological.

On the other hand, the brains of the great anthropoid apes (gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang-utan), the only ones comparable to man in regard to weight of body, have an average weight of 360 grammes. This weight may rise to 420 grammes in certain isolated cases, but never exceeds this figure. And even in these cases, with the orang-utan, for example,[16] it only represents one half per cent. of the total weight of the body, while with European man the proportion is that of at least three per cent., according to Boyd and Bischoff.[17]

The excessive development of the brain and of the brain-case which encloses it is correlative, in the case of man, with the reduction of the facial part of the skull. In this respect the difference is also appreciable between him and the animals. In order to convince ourselves of this we have only to compare the human skull with that of any ape whatever, placing both in the same horizontal plane approximately parallel to the line of vision.[18]

Viewed from above, or by the norma verticalis, as the anthropologists say, the bony structure of the human head leaves nothing of its facial part to be seen (Fig. 11); at the very most may be observed, in certain rare instances, the lower part of the nasal bones, or the alveolar portion of the upper jaw (Fig. 10). On the other hand, with apes, anthropoid or otherwise, almost all the facial part is visible. Examined in profile (norma lateralis), the bony structure of the heads of man and monkeys presents the same differences.

[Pg 19]

With the anthropoid apes, the facial portion forming a veritable muzzle rises, massive and bestial, in advance of the skull, while with man, very reduced in size, it is placed below the skull. The facial angle, by means of which the degree of protuberance of the muzzle may, to a certain point, be measured, exhibits notable differences when the skulls of man and animals are compared in this particular. On continuing the examination of the profiles of the bony structures of the two heads in question, we notice also the slight development of the facial part of the malar bone in man, as compared with its temporal part, and the contrary in the ape; as well as the difference in the size of the mastoid processes, very strong in man, very much diminished proportionately to the dimensions of the head in the anthropoid apes.

Seen from the front (norma facialis), the human skull presents a peculiarity which is not observed in any anthropoid skull, namely, that the top of the nasal opening is always situated higher than the lowest point of the lower edge of the orbits (Fig. 12); while in the anthropoid apes it is always found below this point. Lastly, if the skulls in question, always placed on the horizontal plane, are compared from behind (norma occipitalis), it will be noted that on the human skull the occipital foramen is not seen at all; on the skulls of monkeys it is plainly visible, if not wholly, at least partly.[19]

All the other characters which distinguish man from the anthropoid apes are only the consequences of the great enlargement of his brain-case, at the expense of the maxillary part of the face, and of the erect attitude and biped progression.

Let us take, for instance, those enormous crests which give an aspect at once so strange and horrible to the skulls of the adult males of the gorilla and the chimpanzee. These projections are due to the extreme development of the masticatory muscles which move the heavy jaws and of the cervical muscles, ensuring the equilibrium of the head. Not[Pg 20] having found sufficient room for their insertion on the too small brain-case, they have, so to speak, compelled the bony tissue in the course of development to deposit itself as an eminence or crest at the point where the two lines of insertion meet on the crown of the head. The best proof of this is that the young have no crests, and that on their skulls the distance between the temporal lines marking the insertion of the temporal muscles is almost as great as it is in man. In the gorillas, it is the same with the enormous spines of the cervical vertebræ, to which are fixed the muscular masses of the nape of the neck. These crests and these processes being less developed in the orang-utan, its head is not so well balanced, and its heavy muzzle falls on its chest. So one may suppose that the laryngeal sacs, considerably larger than those of the gorilla, serve him as air-cushions to lessen the enormous weight of the jaw resting on the trachea. The gibbon, better adapted to biped progression, and having a less heavy jaw, has no skull-crests. Further, with it, the ventricles of Morgagni, that is to say, the little pouches situated behind the vocal cord in the larynx, never develop (except in one species, Hylobates syndactylus) into enormous air-sacs as in the orang-utan. In this respect, the gibbon approaches much nearer to man than the other anthropoids, but it is also more distinguished from him than the others by the excessive length of the arms, or, to be more exact, of the pectoral limbs. It holds itself erect and walks almost as well as man, aided by the long arms and hands which touch the ground even when the animal is standing quite upright, and which he uses as a pendulum when walking. In the case of three other anthropoids, which bend forward in walking, the pectoral limb is shorter than in the gibbon but longer than in man.

The first toe, opposable in the anthropoid apes and unopposable in man, the relative length of the toes and fingers generally, etc., only constitute modifications correlative to the erect attitude and biped movement of man, and to his terrestrial habitat as opposed to the arboreal habitat of the[Pg 21] anthropoid apes, and to their biped movement necessitating the support of the hands.

The differences in the form and size of the teeth are also the consequence of the inequality of the development of the maxillary part of the face in man, and in the apes in general.

The size of the teeth in proportion to that of the body is less in man than in the apes (Figs. 1 and 2). Putting aside the incisors and the canines, the size of the molars and the premolars of these animals is larger in relation to the length of the facial portion of the skull. The “dental index” of Flower, that is to say the centesimal relation of the total length of the row of molars and premolars to the length of the naso-basilar line (from the nasal spine to the most advanced point of the occipital foramen), is always greater in the anthropoid apes than in man; in the latter it is never above 47.5, while it is 48 in the chimpanzee, 58 in the orang, and 63 in the gorilla.

As to the arrangement of the teeth on the alveolar arch, with man they are in a compact line forming a continuous series without any notable projection of any one tooth above the common level; while in all the apes is observed an interval (diastema) between the canines and the lateral incisors of the upper jaw, and between the canines and the first premolars of the lower jaw. These gaps receive in each jaw the projecting part of the opposite canine.

Like the anthropoid apes, man has five tubercles in the lower molars, while the monkeys have in general only four. This rule admits, however, of numerous exceptions: very often the fifth posterior tubercle is wanting in the two last molars in man; on the other hand, it is regularly found in the last molar in certain kinds of monkeys (Cynocephali, Semnopitheci). As to the wisdom tooth, in certain pithecoid apes (Cynocephali, Semnopitheci) it is greater in size than the anterior molars; whilst in certain others, like the Cercopitheci, it is much less than the two first molars. With the anthropoid apes this tooth is of the same size as the other molars or a little smaller, and it is generally the same with man, though in some[Pg 22]what frequent cases it is entirely wanting. The dental arch is different as regards form in man and in apes. In man it has a tendency towards the parabolic and elliptical form, whilst in apes it usually takes the form of U.

It should be noted that all the characters that distinguish man from the anthropoid apes have a tendency to become more marked with the development of civilisation and life in a less natural environment, or artificially modified, as we have already seen in regard to the curves of the vertebral column. Thus the absence of the fifth tubercle in the lower molars has been more often noted in European races (29 times out of 51, according to Hamy) than with Negroes and Melanesians. The wisdom tooth seems to be in a state of retrogressive evolution among several populations. Especially in the white races it is nearly always smaller than the other molars; the number of the tubercles is reduced to three instead of four or five; very often in the lower jaw it remains in its alveola and never comes through.

In the same way the little toe tends, in the higher races (perhaps owing to tight boots), to become atrophied and formed of but two phalanges instead of three. Pfitzner has noted this reduction in thirty feet out of a hundred and eleven that he examined.[20]

It is perhaps in similar retrogressive evolutions due to the “social environment” that we must seek the explanation of a great number of characters of “inferiority” and “superiority,” so called, of certain races.

The difference between man and the ape in regard to teguments is not so appreciable as might be thought. Man comes into the world covered almost entirely with lanugo or short fine hair. This hair is afterwards replaced in early infancy by permanent hair which only occupies certain parts of the body. Primitive man, it may be presumed, was entirely covered with hair, except perhaps on the front part of the trunk, where natural selection in the struggle with parasites (infesting that warm part of the mother’s body in contact with the[Pg 23] young when being suckled) would soon cause the disappearance of the hair from that place, as indeed we see in apes.[21] It is curious to observe in this respect that the disposition of the hair of the arms in man is far from recalling that of the anthropoid apes, as Darwin thought, but rather resembles the disposition observed among the monkeys. In fact, instead of being directed upwards towards the bend of the elbow, this hair is turned downwards towards the wrist in the higher half of the arm, and transversely in its lower half. The anthropoid apes being accustomed to cover the head with their arms, or to keep them above their head so as to cling to the branches of the trees on which they spend their life, the hairs may have taken in this case an opposite direction to that of the primitive type of the Primates by the simple effect of gravity.[22]

Space does not permit us to pass in review several other characters distinguishing man from the anthropoid apes: absence of certain muscles (acromiotrachelian, etc.) in the former, simplicity of the cerebral folds in the latter, the absence of the lobulation of the liver and that of the penile bone in the former and their presence in some of the anthropoid apes, etc.

Let me say in conclusion that all these distinctions are only very marked when adult individuals are compared, for they become accentuated with age. The fœtus of the gorilla at five months bears a very close resemblance to the human fœtus of the same age. A young gorilla and a young chimpanzee, by their globular skull, by their not very prominent muzzle, and by other traits, remind one of young Negroes. In comparing the skulls of gorillas, from the fœtal state through all the stages of growth to the adult state, we can follow step by step the transformation of a face almost human into a muzzle of the most bestial aspect, as a result of the excessive develop[Pg 24]ment of the face in front and below in the anthropoid ape, and the growth of the skull upward and behind in man, as if these parts moved in different directions in relation to a central point in the interior of the skull near to the sella turcica.[23]

In treatises on anthropology, anatomy, and physiology will be found all the information wished for on the different somatic characters of man, as well as on their variations according to sex, age, and race. It would be exceeding the limits of our subject were I to describe here, one by one, all the anatomical or morphological characters drawn from the bony, muscular, nervous, and other systems of which the human body is composed. We shall only pass in review the characters which possess a real importance in the differentiation of races. These are much less numerous than is generally supposed, and belong for the most part to the category of characters that are observed in the living subject. It is generally believed that the sole concern of anthropology is the description of skulls. This is one of the common errors of which there are so many current among the general public on scientific subjects. To be sure, the skull, and especially the head, of the living subject furnish the principal characters which differentiate races, but there exist several others, without a knowledge of which it is difficult to direct one’s steps in the midst of the diversity of forms presented by the human body according to race. We distinguish in general two kinds of somatic characters: (1) those dealing with the form and structure of the body—morphological characters; and (2) those which are connected with its different functions—physiological characters, with which we will include psychological and pathological characters.

We shall first examine the morphological characters,[Pg 25] beginning with those furnished to us by the body as a whole—the stature, the nature of the tegument (the skin and hair), and its colouring. We shall afterwards pass to an examination of the morphology of the head, and the different parts of the body, with their bony framework (skull and skeleton). We shall complete this brief account by a glance at the internal organs, muscles, brain, viscera.

Stature.—Of all the physical characters which serve to distinguish races, stature is perhaps that which has hitherto been regarded as eminently variable. It has been said that not only does stature change with age and sex, but that it varies also under the influence of external agencies. These variations are unquestionable, but it must be remarked that they are produced in a similar way in all races, and cannot exceed certain limits imposed by race.

Even from birth stature varies. Setting aside individual variations, the new-born are on an average a little taller, for example, in Paris (499 millim. for boys) than in St. Petersburg (477 millim.). Unfortunately we have hardly any data in regard to this important question for the non-European populations. Here in a tabulated form is the average height of the new-born of different populations, so far as information has been obtainable.

AVERAGE STATURE.

[Pg 26]

According to this table there would also be from the time of birth an inequality of stature of the two sexes; boys exceed girls by a figure which varies from 2 to 10 millim., that is to say on an average half a centim. (less than a quarter of an inch). The data relating to different races are insufficient; it may be remarked, however, that with people very low in stature, like the Annamese (1 m. 58, or 5 feet 2 inches), on the average the new-born are also shorter than those of people of greater stature, as, for instance, the English or the inhabitants of the United States. The French (average height 5 feet 5 inches) appear to be an exception to this rule.

We shall examine at greater length in Chapter IV. increase of stature in connection with all the phenomena of growth. Let me for the present say that as regards man, the age of 18 to 25 years, according to race, may be considered as the practical limit of this growth. In order to make a useful comparison of statures of different populations, we should only take, then, adults above these ages.

It must be said on this point that the greater part of the reliable information which we possess concerning stature relates solely to men, and among these, more especially to conscripts or soldiers. And it has often been objected that the figures in documents furnished in connection with the recruiting of armies do not represent the true height of any given population, for the conscripts, being in general from 20 to 21 years of age, have not yet reached the limit of growth.

This is true in certain cases; for example, when we have the measurements of all conscripts, who, in fact, grow from 1 to 2 centimetres during their military service; but when we have only the measurements of those enrolled, that is to say only of men above the standard height (and that is most frequently the case), the question presents a different aspect. The average height of this picked section of the population, higher by 1 to 2 centimetres than that of men of their age in general, may be considered (as I have elsewhere shown[24])[Pg 27] to represent the average stature of the whole number of adult males of any given population. We may then, while making certain reservations, take the height of those enrolled (but not that of all the conscripts) as representing the height of the adults of any given population.

The individual limits between which the height varies are very wide. It is admitted in general that the limits of height in the normal man may vary from 1 m. 25 (4 feet 1 inch) to 1 m. 99 (6 feet 6 ¾ inches). Below 1 m. 25 begins a certain abnormal state, often pathological, called Dwarfism. Above 2 m. we have another corresponding state called Giantism. Dwarfs may be 38 cent. high (15 inches), like the little feminine dwarf Hilany Agyba of Sinai (Joest), and giants as high as 2 m. 83 (9 feet 5 inches), like the Finn Caïanus (Topinard).[25]

Dwarfism may be the result of certain pathological states (microcephaly, rickets, etc.), as it may be equally the result of an exceeding slowness of growth.[26] In the same way giantism is often seen associated with a special disease called acromegaly, but most frequently it is produced by an excessive growth. In any case, exceptional statures, high or low, are abnormal phenomena, the acknowledged sterility of dwarfs and giants being alone sufficient to prove this.

Extreme statures which it is agreed to call normal, those of 1 m. 25 and 1 m. 99, are very rare. One might say that, in general, statures below 1 m. 35 and above 1 m. 90 are exceptions. Thus in the extensive American statistics,[27] based on more than 300,000 subjects, but one giant (above 2 m.) is met with out of 10,000 subjects examined, and hardly five individuals in 1000 taller than 1 m. 90 (75 inches). Again, in the statistics of the Committee of the British Association,[28] which embrace 8,585 subjects, only three individuals in a[Pg 28] thousand have been found taller than 1 m. 90. Yet in these two cases, populations of a very high stature (1 m. 72 on an average) were being dealt with. If we turn to a population lower in stature, for instance the Italian, we find only one subject 1 m. 90 or above in height in 7000 examined, according to the statistics of Pagliani.[29] In the same way, low statures under 1 m. 35 (53 inches) are met with only once in every 100,000 cases among the subjects examined by the American Commission, and not once among 8,585 inhabitants of the United Kingdom; even in a population low in stature, like the Italians, only three such in every 1000 subjects examined are to be found. We do not possess a sufficient number of figures to be able to affirm that among all the populations of the globe the instances of all these extreme statures are exceptional, but what we know leads us to suppose that it is so, and that the limits of normal stature in man are between 1 m. 35 and 1 m. 90.

The figures of individual cases are much less interesting than the averages of the different populations, that is to say the height obtained by dividing the sum of the statures of individuals by the number of subjects measured. On comparing these averages it becomes possible to form a clear idea of the difference existing among the various peoples. But here there is an observation to make.

The data of this kind published up to the present in the majority of books may often lead to error. In fact, as a general rule they give only the average height without stating the number of subjects measured. Very often it is only the rough guess of a traveller who has not even measured at all the populations of which he speaks. In other cases we have averages drawn from the measurements of two, three, or four subjects, which are evidently insufficient for a standard which varies so much in one individual and another, and even in the same individual according to the hour of the day.

We know, in fact, that man measures one or two centimetres more on rising in the morning than on going to bed at night,[Pg 29] when the fibro-cartilaginous discs situated between the vertebræ are compressed, more closely packed, and the vertebral column is more bent. Unscrupulous conscripts whose stature is near the regulation limit know perfectly well that if the day before the official examination they carry heavy loads, they compress their intervertebral discs so that their height is sometimes diminished by three centimetres.

It is necessary then, in order to avoid error, not only to have measurements taken from adult subjects, but also from several series containing a great number of these subjects. Calculation and inference have shown us that it is necessary to have at least a series of one hundred individuals to guarantee the exact figure of the height of a population but slightly blended. Series of 50 to 100 individuals may still furnish occasionally good indications, and series of 25 to 50 individuals an approximation; but with series under 25 individuals doubt begins and the figures are often most deceptive.

I have brought together and grouped in the table at the end of this volume (Appendix I.) average statures calculated in series of twenty-five individuals or more. These series have been based on the collation of hundreds of documents, of which limits of space prevent a full enumeration.

An examination of our table shows that the extreme averages of different populations fluctuate, in round figures, from 1 m. 38 (4 ft. 6 in.) with the Negrillo Akkas, to 1 m. 79 (5 ft. 10.5 in.) with the Scots of Galloway.[30] But if we set aside the pigmy tribe of the Akka, quite exceptional as regards stature, as well as the Scots of Galloway, and even the Scots of the north in general (1 m. 78), who likewise form a group entirely apart, we arrive at the extreme limits of stature, varying from 1465 mm. with[Pg 30] the Aeta or Negritoes of the Philippines, and 1746 mm. with the Scots in general. In round figures, then, we can recognise statures of 1 m. 46 (4 feet 9.5 inches) and 1 m. 75 (5 feet 9 inches) as the extreme limits of averages in the different populations of the globe. The medium height between these extremes is 1 m. 61, but if we put on one side the exceptional group of Negritoes (Akka, Aeta, Andamanese, and Sakai), we shall note that the rest of mankind presents statures which ascend by degrees, almost uninterruptedly, from millimetre to millimetre between 1 m. 54 and 1 m. 75, which makes the average 1 m. 65 (5 feet 5 inches), as Topinard has discovered.[31] Topinard has likewise proposed the division of statures, since universally adopted, into four categories, viz.: short statures, under 1 m. 60; statures under the average, between 1 m. 60 and 1 m. 649; statures above the average, between 1 m. 65 and 1 m. 699; and lastly, high statures, 1 m. 70 and over.

Our table shows conclusively that there are many more populations (almost double the number) whose stature is above or under the average, than populations of a short or high stature.

Short stature is rare in Africa, being found only among the Negrillo pigmies and Bushmen; in South America a few tribes of low stature are also met with; but the true home of low stature populations is Indo-China, Japan, and the Malay Archipelago. In the remaining portion of Asia this low stature is only met with again in Western Siberia, and among the tribes called Kols and Dravidians in India.

Statures under the average predominate in the rest of Asia (with the exception of the populations to the north of India and anterior Asia) and in Eastern and Southern Europe, while statures above the average comprise Irano-Hindu populations, the Afrasian Semites, the inhabitants of Central Europe, as well as the Melanesians and Australians.

Thus high stature is plainly limited to Northern Europe, to North America, to Polynesia, and especially to Africa,[Pg 31] where it is met with as well among Negroes as among Ethiopians.

What is the influence of environment on stature? This is one of the most controverted questions. Since the time of Villermé the statement has been repeated in a variety of ways that well-being was favourable to growth and increase in stature, and that hardship stunted growth. There are facts which seem to prove this. In a population supposed to be formed of a mixture of many races, the well-fed upper classes appear to possess a higher stature than the lower classes; thus, while the English of the liberal professions are 69.14 inches (1757 mm.) in height, the workmen of the same nation are only 65.7 inches (1705 mm.).[32] But can we not likewise adduce here the influence of race? That predominating in the aristocracy and well-to-do classes does not, perhaps, predominate in the working classes. Beddoe[33] and others have remarked that the stature of miners is lower than that of the population around them; in the same way, workmen in shops and factories are inferior in height to those who labour in the open air, and this in Belgium (Houzé) as well as in England (Beddoe, Roberts) or Russia (Erisman, Anuchin).[34] According to Collignon,[35] the populations of Normandy and Brittany living in the neighbourhood of railways and high-roads are superior in height to those living in out-of-the-way places. He concludes from this that the material conditions of life being improved since the formation of roads, the stature of the population has increased. According to Ammon and Lapouge, the population of the towns in France and Southern Germany are taller in stature than those of the country,[Pg 32] because of the migration towards urban centres of the tall dolichocephalic fair race which they call Homo Europeus. However, Ranke observed just the opposite, and there are other objections to be raised against this theory, based on the data of recruiting. These town-dwellers of high stature are perhaps only conscripts too quickly developed; town life accelerates growth, and town-dwellers have nearly reached the limit of their height while dwellers in villages have not finished growing. This is so true that in countries where statistics have been taken of the civic population, as in England for example, the population of the towns is shorter in stature than that of the country. Beddoe explains this fact by the bad hygienic conditions in towns, the want of exercise and drinking habits of dwellers in cities.[36]

To conclude, the influence of environment cannot be denied in many cases: it may raise or lower stature, especially by stimulating or retarding and even arresting growth; but it is not demonstrated that such a change can be perpetuated by hereditary transmission and become permanent. The primordial characteristics of race seem always to get the upper hand, and the modifications produced by environment can alter the stature of the race only within very restricted limits. Thus miners of a high stature like the Scotch, for example, while shorter than the Scotch of the well-to-do classes, will be still taller than the individuals of the well-to-do classes in, for example, Spain or Italy, and much more so than those of Japan (1 m. 59). Stature is truly then a character of race, and a very persistent one.

So far I have spoken only of the height of men. That of women (as regards adult women of seventeen to twenty-three years of age, according to race) is always lower than the height of men, but by how much? Tentatively, Topinard gave the figure 12 centimetres as the general differ[Pg 33]ence between the stature of the two sexes in all races. The data for the height of women being very scarce, I have only been able to bring together thirty-five series of measurements of women comprising each more than fifteen individuals, for comparison with series of measurements of men.

It follows from this slight inquiry that in twenty cases out of thirty-five, that is to say, almost two-thirds, the difference in height between the two sexes in any given population hardly varies more than from 7 to 13 centimetres (3 to 5 inches); fourteen times out of thirty-five it only varies from 11 to 13 centimetres (4.5 to 5 inches), so that the figure of 12 centimetres (5 inches) may be accepted as the average. Besides, the difference does not appear to change according to the average stature, more or less high, of the race: it is almost the same for the Tahitians and the Maricopas, who are tall, as it is for the Samoyeds and the Caribs, who are short.[37]

Thus, then, in a general way, the categories of statures—tall, short, etc.—for women will be comprised within the same limits already indicated for man, only reduced by 12 centimetres for each category. Thus, high statures for women will begin at 1 m. 58 instead of 1 m. 70; short statures under 1 m. 48 instead of 1 m. 60.

The stature of a living man is naturally higher than that of his skeleton, but what the difference is is not exactly known. It can hardly, however, exceed 2 or 3 centimetres, according to Topinard, Rollet, and Manouvrier.

By means of measurements of the long bones of the limbs (femur, humerus, etc.), the height of the skeleton of which they form part may be approximately calculated. For this purpose we make use of Rollet’s formula,[38] according to which the length of the femur must be multiplied by 3.66 for the height of man, and by 3.71 for the height of woman, or multiply the length of the humerus by 5.06 or by 5.22, according[Pg 34] to sex. But this formula is only applicable to subjects whose stature is near the average, 1 m. 65. In the generality of cases we must substitute for it more exact calculations by the help of Manouvrier’s tables.[39] It is by this means that Rahon[40] has been able to determine approximately the height of the prehistoric populations of France, which will be dealt with in Chapter IX.

Teguments: The Skin.—The human skin is essentially composed of two parts, the corium (Fig. 3, D) and a superficial epidermis; the latter is formed in its turn of two cellular layers, the horny layers (Fig. 3, c.c.), the quite shallow cells of which are freely exposed to the air, and Malpighi’s layer situated beneath it, with granules of pigment in more or less quantity in its lower range of cells (Fig. 3, c.p.). In certain places the epidermis is modified so as to form either a mucous[Pg 35] membrane, as, for instance, on the lips, or a horny substance, sometimes transparent (as the cornea of the eye) and sometimes only translucent and more or less hard (the nails).

There is little to say about the differences in the nature and structure of the skin according to race. Its colouring, of which I shall speak later on (see Pigmentation), is more important. Attention has been drawn to the hardness of the corium and the velvety softness of the skin in the negro; the latter quality is probably due to the profusion and size of the sebaceous glands which accompany the hair. Bischoff has made an interesting observation on the relative rarity of the sweat glands (which are found in the thickness of the[Pg 37] corium, Fig. 3, g.su.) among the Fuegians,[41] but comparative studies on this subject have not been pursued in regard to other races. The disposition of the papilla ridges on the tips of the fingers, so well studied by Galton,[42] is of great interest as regards the identification of the individual; but from this fact alone, that it is a good characteristic of the individual, it loses all its value as a characteristic of race.

Hair of the Head and Body.—The most important horny product of the skin, as regards the differentiation of races, is[Pg 38] undoubtedly the hair of the head and body. The general structure and number of the hairs (about 260 to each square centimetre) hardly show any difference between race and race; on the other hand, the length of the hair of the head, the relation of this length in one sex to that in the other, the nature of the hair, its consistence, its transverse section, its form, its colour, vary much according to race.

The body hair has its origin in a layer of the epidermis, deeply imbedded in the corium as though it were in a little sac or follicle (Fig. 3, fo.); from the bottom of this sac, and covering by its root a little papilla (Fig. 3, pa.) filled with vessels designed to nourish it, each hair rises and pushes its way to the outside; it is always accompanied by a little muscle which can move it (Fig. 3, m.r.), and by a sebaceous gland (Fig. 3, g.s.) designed to lubricate it.

Four principal varieties of hair are usually distinguished in anthropology, according to their aspect and their nature—straight, wavy, frizzy, and woolly. It is easy to form a clear idea at first sight of the differences which are presented by these varieties, but the most careful examination shows that the differences are deeper, and can be pursued even into the microscopic structure of the hair.

Straight and smooth hair (droit or lisse in French, straff or schlicht in German) is ordinarily rectilinear, and falls heavily in bands on the sides of the head; such is the hair of the Chinese, the Mongols, and of American Indians (Fig. 4). Straight hair is ordinarily stiff and coarse, but it is sometimes found tolerably fine; for example, among the western Finns. It is true that in this case it has a tendency to become wavy. Wavy hair (ondé in French, wellig in German) forms a long curve or imperfect spiral from one end to the other (Figs. 5 and 6). It is called curly when it is rolled up at the extremity (Fig. 7). The whole head of hair when wavy produces a very pleasing effect; I will merely cite as examples certain fair Scotchwomen. The type is very widespread among Europeans, whether dark or fair. The frizzy type (frisé in French, lockig in German) is that in which the hair is rolled spirally,[Pg 39] forming a succession of rings a centimetre or more in diameter (Fig. 8). Such is the hair of the Australians (Figs. 21 and 22), the Nubians, of certain Mulattos, etc. Lastly, the type of woolly hair (crépu in French, kraus in German) is characterised by spiral curves exceedingly narrow (from 1 millimetre to 9 millimetres as the maximum); the rings of the spiral are very near together, numerous, well rolled, and often catch hold of each other, forming tufts and balls, the whole result recalling in appearance sheep’s wool (Fig. 9). The type admits of two varieties. When the hair is relatively long and the spirals sufficiently broad, the whole head looks like a continuous fleece, as with certain Melanesians (Fig. 153), or the majority[Pg 40] of Negroes (Figs. 9 and 47). In his classification of the human races, Haeckel[43] has taken this type as characteristic of the group of eriocomes. But when the hair is short, consisting of[Pg 41] very small spirals, it has a tendency, when tangled, to form little tufts, the dimensions of which vary from the size of a pea to that of a pepper-corn; these tufts are separated by spaces which appear bald (pepper-corn hair). This type (called lophocome by Haeckel) is very widespread among Hottentots and Bushmen, but the majority of Negroes have it in their infancy, and even at adult age, especially towards the temples, on the forehead—briefly, in all the places where the hair remains very short (Fig. 9). We must not think that the disposition of which I have just spoken is due to the hair being stuck in the skin of the head like the bristles of a brush, for the mode of insertion is the same in all races, with Bushmen as with Europeans or Mongols. At the most it may be noted that the rows of hair in Negroes are more irregular, and are closer together in certain places, leaving in other rows intervals between them of two or three millimetres. Only, as a consequence of the shortness and[Pg 42] the excessive twisting, the hair gets entangled and the spirals catch hold of each other, so forming glomerules or tufts.

Does there exist any difference of form between straight, waved, frizzy, or woolly hair? The microscopical examination of transverse sections of the hair allows us to reply affirmatively to this question. This examination, already applied to the hair in 1822 by Heusinger, then successively by Blower (of Philadelphia), Kölliker, Pruner-Bey, Latteux, and Waldeyer,[44] has yielded results which have been vigorously discussed, and are still debatable if we cling to the individual and absolute figures, comparing sections made according to defective methods, or carried out on different levels of the hair. But if we calculate the index—that is to say, the relation of the breadth to the length (= 100) of the section (and that in a great number of individual cases)—we obtain satisfactory results, as Topinard and Ranke[45] have shown in general, as also Baelz in the case of the Japanese, and Montano in the case of the races of the Malay Archipelago.[46]

If we consider a great number of microscopical sections, all obtained from the same level of the hair, we note that straight hair gives a circular section, whilst woolly hair gives one in the form of a lengthened ellipse. This ellipse is less extended, a little more filled out, in the sections of wavy hair. If the major axis of the ellipse be supposed to equal 100, the minor axis will be represented by figures varying from 40 to 50 for the woolly hair of the Bushmen and the Hottentots, from 50[Pg 43] to 60 for that of the Negroes, while the straight hair of the Eskimo will have this axis = 77, that of the Thibetans = 80, that of the Japanese = 85, etc. The hair of Europeans represents an elliptical section in which the major axis being = 100, the minor axis will be represented by figures varying from 62 to 72 (Topinard). It can be said to-day with certainty, after the work of Unna,[47] that the woolly hair of Negroes rolls up into a compact spiral precisely because of the flattened shape of this elliptical section, and of the special form of the follicle and papilla. In fact, in the Negro the follicle, instead of being straight, as in the European (Fig. 3, A), is curved inward in the form of a sabre, or even of the arc of a quarter of a circle (Fig. 3, B); further, the papilla is flattened instead of being round. One would say that the hair has encountered in its development so much resistance on the part of the dermis (which is so hard, in fact, among the Negroes), that it would be twisted, as it were, from the first. Emerging from an incurvated mould, it can only continue to roll up outside, given especially its flattened shape; it rolls up into a spiral, the plane of which, at the beginning, is perpendicular to the surface of the skin.[48] As to the thickness of the hair, it appears that in general it is greater in straight hair than in woolly; however, the hair of the western Finns is straight and fine at the same time.

A certain correlation appears to exist between the nature of the hair and its absolute and relative length. Thus straight hair is at the same time the longest—Chinese, Americans, Indians (Fig. 4), while woolly hair is shortest, from 5 to 15 centimetres (Fig. 9); wavy hair occupies an intermediate position. Moreover, the difference between the length of the hair of men and women is almost inappreciable in the two extreme divisions. In certain straight-haired races the hair of the head is as long with men as with women; one need but to[Pg 44] call to mind the plaits of the Chinese, or the beautiful heads of hair of the Red Indians, which may attain in certain cases a length of even two metres (Catlin). In frizzy-haired races the hair of the head, on the contrary, is equally short in the two sexes; the hair of the head of women among the Bushmen, Hottentots, and even Negroes, is not appreciably longer than among the men. It is only in the categories of wavy and in part of frizzy hair, that the differences are appreciable. With European men the length of the hair rarely exceeds 30 or 40 centimetres, while with the women it averages 65 to 75 centimetres, and may attain in exceptional cases to 2 metres (as in the case of an Englishwoman, according to Dr. D. Watson).

Another fact to be noted is that the general development of the pilose system on the face, as on the rest of the body, seems also to be in relation to the nature of the hair of the head.

Straight-haired races are ordinarily very glabrous, the men have hardly a rudimentary tuft of beard—American Indians (Fig. 4), Mongols (Fig. 20), Malays; while in the wavy or frizzy-haired races, the development of the pilose system is considerable—Australians, Dravidians, Iranians (Fig. 22), Ainus (Fig. 117), etc. The woolly-haired races are not, however, included in this rule; glabrous types (Bushmen, western Negroes) are found side by side with rather hairy types (Melanesians, Akka, Ashanti). There appears to be a certain likeness between the abundance of hair on the head and on the body. Thus, according to Hilgendorf, the Japanese who are glabrous have from 252 to 286 hairs to each square centimetre on the head, whilst the hairy Ainus have only 214. Negroes and white men do not appear, however, to present the same differences (Gould). Even baldness results largely from the nature of the hair. According to Gould, baldness is ten times less frequent among Negroes than among Whites, between 33 years and 44 years, and thirty times less so between 21 and 32. Among Mulattos it is more frequent than among the Negroes, but less than among Whites.[Pg 45] Lastly, among Red Indians it seems to be still more rare than among Negroes. White hair follows almost the same rule.[49]

In the mass, the human races may be divided according to the character of their hair as follows:—

Woolly Hair.—Bushmen, Negro, and Melanesian races.

Frizzy Hair.—Australian, Ethiopian, Beja, Fulbé, etc., and Dravidian.

Wavy Hair.—The white races of Europe, of Northern Africa, and Asia (Melanochroi or the dark-complexioned Whites, and Xanthochroi or pale Whites).

Fine, straight, or lightly-waved Hair.—Turco-Tatars, Finns, Ainus, and Indonesians (Dyaks, Nagas, etc.); lastly,

Coarse straight Hair.—Mongolians and American races, with some exceptions. It must be noted that, in the manifold blendings of races, characteristics of the hair amalgamate. Thus the half-breeds between Negroes and American Indians have, most frequently, the hair frizzy or wavy. But there are also frequent reversions to the primitive type, almost always, however, a little weakened.

There are no races of hairy men. Everything that has been said of different “hairy savages” in the interior of Africa or Indo-China resolves itself into the presence of a light down (probably the remains of embryonic lanugo) in the case of the Akkas of the Upper Nile, or to the fortuitous existence of one or two families of hairy men and women from Burma exhibited some years ago in Europe and America. Other “phenomena” have been shown, like the famous Julia Pastrana or the “Dog-men” of Russia. All these subjects are only particular cases of atavism, or of a reversion to the probable primordial condition of man or of his precursor at the period when he was as hairy as, for instance, the anthropoid apes of to-day; they are by no means the representatives of a hairy race.

The beard is, as we know, one of the sexual characteristics of man, although many fine ones are found among certain women, notably among the Europeans of the south, and especially among Spanish women. The more hairy the body, the thicker as a[Pg 46] rule is the beard. In the glabrous races (Mongols, Malays, Americans) a few straggling hairs are all that can be seen at the corners of the mouth and on the chin (Figs. 20 and 168); in the very hairy races, like the Ainus, the Iranians, certain Semites, the Todas, the Australians, the Melanesians, the beard is strong and abundant on the lips, the chin, and the cheeks, where it reaches sometimes to the cheek-bones (Fig. 22); in the Negro and Bushmen races neither the moustache nor the beard can attain to great dimensions, because of the curly nature of the hair (Figs. 140 and 143). The eyelashes and the eyebrows are likewise much developed in races having an abundant beard, and this is the case in both sexes; we have only to recall the thick and joined eyebrows of the Persian women. On the other hand, among the Mongolians we note the small development of the eyelashes in relation to the particular structure of their eye (see p. 77).

Pigmentation.—The distribution of the pigment which gives the colouring to the skin, to the hair, to the iris, varies much according to race, and forms, along with the nature of the hair, a good distinctive characteristic. As I have already stated above, the pigment is accumulated principally in the lowest layers of the rete Malpighii (Fig. 3, c.p.), but it is also met with in small quantities in the horny layer, and even in the dermis.[50] According to race, the microscopic granules of pigment of a uniform brown are very unequally distributed around the nuclei of the cells, to which they give the most varied tones from pale yellow to dark brown, almost black. As the pigment exists in all races, and in all parts of the body, it is to its more or less plentiful accumulation in the cells that the colouring of the skin and its derivatives is due. Further, there must be added, for certain races at least, the combination with the tint of the blood of the vessels, as seen through the skin.

Every one knows that our white races become tanned in the sun; the cause of this is the pigment, developing abundantly[Pg 47] and being deposited in the cells under the combined action of air, heat, and light; the congestion of the vessels has also something to do with it. In the same way, persons living a long time in dense forests or in dark though airy places end by becoming paler, in consequence of the loss of the pigment, but recover colour immediately on re-exposure to the sun. But the modifications produced by the action of air and sun vary even among Europeans according to the colouring peculiar to their race.

Thus among the fair races of Northern Europe the skin, burnt by the sun, becomes red, as if swollen; on the other hand, among the dark-coloured peoples of the Mediterranean, it takes a bronze tint. There are thus between these two races notable differences, if not in the chemical nature of the pigment, which is scarcely likely, at least in regard to its quantity. It is the same with other races generally, and ten principal shades of colour at least can easily be distinguished. In the first place, among Whites, three shades: 1st, pale white; 2nd, florid, or rosy, peculiar to the Scandinavians, English, Dutch, etc.; 3rd, brownish-white, peculiar to Spaniards, Italians, etc. In the races called Yellow, three varieties of colour can likewise be distinguished: 4th, yellowish-white, a sickly hue the colour of wheat, as, for example, among certain Chinese; 5th, olive-yellow, the colour of new portmanteau leather, as among the majority of South American Indians, Polynesians, and Indonesians; 6th, dark yellow-brown, dark olive, or the colour of dead leaves, as among certain Americans, Malays, etc. In the dark-skinned races, four shades at least must be distinguished: 7th, red, copper-coloured, as, for example, among the Bejas, Niam-Niam, Fulbé; 8th, reddish-brown, chocolate, as among the Dravidians, the Australians, certain Negroes and Melanesians; lastly, 9th, sooty black, and 10th, coal-black, for example, among the different Negro populations.

In order to avoid an arbitrary designation of colours, anthropologists make use of chromatic tables, in which examples of the chief variations of colour are marked by numbers. The best table, almost universally adopted, is that[Pg 48] of Broca, of thirty-four shades.[51] The Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland has published a very practical and simplified edition of it,[52] which contains only the ten numbers of principal shades proposed by Topinard, namely, those I have just enumerated.

The pigment is not uniformly distributed, as I have said, through the whole body, and this is so with the Whites as well as with the darkest races. In all of them the parts of the body most deeply coloured are the nape of the neck, the back (as with animals), the back part of the limbs, the arm-pits, the scrotum, and the breasts; the belly (as with animals), the insides of the hands, the soles of the feet, are among the most lightly coloured. The parts covered by garments are less coloured among white and yellow races than the parts uncovered; it is affirmed, but without reliable proofs, that the contrary takes place among the dark and black populations.

In the iris, the pigmentation assumes a particular character. As we know, this perforated diaphragm of the eye is composed, histologically, of three layers: an anterior epithelial one; a middle one, the “stroma,” with muscular fibres, designed to enlarge or reduce the pupil; and lastly, a posterior layer, called the pigmental layer. But it must not be thought that this layer is the only repository of the pigment of the iris. It is also found accumulated in the thickness of the stroma, and between the muscular fibres. In both places the granules of the pigment have the same brown colour as in the rest of the body, but the pigment of the posterior or pigmental layer is only seen through the stroma and appears blue or grey, more or less light or dark, according to its quantity, just as the black veins of the blood appear to us blue through the skin. On the contrary, the pigment accumulated in the stroma or between the muscular fibres of the iris exhibits its natural yellow, brown, or almost black colour[Pg 49]ing, according to the quantity of it, under the form of a trail radiating very clearly from the pupil towards the periphery of the eye occupying one-third, two-thirds, or even the whole of the iris.

Seen at a certain distance, irises without pigment in their stroma appear blue or grey; those having the whole or the greater part of this charged with pigment appear brown, dark brown, or almost black, according to the quantity of this pigment. But irises having a blue or grey foundation strewn with yellowish spots of pigment appear green, yellow, yellowish-grey, greenish-grey, etc.

There are thus distinguishable only three fundamental shades of the iris, or, as is commonly said, of the colour of the eyes: light (blue or grey); dark (bright or dull brown or black); and intermediate shades (green, yellow, yellowish-grey, greenish-grey, etc.). This classification is entirely based on the quantity of pigment in the iris.

It is only in fair European races that blue or grey eyes are found, perhaps also in the Turco-Ugrian races; light-brown eyes are met with among some Mongolians. In all the other populations of the earth the eyes are dark-brown or black. It is the same with the colouring of the hair. It varies appreciably among the wavy-haired races, much less so among the straight and frizzy-haired races, and remains always black among the woolly-haired races. Four principal shades can be distinguished in the hair—black, dark-brown, chestnut-brown (châtain in French), and fair. In this last shade, golden must be separated from flaxen and dull grey-reddish hair. Red hair of all shades is only an individual anomaly, accompanied besides, almost always, by freckles (ephelides) on the face and neck. There are no red-haired races, but light and chestnut hair may have a reddish reflection in it. Red hair is very common in countries where several white-coloured races (brown or fair) are intermixed. In these crossed races there are found heads of hair of all colours—black, brown, fair, reddish-brown, dull-grey, chestnut, etc. This is the natural result of the intermixture of blood. Among a[Pg 50] dark-haired people, which has remained free from intermixture, or has only intermingled with dark-haired races, an exceptional red-haired individual constitutes a pathological condition, called “erythrism” by Broca. Erythrism can only manifest itself in certain races; at least, until now no example has been instanced among the Negroes; on the other hand, erythrism is somewhat common among the Jews of Europe, and among such Jews it is most frequently associated with frizzy hair.[53]

The colouring of the hair depends not only on the pigment, but on the more or less quantity of air in the medulla of the hair, which blends the white and grey tones with the general tint given by the pigment. In the air, the hair fades, becomes less highly coloured, duller. Certain acids of the perspiration render the hair reddish-brown, as for instance, under the arm-pit.

At birth pigment is found in the body in less quantity than in the adult state. Every one knows that the hair of children, often light-coloured at birth and in early years, becomes darker as they grow up. Almost all our European children are born with blue eyes, and the pigment only begins to increase in the iris, transforming the eyes into grey, brown, or black at the end of some weeks, or even months after birth. New-born Chinese, Botocudos, Malays, Kalmuks, are much less yellow than the adults of these people, and, lastly, Negroes at birth are of a reddish-chocolate or copper colour, which only becomes darker at the end of three or four days, beginning in certain places, such as the nape, nipples, scrotum, etc.

[Pg 51]

The presence of temporary spots of pigment noticed among new-born Japanese by Grimm and Baelz, among the Chinese by Matignon, among the Tagals of the Philippines by Collignon, and among the Eskimo by Sören-Hansen,[54] is more puzzling. These are somewhat large blue, grey, or black spots, situated in the sacro-lumbar region and on the buttocks, which disappear about the age of two, three, or five years. The existence of these spots, like that of the ephelides in the European child, would prove rather the migration of pigmental granules to the places selected than a general increase of them. In most races women appear to have clearer skin than men; in that respect, as in many other characters, they have a closer resemblance to children. It is thought by some that the hair of women is lighter than that of men among European races.[55]

Among Negroes the pigment is visible not only on the skin, in the hair, and the iris, but also in the sclerotic, in the mucous membrane of the lips, the mouth, the genital organs, etc.; the internal organs, even, are not free from it; the suprarenal capsules, the mesentery, the liver, the spleen, are often coloured with black spots of pigment, and even the brain contains numerous pigmented points in its envelopes and in its grey matter. Such an abundance of pigment would become a danger to the White, as is proved by certain diseases, melanism, for example, in which the pigment especially invades the viscera, or Addison’s disease, in which, on the contrary, there is an over-production of pigment in the skin and the mucous membranes.

The total absence of pigment, which may occur with the Negro as with the White, is termed albinism. This may be accompanied, if complete (that is to say, when, besides the white skin and hair, the iris is also deprived of pigment, and appears red), by somewhat serious affections of the eyesight.[Pg 52] But, in every respect, albinos are weakly, and probably not fertile amongst themselves.

In considering from all points of view the nature of hair and pigmentation in general, we cannot help noticing a certain correlation between these two characters. In fact, to the white colouring of the skin corresponds, in a general fashion, wavy hair, the colouring of which varies often in accord with the colour of the eyes and the shades of the skin (white, fair, brown races); to the yellow colouring corresponds straight, smooth hair; to the reddish-brown skin, frizzy hair; and to the black, woolly hair.

[Pg 53]

Cranium or Skull: Cranial measurements—Orbits and orbital index—Nasal bone and nasal index—Prognathism—Head of the living subject: Cephalic index—Face—Eyes—Nose and nasal index in the living subject—Lips—Trunk and Limbs: The Skeleton—Pelvis and its indices—Shoulder blade—Thoracic limb—Abdominal limb—Proportions of the body in the living subject: Trunk and neck—Curve of the back—Steatopygy—Various Organs: Genital organs—Brain—Its weight—Convolutions—The neuron—Its importance from the psychical point of view.

HAVING treated of the body in its general aspect, we shall now examine from the morphological point of view its different parts: the head, trunk, limbs, etc., as well as their relations to each other and their reciprocal dimensions, both in the skeleton and the living subject.

Cranium or Skull.—This part of the skeleton forms the object of investigation of a very extended branch of anthropology called craniology.

Craniology must not be confounded with the cranioscopy of the phrenologists, a sham science founded by Gall, who wished to establish a connection between certain bumps or irregularities of the surface of the skull and the parts of the brain in which, as was pretended, were localised the different intellectual functions. It is now demonstrated that the inequalities of the external table of the cranium walls have no relation whatever with the irregularities of the internal table, and still less have they anything in common with the conformation of the various parts of the brain. But if there be[Pg 54] no such direct connection as this between the cranium and the brain, there is nevertheless a certain remote relation between them, and the brain has attained such a development in man that the study of everything which concerns it, immediately or remotely, possesses great interest. This would alone suffice to explain the pre-eminent position assigned to craniology in the natural history of man. But there exist still other reasons why the study of the skull is one of the most cultivated branches of anthropology. As in the case of all the other mammals, the skull in man is one of the parts of the skeleton, and even of the entire body, which exhibits the greatest number of well-marked variations. The differences in the form and the dimensions of the skull in correlation with those of the brain and the masticatory organs, serve to distinguish races and species, both in man and other vertebrata. Besides, the teeth, which characterise not only genera but even families and orders of the mammifera, are always attached to the skull, though not forming part of the bony system. We may also observe that the skull, with the other bones of the skeleton, constitutes the only anatomical document of prehistoric man which has come down to us; it is only in studying it that we can connect and compare, from the point of view of physical type, existing with extinct races of mankind.

The characters that may be observed in the skull are very numerous, and may be divided into descriptive characters, which give an account of the conformation of the bony structure of the head and its parts, and craniometrical characters, which give the dimensions of these parts by exact measurements taken by means of special apparatus or instruments. These two orders of characters are complementary to each other. The cranial characters vary according to race, but within the limits of each race there are other lesser variations according to age and sex.

The general form of the cranium, as also the number, the consistence, and structure of the different parts which compose it are modified as the individual develops and grows[Pg 55] older. Formed of a single cartilaginous and membranous substance at the beginning of embryonic life, the cranium is composed in the last fœtal state of a great number of points of ossification of various texture. At birth the number of these points has considerably diminished; they have united for the most part to form the different parts of the bones of the cranium or brain case and the bones of the face; as the child grows, these points grow and end by being contiguous; about the age of eighteen or twenty years they form bones separated by sutures. There are twenty-one separated bones described in classic treatises on anatomy. Later on these bones begin to unite, the sutures which separate them disappear, and in extreme old age the cranium is formed of a bony mass almost as continuous and homogeneous as was the cranial cartilaginous and membranous mass in the embryo. According to the number of the pieces composing the cranium, and also according to their position, structure, and conformation, according to the degree of obliteration of the sutures and the order in which the obliteration of each suture takes place, according to the general form of the forehead, the angle of the lower jaw, according to the volume and dimensions of the skull, and lastly, according to the state of the dentition, etc., the nearly exact age of the individual to whom the skull had belonged may easily be discovered in this cycle of development. Other characters serve to distinguish the sex: the forehead is straight and rounded in woman, retreating in man; the cranial cavity is less in woman than in man in any given race; the orbital edges are sharper in woman, the impress of the muscles less marked, the weight of the skull in general less than that of the masculine skull, etc.[56] Lastly, the characters of race are[Pg 56] numerous and special. I shall proceed briefly to enumerate some of them. First in order of importance comes cranial capacity, or the volume of the cavity of the brain-case, which gives an idea of the volume of the brain, and approximately of its weight.

Cranial capacity may vary to the extent of double the minimum figure (from 1100 cubic centimetres to 2200 cubic centimetres) among normal individuals in the human race. The average capacity for the races of Europe is from 1500 to 1600 cubic centimetres; that of the skulls of Asiatic races appears to be very nearly the same; that of the Negro races and Oceanians a little smaller, perhaps from 1400 to 1500 cubic centimetres on an average. That of the Australians, the Bushmen, and the Andamanese is still less, from 1250 to 1350 cubic centimetres. But it must not be forgotten that the volume of the head, as with its other dimensions, has a certain relation to the height of the individual, and, as a matter of fact, Bushmen and Andamanese are very short in stature; Australians, however, are of average height. Partly, too, to their disproportion of height must, probably, be attributed the difference between the volume of the cranium in man and in woman. According to the series examined, this sexual difference may extend from 100 to 200 cubic centimetres, and even beyond, in favour of man. The cranial capacity of woman represents from eighty-five to ninety-five of the cranial capacity of man.[57] The cranial capacity of lunatics, of certain criminals, and especially of celebrated or distinguished men, scholars, artists, statesmen, etc., appears to be slightly superior to the average of their race. We shall revert later to the question of cranial capacity in connection with weight of brain.

The general form of the brain-case is an oval, but this oval may be more or less rounded, quite globular (Fig. 11), or more or less elongated to resemble an ellipse, the major axis of which[Pg 57] is almost double the minor (Fig. 10). The numerical expression of the cranial form is given in anthropology by what is called the cephalic index—that is to say, by the relation of the length of the cranium (ordinarily measured from the glabella to the most prominent point of the occiput (Figs. 10 and 13, A B) to its greatest breadth (Fig. 10, C D, Fig. 12, M N)). Reducing uniformly the first of these measurements to 100, we obtain the different figures for the breadth, which expresses the cranial form; thus very round skulls (Fig. 11) have 85, 90, and even 100 (extreme individual limit) for index, while elongated skulls (Fig. 10) may have an index of 70, of 65, and even of 58 (extreme individual limit). According to Broca’s nomenclature, skulls having indices between 77.7 and 80 are mesaticephalic or mesocephalic; those having the indices below this figure are sub-dolichocephalic (up to 75), or dolichocephalic (beyond 75, Fig. 10); those which have the[Pg 58] index above 80 are sub-brachycephalic (up to 83.3), or brachycephalic (above 83.3, Fig. 11).[58] Peoples or ethnic groups being formed of various elements, it is in most cases impossible to determine, after the examination of an isolated skull, to which population it belongs; all that can be said is that the skull is brachy- or dolicho-cephalic, orthognathous or prognathous, etc. We must have a certain number of skulls (from ten to thirty at least, according to the homogeneity of the population) to be able to discern the constituent elements of this population as far as they are manifested in the cranial characteristics. The average measurements are then deduced from a given number of skulls, by adding the individual measurements and dividing them by the number of skulls examined. But the average of any measurement whatever only gives a very general and somewhat vague idea of the actual dimensions of skulls. To determine it we must co-ordinate and seriate these skulls—that is to say, arrange them, for example, in an ascending order of figures expressing their cephalic index. In this manner we can discover one or several indices around which the skulls are grouped in the largest number. It is thus that we can often discern two or three cranial elements in the same population.[59]

[Pg 59]

If we apply these methods to the study of the cephalic index, we see that generally the crania of Negroes, Melanesians, Eskimo, Ainus, Berbers, the races of Northern Europe, etc., are dolichocephalic, while those of the Turkish peoples, the Malays, certain Slavs, Tyrolese, etc., are brachycephalic; that the dolichocephalic predominate in Great Britain, while the brachycephalic are in a majority in France, etc. (See p. 75, and Appendix II.)

The relation of the height to the breadth or to the length of the skull gives likewise an idea of its general form. It is thus that we recognise low skulls (platycephalic), medium (orthocephalic or metriocephalic), or high (hypsicephalic).

In order more correctly to describe the different peculiarities of the cranium, and to be able to refer the measurements to fixed co-ordinates, it is desirable to place the skull, when being studied, on a horizontal plane. Unfortunately, anthropologists are far from being agreed as to this initial plane. In France, in England, and in many other countries, that adopted is the alveolocondylean plane of Broca (Fig. 13, L K), which passes through the condyles and the alveolar border of the upper jaw; it is nearly parallel to the horizontal plane passing through the visual axes of the two eyes in the living subject; whilst in Germany the plane still in favour is one passing through the inferior border of the orbit and the centre or top of the contour of the auditory meatus[60] (Fig. 13, N M). The skull once conveniently placed in position according to a horizontal plane, the different views of it are the following: seen from above (norma verticalis of Blumenbach, Figs. 10 and 11), from below (norma basilaris), from the side or in profile (norma lateralis, Fig. 13), from the full face (norma facialis, Fig. 12), or from behind (norma occipitalis).

[Pg 60]

In regard to the face, different measurements express its general form; thus the relation of the bi-zigomatic length (Fig. 12, I G) to the total height of the bony structure of the head (Fig. 12, K L), or to its partial height from the glabella to the alveolar border of the upper jaw-bone (Fig. 12, F H), serves to separate skulls into brachy-or dolicho-facial, or, as they are also called, chamæprosopes and leptoprosopes. Other characters, such as the excessive development of the supraciliary ridges (Fig. 13, A), also give a special physiognomy to the bony structure of the face.

But the parts that deserve particular attention are the orbits and the nasal skeleton. The orbital orifice represents a quadrilateral figure more or less irregular, more or less angular or rounded, the length and breadth of which can[Pg 61] be measured. According to Broca,[61] the breadth is measured from the point called dacrion (Fig. 12, X) (situated at the intersection of the fronto-lachrymal suture and the crista lachrymalis) to the most distant point of the opposite edge of the orbit (Fig. 12, Y); the height (Fig. 12, T Z) is also measured perpendicularly to the preceding line. The relation of this height to the breadth = 100, or the orbital index, expresses in figures the form of the more or less shallow quadrilateral of the orbit. What are called average orbits, or mesosemes, are those whose index varies from 83 (Broca), or from 84 (Flower), to 89; shallow orbits, or microsemes, those which have the index lower than 83 or 84; finally, higher or large orbits, megasemes, those which have their index from 90 and upwards. The annexed table gives the orbital indices of the principal populations of the globe.

[Pg 62]

TABLE OF ORBITAL INDICES.
(Crania of both Sexes together; series of more than 10 subjects.)

[Pg 63]

The capacity of the orbital cavity and its depth are also measured, but, as the researches of L. Weiss have demonstrated, there is no correlation between the form of the skull (dolicho- or brachy-cephalic) and this depth. On the other hand, it appears to have some relation with the form of the face; broad faces (chamæprosopes) have deeper orbits than long faces (leptoprosopes).[63]

The skeleton of the nose presents numerous variations according to race. The nasal bones may be more or less inclined, one in relation with another, so as to form either an almost flat plane or a sort of prominent roof; their outline may be straight, concave, or convex; their breadth and their length also vary. The form of these bones, together with the nasal opening which is found below, may be expressed by the figures of the nasal index—that is to say, of the relation between the height of the bony mass (from the root of the nose to the anterior nasal spine) and its breadth (lines V B and E D of Fig. 12). According to the greater or lesser breadth of the nasal bones and of the nasal opening, the skull is called leptorhinian (long-nosed) or platyrhinian (flat-nosed); the intermediate forms bear the name of mesorhinian. The form of the nasal opening appears to be transmitted very tenaciously by heredity (Broca).

The following table, in which I have introduced only series of more than ten skulls, gives the distribution of the principal ethnic groups according to their nasal index.

It is easy to see in running the eye over this table, that almost all the populations of the so-called white races are leptorhinians, while all the yellow populations are comprised exclusively in the group of mesorhinians, and Negroes and Bushmen in that of the platyrhinians.

The Polynesians seem to be leptorhinians, the Melanesians with the Australians show a tendency towards platyrhiny.

[Pg 64]

NASAL INDEX OF THE CRANIUM.
(Series of more than 10 Skulls of both Sexes together.)

[Pg 65]

Prognathism, that is to say the degree of projection of the maxillary portion of the face, is a characteristic trait of certain skulls; however, it does not seem to play so important a part in the classification of races as anthropologists had thought twenty or thirty years ago. It presents too many individual varieties to be taken as a distinctive character of race. The degree of prognathism is measured by means of different facial angles, of which that of Cloquet, passing by the forehead, the upper alveolar point (between the two incisors), and the external auditory meatus (Fig. 13, F O K), is one of the best. However, as it expresses the relation of points too far removed from each other, it is better to confine ourselves to the measurement of alveolar prognathism, that is to say, of the sub-nasal projection of the face. This prognathism is measured with the angle determined by the alveolar point, the external auditory meatus, and the nasal spine (Fig. 13, F′ O K).

Among numerous other measurements which give indications for certain characters we must cite: the minimum frontal diameter (Fig. 12, S J); the interorbital line; the length and the breadth of the palate, the relation of which constitutes the palatal index, etc. Among the measurements of the curves it is necessary to note the horizontal circumference of the head, the antero-posterior curve with its frontal, parietal, and occipital portions, etc. Besides the facial angles, a great number of others are taken; the more important are the sphenoidal angle and the different occipital angles (of Daubenton, Broca, etc.), which give the inclination of the occipital foramen in relation to a horizontal plane. The measurements of these angles furnish valuable indications on the characters called seriary, to which we have recourse in order to compare man with animals which bear the closest resemblance to him.

But all these measurements do not suffice to exhaust the data of the morphology of the skull. There still remain a host of descriptive characters: the general form of the skull, pentagonal, oval, elliptical, etc.; the contour of the face more or less angular or rounded, its canine fossa more or less deep, its zygomatic arches, and its molar bones more or less projecting, etc. Certain anomalies in the sutures of the bones, as for example the persistence of the medio-frontal suture, the dispositions of the pterion (point of union of the sutures between the[Pg 66] frontal, the temporal, the sphenoid, and the parietal bones), are only important as seriary characters, but there are others which possess some value in the differentiation of races. The Wormian bones, or points of ossification inserted between the bones of the skull, are of the number. One of these bones found between the parietal bones and the occipital, has[Pg 67] even received the name of the Inca bone (Fig. 23, A), on account of its very frequent occurrence among Peruvian crania (deformed or not). In fact, it is met with in an imperfect state 20 times in 100 and perfect 5.4 times in 100 among Peruvians, while in Negro crania it is found only 6 times in 100 imperfect, and 1.5 perfect; among Europeans it is still more rarely[Pg 68] imperfect, and is hardly ever met with perfect (Anuchin). This peculiarity seems to be a special character of the American race, seeing that among the crania of the Indians of the New World (outside Peruvians) the anomaly in question is found 10 times in 100 imperfect and 1.3 times perfect. Among the Indians of Rio Salado, an affluent of the Gila in Arizona, the frequency of this anomaly is still greater than among Peruvians (5.7 perfect cases against 5.4 in Peru).[64] In the same way, the presence of a suture which divides into two, more or less imperfectly, the malar bone (Fig. 23, B) appears to be a special character of Ainu and Japanese crania; Hilgendorf has even proposed to call the lower portion of the malar bone thus formed os japonicum (Fig. 23, B, a). While the suture is only met with 11 or 12 times in 100 in Mongolian races, and 9 times in 100 in European races according to Ten Kate,[65] it is found from 25 to 40 times in 100 among Japanese according to Doenitz.

It is well understood that in the description of crania the alterations of form produced by all kinds of causes are taken into account. (Such, for example, is the considerable asymmetry or plagiocephaly due to a physiological cause, as the hypertrophy of the capacity of the skull, or its atrophy in the pathological cases of hydrocephaly or microcephaly, and so many other ethnic deformations which will come up for treatment in Chapter V., etc.)

The head of the living subject furnishes more numerous characters than the skull, especially if the face be considered with the play of feature. Sometimes an examination of the face suffices to determine the race of the subject.

The measurements of the head are about fifty in number, but they are not all of equal importance. Very few of them, indeed, are really useful.

The chief of the angular measurements is the facial angle; great importance was formerly attached to it when prognathism, or the degree of projection of the maxillary region,[Pg 69] was considered as a character of inferiority. In spite of the numerous instruments invented (double square, Harmand’s instrument, Jacquard’s goniometer, etc.), great precision in these measurements is not attainable. The only angle which can be taken with sufficient exactitude, thanks to the facial medium goniometer of Broca, is Cuvier’s angle, formed by a line running either from the glabella or the point between the eyebrows to the interval between the incisor teeth, and by another line starting from the external auditory meatus towards this interval. This angle enables us to estimate the total prognathism and the alveolar prognathism, but the variations which it presents are too slight (3 to 4 degrees), taking race with race, to constitute a distinctive character. Prognathism of the lips, pushed forward to form the prominence of the “muzzle,” which gives so characteristic an expression to the profile of certain Negroes or Australians (Fig. 15), is not expressed by this measurement, and ordinarily cannot be measured in any way.

Among the measurements of the curve of the head the principal are those of the horizontal circumference with its anterior and posterior portions, the limits of which are found at the supra-auricular point, that is to say, in the depression which is found immediately in front of the spot where the helix of the pinna of the ear is inserted. The value of this measurement has also been exaggerated, it being said that men of well-developed minds have the circumference greater than men without intellectual culture. The comparative observations of Broca made on house-surgeons and attendants of hospitals seem to bear out the assertion; but they have not been confirmed, and stature appears to have a decided relation with the size of the head.

The measurements in a straight line are more numerous and more important than those of angles and curves. Those which give the antero-posterior diameter or maximum length of the head (from the glabella to the most prominent point of the occiput, as on the cranium) and the transverse maximum diameter, are the first to note. We have already seen (p. 57)[Pg 70] that their centesimal relation constitutes what is called the cephalic index. Let us note afterwards the total height of the head (projection on a vertical plane), the maximum breadth of the face (between the zygomatic arches) and the different “lengths” of the face, the relation of which to the breadth constitutes the facial index. The latter is far from expressing the form of the face as well as does the cephalic index the form of the head, on account of its irregularity, and the want of agreement between anthropologists with regard to the “facial lengths.” Nevertheless we distinguish according to these measurements elongated faces or leptoprosopic (Fig. 16),[Pg 71] short faces or chamæprosopic (Fig. 17), and medium faces, meso- or ortho-prosopic (Fig. 14).

Other measurements taken are the frontal minimum diameter or minimum breadth of the forehead (between the temporal ridges of the frontal bone, which makes a projection under the skin); the distance between the inner angles or canthus of the eyes is a good measurement, especially if it be compared with the breadth of the nose, taken by just touching with the points of[Pg 72] the callipers the alæ of the nose. Referred to the length of the nose (between the root of the nose and the point of insertion of the septum) reduced to 100 it gives the nasal index, one of the important characters in the classification of races. Among several other measurements may be mentioned the breadth of the mouth between the commissure of the lips, the subject being in repose; the length and the breadth of the ears, etc. All these measurements are taken either with callipers or with sliding compasses, similar to those used by shoemakers or engineers, or with special instruments.[66]

Measurements taken on the living subject can never be as accurate as those obtained on the cranium; but, on the other hand, they may be much more numerous, and the greater number of observations compensates largely for individual errors due to difficulties of the mode of operation. Further, when measuring heads of living subjects, there is the advantage of knowing sex, approximate age, and exact origin, while in the case of one-half the crania examined, one or more of these particulars may be wanting. All these conditions sufficiently explain why, in these latter days, the attention of anthropologists is directed towards measurements of living subjects, among which those of the head occupy the foremost place.

Do the measurements of the head of the living subject correspond to the measurements of the cranium? Various researches made with the object of elucidating this question leave it still unsettled. It was believed at first, for instance, that the bregma, or point of junction between the coronal and the sagittal sutures in the cranium (Fig. 11, O), corresponded in the head with the most prominent point of the line passing from the supra-auricular point to another perpendicularly to the horizontal plane; but the very careful researches of Broca and Ferré have shown that this point is always in front of the bregma by a quantity which varies according to sex and indi[Pg 73]vidual. The correspondence of the tourbillon of the hair with the lambda, or point of junction on the cranium of the sagittal and occipital sutures (Fig. 11, F), has not either been clearly demonstrated. The principal measurement, the cephalic index, does not appear always to correspond on the cranium and on the head of the living subject. A priori, the living head should have the index a little higher than the cranium, the muscles of the temporal region being thicker than those of the supra-occipital and frontal region. However, experiments made in connection with this subject are contradictory. According to Broca, two units must be subtracted from the index taken on the living subject in order to obtain the index on the cranium; this is also the opinion of Stieda and Houzé and a great number of anthropologists, while Mantegazza and Weisbach advocate the reduction of the index by three units; and Virchow and Topinard do not admit any. In the face of these divergent opinions, it is best to give the indices on the cranium and the living subject separately as they are, and indicate the rate of reduction or augmentation.

However, in a general way, one may admit, and I admit in this book, the difference of two units between the indices of the cranium and the living subject. In this way the two may be compared by adding these two units to the index of crania and removing them from the index of the living subject. I have given (p. 57) the divisions of the cephalic index of the cranium; those of the living subject are the same with the addition of two units.

We may now proceed to examine a little more closely the principal measurements and the indices on the living subject by beginning precisely with the cephalic index, which I believe to be, in spite of the recent criticisms of Sergi[67] and Ehrenreich,[68] one of the good characteristics of race, enabling us to make some secondary partitions in the principal parti[Pg 74]tions of the genus Homo, based, as we shall see afterwards (Chapter VIII.), on the colour of the skin and the nature of the hair. Assuredly this index cannot express by itself alone the true form of the head or the cranium, but it supplies very clearly a first indication which gives a much better idea than detailed description, useful, to be sure, but rendering the study almost impossible when it is a question of comparing with one another a great number of different types. On the other hand, this index has such a fixity within the limits of any given race, that it is difficult to conceive how it could be dispensed with. The figures given by different authors when they rest on a sufficient number of subjects agree so much among themselves as to the cephalic index, that it is impossible to deny its fixity. The recent researches of Gonner[69] on one hundred children of Basel, far from weakening the assertion, as it would appear, speak in its favour; made on only the new-born or children one month old, they confirm what was already known, that the cephalic index varies with age, and by no means contradict its fixity. Ordinarily, at birth children appear to be more dolichocephalic than the adults of their race, but from the first month the head grows faster in breadth than in length; thus at the end of the first month, according to Gonner, the head is broadened in 52 children in 100, and remains stationary in 9 per 100. My own researches lead me to believe that the heads of children increase at first in breadth, to arrive afterwards gradually at a definite form, which is fixed about the age of ten, twelve, or fifteen years, according to race.

If instead of comparing, as Gonner has done, children of one month old with their parents, he had taken children from ten years upwards, he would have arrived at the same results as Spalikowski, who on forty-eight infants at Rouen found forty-one of which the cranial form corresponded with their parents. The researches of O. Ammon, Johansson and[Pg 75] Westermarck, Miss Fawcett and Pearson, as well as my own (yet unpublished), lead to the same result.[70]

The differences of the cephalic index according to sex are insignificant. According to my personal researches, this difference hardly exceeds on the average 0.7 in the living subject and 1.5 in the cranium; and even this latter figure is exaggerated. It may, in a general way, be admitted that the difference between the cephalic index of men and women hardly exceeds one unit—that is to say, the degree of personal error in the observation. This difference is, in any case, less than the discrepancies between the different series of a single and homogeneous race.

In the table of the cephalic index which appears at the end of this volume (Appendix II.), however, I have given only the figures relating to men. A few series comprising individuals of both sexes appear there as exceptional cases. I have taken care to mark these with a letter S. In this table will be found side by side with indices taken on the living subjects some taken on crania, but no series contains measurements of crania and heads intermingled. The series of ten to twenty subjects or crania in the table appear there exceptionally, for the only series furnishing figures really exact are those comprising more than twenty individuals.

An inspection of the table shows us that there is a certain regularity in the distribution of the different cranial forms on the surface of the earth.

Dolichocephaly is almost exclusively located in Melanesia, in Australia, in India, and in Africa. Sub-dolichocephaly, diffused in the two extreme regions, North and South, of Europe, forms in Asia a zone round India (Indo-China, Anterior Asia, China, Japan, etc.), but is met with only sporadically in other parts of the world, especially in America. Mesocephaly[Pg 76] is frequent in Europe in the regions bordering on the sub-dolichocephalic countries, as well as in different parts of Asia and America. Sub-brachycephaly, much diffused among the Mongolians of Asia and the populations of Eastern Europe, is very rare elsewhere. Lastly, brachycephalic and hyper-brachycephalic heads are almost exclusively limited to Western and Central Europe, to some populations of Asia, Turco-Mongols, Irano-Semites, and Thaï-Malays.

Has the form of the head, so far as the cephalic index can express it, an influence on the volume of the brain, and consequently on its weight, and even perhaps on the mentality? This question is subordinate to another, namely: To what point is the weight of the brain the expression of the psychical value of this organ? We shall see further, on p. 101, that the weight can only be considered as a very rough approximation for the solution of psychological questions. But even in recognising in the weight of the brain the exaggerated importance that too long has been attributed to it, it may be said that it is not in relation with the conformation of the skull. The only investigation made into this matter—that of Calori—restricted to the figures of adults (from 20 to 60 years) by Topinard,[71] shows us that among Italian men the brachycephalic have on an average 27 grammes of brain more than the dolichocephalic, while among Italian women it is the dolichocephalic who have the better of the brachycephalic by 21 grammes. The differences in the two shapes being so very trifling, one may consider one’s self equally intelligent whether dolichocephalic or brachycephalic.

Next to the form of the head, that of the face is of great importance in recognising races. It may be more or less long or broad, oval (Fig. 109), ellipsoidal (Fig. 136), or round (Figs. 119, 164, and 169), with soft contours or very angular, and then it may be found as an elongated rectangle (Fig. 121) or a square (Fig. 124); it may approximate also to the pentagonal form (Fig. 17), etc.

The forehead may be broad or narrow, low or high, retreating[Pg 77] (oblique, Fig. 21) or straight (Figs. 24 and 90), it may present a medium protuberance, as for instance, among many Negro tribes (Fig. 140), etc. The superciliary arches may be absent (Mongolian races) or very prominent, overhanging the eyes (Australians, Fig. 15; Veddahs, Fig. 5).

The cheek-bones may be little developed (Europeans) or very prominent (Mongolians, Figs. 17 and 20; Bushmen, Fig. 24, etc.), but cheek-bones projecting forward must be distinguished from those developed laterally. The chin may be pointed, rounded, square, projecting, retreating (Fig. 15), but these variations are of little importance, and may be found in conjunction with the most diverse forms of the face, while giving to it its own character. The posterior angles of the lower jaw may be more or less wide, and thus help to produce the angular contour of the face; quadrangular in the case of the square chin (Fig. 121), or with pentagonal contour in the case of the pointed chin (Fig. 118).

The eyes furnish also some differences of form. We distinguish the ordinary eye, as in our countries, and the oblique or narrowed Mongolian eye. The latter presented in its most perfect form is characterised as follows. It is placed obliquely, so that its external angle is higher than its inner angle (Fig. 121). This disposition is due to the too high attachment of the external palpebral ligament to the skull, as Regalia has shown.[72] Its palpebral aperture is much narrower than in the ordinary eye, and instead of having the form of an almond, it has rather that of a scalene triangle (Figs. 18 and 118) or of a little fish whose head corresponds to the inner angle (Fig. 119). But these peculiarities are not the most important, and may be met with, though rarely, in ordinary eyes. The essential characters of the Mongolian eye consist, as Metchnikof[73] has shown, in a puffiness of the upper eyelid, which turns down at the inner angle of the narrowed eye, and, instead of being free, as in the ordinary eye, is folded towards[Pg 78] the eyeball, forming a fixed fold in front of the movable ciliary edge; this last becomes invisible and the eyelashes are scarcely seen. Moreover, towards the inner angle of the eye, the eyelid forms a fold covering more or less the caruncula, and sometimes extending more or less far below (Fig. 18). These peculiarities, which can be met with quite often among the children of all races as a transitory characteristic, may be explained up to a certain point by the very small development of the pilous system in general in people among whom they persist. For among Europeans, for instance, the inversion of the eyelid (entropion) may become a cause of disease (trichiasis) precisely on account of the growth of the eyelashes.[74]

Sometimes this puffiness only extends to the outer part of the eyelid; we have thus a variety of the Mongolian eye, with a palpebral triangular opening, very frequent among the eastern Finns (Fig. 106) and the Turco-Tatar populations.

The nose, by the variety and the fixity of its forms, presents one of the best characters for distinguishing races. We can express by means of the nasal index of Broca its width (measured by just touching the alæ of the nose) in relation to its length (from the root to the sub-nasal spine) supposed = 100. This index varies in the proportion of one to three[Pg 79] (from 40 to 120), according to race. Among the platyrhinians, the breadth of the nose exceeds 85 (Fig. 14); among the leptorhinians, this breadth is less than 70 (Fig. 16); lastly, among the mesorhinians, it oscillates between 70 and 85, according to the nomenclature of R. Collignon. [75] I give in Appendix III. a table of the nasal indices of the principal populations; I have only introduced into it series of[Pg 80] more than ten individuals, whose measurements have been taken according to the Broca-Collignon method, explained above.[76]

Besides the general form of the nose given by the nasal index, there remain a host of descriptive characters which may be observed in this organ. It may be more or less flattened (examples: Negroes, Melanesians, Mongolians), or more or less prominent (Europeans, Jews, Arabs). Its profile may be: (1) straight and sometimes sinuous (examples: Turco-Tatars, Europeans, Fig. 19); (2) concave (certain Finns, Bushmen, Lapps, Australians, Fig. 15); (3) convex and sometimes arched (American Indians, Semites, Fig. 21). Each of these forms may be in combination with a fine, thick, or medium tip, and with a plane of the nostrils directed upwards, downwards, or horizontally. A. Bertillon[77] admits at least fifteen varieties of the forms of the nose. In the majority of cases concave noses have the extremity thick, and the plane of the nostrils directed upward (Figs. 9, 14, and 15); convex noses, on the contrary, have most frequently the tip fine, and the plane of the nostrils directed downward (Figs. 21, 102, 103, and 134). But there are also convex noses with very thick tips, for instance, among the Jews and the Iranians of the Assyroid type (Fig. 22), or again, among the Papuans and the Melanesians (Fig. 53), as well as concave noses with fine tips, for instance, among certain European races (Figs. 97, 104, and 105). Broad noses are most frequently flattened (Figs. 14, 15, and 24), but the flattening may also extend to narrow noses, as for example among the Mongols (Fig. 20). The sunken, very depressed root of the nose is almost always associated with a considerable prominence on the supraciliary[Pg 81] arches: examples, Australians, Fuegians, etc. (Figs. 14, 15, and 48).

In a general way, as may be seen from the table, the leptorhinians, who have for the most part the convex and straight noses, with fine, straight, or turned-down tips, are met with almost exclusively among Europeans, Eurasians, Armenians,[Pg 82] Caucasians, and Eurafricans (Arabo-Berbers), as well as among the inhabitants of anterior Asia. The mesorhinians, among whom the form of the profile of the nose varies much, include different populations of India, some American, Turco-Tatar, and Mongol peoples. And lastly, the platyrhinians, having most frequently the profile convex and the tip turned up, comprise the whole of the black populations of Africa, Oceania, and India.

At birth and during early infancy the nose is most frequently concave, with the tip turned up (Fig. 130); it only becomes straight or convex in the adult; in old age it has a tendency[Pg 83] to become convex with the tip turned down (Bertillon, Hoyer). In the dead body it always takes the arched form. According to Broca and Houzé, the nasal index has a tendency to get lower—that is to say, the nose becomes relatively thinner as the individual advances in age; according to Hoyer,[78] the contrary takes place.

The ears present few characteristic traits for distinguishing races,[79] but the same cannot be said of the lips. They are thin in the so-called white races and among Mongols; very thick and protruding among the Negroes; somewhat thick among Malays, Melanesians, etc. Their form contributes much towards hiding or accentuating dental or alveolar prognathism.

Skeleton of the Trunk and Limbs.—The parts of the skeleton other than the head furnish but few materials for characterising[Pg 84] races. We have already seen (p. 14) that the differences of curvature in the vertebral column according to race may be explained by the mode of life. As to the other peculiarities of the spine,—spinous processes split in the cervical vertebræ,[80] narrow sacrum, etc.,—all that can be said about them is that they are more frequent among Negroes, and perhaps among Melanesians, than among Whites.

The pelvis has more importance on account of its function from the obstetrical point of view, and of its influence on the general form of the body. Unfortunately this part of the skeleton has only been studied in very inadequate series among a dozen populations. Subjoined is given:—1st, the table of pelvic index—that is to say, the centesimal relation between the maximum breadth of the pelvis (between the iliac crests) and its height (from the top of the iliac crest to the lowest point of the ischion), taking for our unit sometimes the first of these measurements following Turner, sometimes the second following Broca; 2nd, the table of the index of the inlet (pelvic or brim index of English authors)—that is to say, the relation of the antero-posterior diameter of this aperture (from the middle of the promontory of the sacrum to the pubic symphysis) to its maximum transverse diameter, which, let us suppose, = 100.[81] It will be remarked that the tables, formed of series of five subjects at least, are given in separate parts for men and for women, as the sexual differences are very appreciable in the pelvis of all races. In a general way the pelvis is broader and less high, its slope more pronounced, in woman than in man. The iliac fossa are wider in the former than in the latter; the superior inlet or brim is elliptical or reniform in woman, in the form[Pg 85] of a playing-card heart in man, etc. But, as may be seen by our table, if these differences are very appreciable in certain races, notably among Whites and Negroes, they become less and less among Melanesians, among whom the pelves of the two sexes approximate nearly to the masculine type.

Has the form of the pelvis, and especially that of the inlet, any relation to the form of the head of the fœtus and of the child? Exact data for solving this question are wanting. However, comparing from our tables the index of the superior inlet and that of the cephalic index, it may be observed that, in a general way, pelves with a large aperture are met with in brachycephalic races, and pelves with a narrow aperture in dolichocephalic races. But there are numerous exceptions: I note at least four (English, Russian, Swedish mesocephal and Malay women) in the meagre list of 12 series of women that, with much difficulty, I have been able to draw up.

The form of the shoulder-blade varies little with race. The scapular index—that is to say, the centesimal relation between the breadth of the shoulder-blade and its length (measured on the vertebral edge and taken as the unit of comparison)—oscillates between 64.9 (Australians) and 70.2 (Andamanese). In a list of 14 series of from 10 to 462 shoulder-blades that I have drawn up from the works of Broca, Livon, Turner, Topinard, Garson, Martin, Hyades, Sarasin, Hamy, Koganei, and my own measurements, the populations are arranged as follows: index from 64.9 to 66.6, Australians, Europeans, Fuegians, Bushmen, Ainus, Peruvians, Polynesians; indices from 67.2 to 70.2, Japanese, Veddahs, Hindu-Sikhs, Malays, Negroes, Melanesians, Andamanese. This classification suffices to show that the greater or less breadth of the shoulder-blade has almost no value as a seriate character or as a character of race. It is the same with the sub-spinal index, which it has been proposed to add to the foregoing in order to judge of the form of the shoulder-blade.[82]

[Pg 86]

[Pg 87]

As to the skeleton of the limbs, here is a summary of what can be said about it from the point of view which specially concerns us now. In the thoracic limb the humerus presents an interesting peculiarity: the perforations of the olecranon cavity (which receives the extremity of the ulna) are very frequent in prehistoric bones in Europe (10 to 27 times in 100), as well as in America (31 times).[84]

This perforation is met with more often among men than women, perhaps because it is more especially connected with the extent and frequent repetition of the movements of flexion and extension. Here is its growing frequency in the races from a list which I have drawn up with series varying from 20 to 249 humeri: white population of the United States (3.8 times in a hundred), French, Fuegians, Ainus, Basques, Melanesians, Japanese, Negroes, Polynesians, Mongolians, and American Indians (36.2 times in a hundred). The torsion of the humerus—that is to say, the degree of rotation of the lower part of this bone in relation to its upper part, is a character of a certain seriate value; but it is of no use in the differentiation of races. Besides, the degree of torsion varies too much in the same race: it is greater in woman than in man, in short than in long humeri (Manouvrier, Martin, etc.). This torsion is measured by the angle of torsion, which is taken either according to Broca’s method or Gegenbaur’s. This is how the different peoples are arranged according to the decreasing figures of this angle (series of 10 humeri): according to Broca’s system:—Melanesians (angle of 141°), Guanches, Arabs or at least Kabyles, Polynesians, Negroes, Peruvians, Californians, Europeans, French (164°); according to Gegenbaur’s system:—Ainus (149.5°), Fuegians, Veddahs, Japanese, Swiss, Germans[Pg 88] (168°). Until further discoveries are made, a single fact becomes prominent from the examination of this character—that is, that the torsion appears to be greater in white races than in black and yellow. In the ulna Collignon has noted a special incurvation in certain prehistoric bones.

In the femur one peculiarity has especially attracted the attention of anthropologists in recent times; it is the more or less frequent presence of the third trochanter (Fig. 23, C 3), or tuberosity situated between the great (ibid., 1) and the lesser (ibid., 2) trochanter on the offshoot from the linea aspera which[Pg 89] furnishes a point of attachment to the lower part of the gluteus maximus. This projection, pointed out and studied for the first time by Houzé,[85] appears in infancy as a special centre of ossification analogous to those of the other diaphyses (Török, Deniker, Dixon), and so does not seem to depend on the greater or less development of the gluteus maximus (Bertaux).[86] The third trochanter is almost always accompanied by a hypotrochanteric fossa (Fig. 23, C).

Here is the frequency with which the third trochanter occurs according to a list which I have compiled:—

Two points will be observed in this table, the rarity of the third trochanter among Negroes, and its excessive frequency among the Fuegians. The women of the latter have also the hypochanteric fossa 80 times in a 100 (out of 76 femurs examined); it almost forms then, like the third trochanter, a character of race.

[Pg 90]

In the tibia attention has been called to platycnemia—that is to say, the transversal flattening in the upper third of the diaphysis of the bone, so that its posterior side becomes transformed into a border. It has been supposed that this form is a reversion towards the simian type, but Manouvrier[87] has shown that platycnemia never attains in the anthropoid apes the degree which it presents in the human race, where it is due especially to the development of the tibialis posticus muscle which plays a great part in the maintenance of the upright position, and in the movements of walking and running. The degree of platycnemia may thus vary according to the more or less sedentary or wandering habits of the different populations.

The retroversion of the head of the tibia—that is to say, the slope of the articular surface of it behind—pointed out and described for the first time by Collignon in prehistoric tibias, is also not a simian character. According to Manouvrier,[88] it is often met with among Parisians in a degree superior to that exhibited by anthropoid apes. This retroversion, generally associated with platycnemia, is connected with the half-bending attitude of the lower limb in the manner of walking which is called the bending gait, common among peasants, and especially mountaineers. The retroversion is more marked in the tibia of the new-born child than in that of the adult, and this appears to have a connection with the permanent bending of the knee during intra-uterine life.

The length of the bones of the pelvic and thoracic limbs varies according to race, but it is difficult to establish the degree of these variations, owing to the small number of observations made. Besides, we can more profitably substitute for measurements of limbs on the skeleton those of the living subject; in the latter case we can at least relate all the measurements to the true height of the subject, whilst the height is never exactly known from the skeleton.

However, the measurements of the long bones have their[Pg 91] importance, for they permit us to reconstitute approximately, as we have already seen (p. 33), the height of subjects of which we have only the bones, as is the case of all populations that have preceded us.

It is for this reason that I give the following figures derived from nine series of from five to seventy-two skeletons. The length of the humerus represents from 19.5 (Polynesians) to 20.7 per cent. (Europeans) of the height of the skeleton; that of the radius from 14.3 (Europeans) to 15.7 (Negroes); that of the femur from 26.9 (South Americans) to 27.9 (New Caledonians); lastly, the length of the tibia represents from 21.5 (Esthonians) to 23.8 per cent. (New Caledonians) of the height of the skeleton. Thus the differences are insignificant, and the variations between race and race do not extend beyond the limits of a unit and a half for each of the bones.

The length of the radius in relation to the humerus (= 100) exhibits variations a little more appreciable. It is 72.5 among Europeans, 76 among New Caledonians, 79 among Negroes, 79.7 among Veddahs, 80.6 among Fuegians, 81.7 among Andamanese. Let us note that the fore-arm, relatively to the arm, is much longer in the fœtus in the first stages of development and in early infancy than in the adult;[89] it is shortened in proportion to the height as the fœtus and the infant grow.

Proportions of the Body in the Living Subject.—In spite of the quantity of material accumulated, we have not been able up to the present to make any use of the differences which these proportions exhibit according to race. The reason is that these differences are very trifling. In order to understand this proposition better I will give by way of illustration the proportions which we may consider as nearly normal in a European of average stature (1 m. 65, or 5 ft. 5 ins.). Topinard established thus the principal proportions of the European,[90] assuming the height = 100.

[Pg 92]

The proportions in the different populations of the earth oscillate round these figures without diverging from them more than three units, or five at most. Thus, for example, the proportions of the height of the head vary between 11.4 and 15, according to Rojdestvensky;[91] the proportions of the trunk without the neck from 32.6 to 32.8, according to Topinard, etc.

The length of the thoracic limb scarcely varies more than between 42.6 and 47.6, according to the lists of sixteen and twenty-seven series published by Ivanovsky and Topinard,[92] and according to a third list of twenty-four series that I have drawn up. We can count on the fingers the populations in which the proportion for the hand exceeds the figure 11 with its decimals or sinks below it; it is the same in regard to the foot, of which the figure 15 with its decimals is rarely exceeded or is not reached.[93] The variations of length for the abdominal limb do not extend further than from 45.1 to 49.2 (Topinard), etc.

The thoracic perimeter exceeds half the height in all adult populations of the world, except perhaps some groups[Pg 93] of Georgian Svanes and Jews, or other populations which happen to be in bad hygienic conditions.

Thus proportions of the limbs are not good characters of race. Besides, certain dimensions (length of limbs, of the head) are always dependent on height. Thus individuals and races of high stature have the face and abdominal limb a little more elongated than individuals and races of short stature. On the other hand, individuals and races of short stature have in general the head larger, the trunk shorter, and the thoracic perimeter relatively more considerable than individuals and races of high stature, but the differences are very trifling as a general rule.

Trunk and Limbs of the Living.—To complete our study on the living subject, let us again note some peculiarities. The neck is ordinarily long and thin among Negroes, Ethiopians (Figs. 9 and 138), and on the contrary short among the majority of the American Indians (Figs. 163 and 169); the shoulders are very broad among the women of the latter (Fig. 165), and very narrow among the Chechen and Lesghi women. Usually the long neck is associated with a form of trunk like an inverted pyramid and a high stature, while the short neck surmounts a cylindrical trunk and is associated with a low stature. Ensellure—that is to say, the strongly marked curve of the dorso-lumbo-sacral region—is especially marked among Spanish women whose lumbar incurvation is such, and the movements of the lumbar vertebræ so extensive, that they are able to throw themselves backwards so as even to touch the ground (Duchenne of Boulogne). Ensellure is also more marked among Negroes than among Whites. It must be noted that it may also be merely a consequence of abdominal obesity, pregnancy, or steatopygia.

By the last-mentioned term is designated excessive projection of the buttocks due to the accumulation of subcutaneous fat (Fig. 24); these are physiological fatty tumours proceeding from the hypertrophy of the adipose tissue more or less abundant in these regions among all races, and analogous to the fatty tumours of the cheeks of the orang-utan, which are simply[Pg 94] Bichat’s fatty balls existing among men and among the anthropoids,[94] only excessively developed. As in those tumours, the fat of the steatopygous masses does not even disappear after disease which has emaciated the rest of the body. Steatopygia is characteristic of the Bushman race; it is only met with in all its characters (alteration of form on the lateral and anterior sides of the thighs; persistence even in emaciation, etc.) among populations into the composition of which enters the Bushman element: Hottentots (Fig. 24), Nama, etc. The cases of steatopygia observed among other Wolof or Somali women, for example, are only the exaggeration of adipose deposit among the muscular fibres, as with Europeans, not of the subcutaneous adipose layer. Steatopygia is especially marked in the Bushman woman, in whom it commences to develop only from the age of puberty; but it exists also, though in a less degree, in the male of that race (Fig. 143).

We cannot enlarge on other exterior characters: on the form of the trunk and of the limbs; on the leg with poorly de[Pg 95]veloped calf, and the foot with the prominent heel which is observed among certain Negroes (but not among all); on the more or less diverging big toe which is remarked among the majority of the peoples of India, Indo-China, and the insular world dependent on Asia, from Sumatra to Japan, etc.

Two words, however, on the subject of the pretended existence of races of men with tails. We must relegate to the domain of fable the cases of this kind which are announced from time to time in publications for the popularisation of science so called. The costumes of certain populations have given rise to the fable of men with tails (see frontispiece). Isolated cases of men having as an anomaly a caudal excrescence more or less long, free, or united to the trunk, are known to science, and numbers have been described, but no single serious description has ever been given of populations with tails.[95] Quite recently, again, Lartschneider has demonstrated that the ilio-coccygian and pubio-coccygian muscles in mammifera have lost in man their character of symmetrical and paired skeleton muscles, and are driven back towards the interior of the pelvis as single unpaired muscle plates (fibres of the levator ani). Primitive man has never had a caudal appendage since he acquired the biped attitude; the disappearance of the tail is even one of the indispensable conditions of that attitude.[96]

The different internal or external organs of man afford also some special characters, though not very numerous, for differentiating race.

The muscular system, little known outside white races, has, up to the present, not given any important indication on this point. At the very outside, we can say, thanks to the works of Chudzinsky, Le Double, Macalister, Popovsky, Testut, Turner, etc., and the Committee of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, that certain muscular anomalies are more frequent in the Negro than in the White, and that the muscles[Pg 96] of the face are less differentiated in the former than in the latter.[97] In the splanchnic system some differences have also been observed between the White and the Negro, notably the excessive volume of the liver, the spleen, the suprarenal-capsules, and, in general, the hypertrophy of all the organs of excretion in the latter compared with the former. The venous system appears also to be more developed in the Negro than in the White. Somewhat notable differences must certainly be observable in the structure and general conformation of the organs of the voice and of speech—tongue, larynx, lungs. But our knowledge on this subject is still very imperfect. Attention has been drawn to the feeble development of the anterior fibres of the stylo-glossal muscle of the tongue, the greater development of the Wrisberg cartilage of the larynx with the muscles stronger in the Negro than in the White,[98] but nothing is known about the larynx of other races.

There is nothing, even to the bony parts of the vocal apparatus, which does not undergo ethnic variations. Thus the larger cornua of the hyoid bone are not attached to the body of it in 75 to 95 per cent. of cases observed among the Indians of America, whilst the same anomaly is met with in only 25 to 35 per cent. of cases among Europeans, and only in 30 per cent. among Negroes, which probably harmonises with the differences in the production of sounds in the language of each of these peoples.[99]

The genital organs also present some differences according to race, but rather in the dimensions of the various parts than in their form. The only peculiarity worth notice is the exaggerated development of the labia minora among the Bushman women, known under the name of “apron.” This peculiarity, which appears from infancy, is met with only[Pg 97] among the Bushman race and the people into whose composition enters the Bushman element—Hottentots, Nama, Griqua, etc.[100]

The breasts of women may also present variations of form. Ploss[101] classes them under four heads according to their height, which is inferior, equal, or more or less superior to the diameter of their base; we have thus mammæ like a bowl or the segment of a globe, hemispherical, conical, and pyriform. These forms may be found in combination with a more or less extended and prominent areola, and with a nipple which may be discoidal, hemispherical, digitiform, etc. It is especially among Negresses that we meet with conical and pyriform mammæ, and digitiform nipples, while mammæ shaped like the segment of a sphere predominate among Mongolian and European women of the fair race; women of the south-east of Europe and hither Asia have for the most part hemispherical breasts.

Among the internal organs, the brain, or better, the encephalon, deserves a little more attention. I have already said with regard to cranial capacity (p. 56) that appreciable differences have been observed in the volume of the brain-case according to age, sex, and race. This difference is in harmony with irregularity in the volume and consequently in the weight of the brain. At birth, European boys have 334 grammes of brain on an average, girls 287 grammes. This quantity increases rapidly up to 20 years of age, remains almost stationary between 20 and 40 or 45, then begins to decrease, slowly at first, until 60 years, then more rapidly.

Let me also add that the weight of the encephalon varies enormously according to individuals. Topinard[102] in a series of 519 Europeans, men of the lower and middle classes, found that variations in weight extended from 1025 grammes to 1675[Pg 98] grammes. The average weight of the brain among adult Europeans (20 to 60 years) has been fixed by Topinard, from an examination of 11,000 specimens weighed, at 1361 grammes for man, 1290 grammes for woman. It has been asserted that the other races have a lighter brain, but the fact has not been established by a sufficient number of examples. In reality all that can be put against the 11,000 brain-weighings mentioned above concerning the cerebral weights of non-European races, amounts to nothing, or almost nothing. The fullest series that Topinard[103] has succeeded in making, that of Negroes, comprises only 190 brains; that of Annamese, which comes immediately after, contains only 18 brains. And what do the figures of these series teach us? The first series, dealing with Negroes, gives a mean weight not much different from that of Europeans—1316 grammes for adult males of from 20 to 60 years; and the second, dealing with the Annamese, a mean weight of 1341 grammes, almost identical with that of Europeans. For other populations we have only the weight of isolated brains, or of series of three, four, or at most eleven specimens, absolutely insufficient for any conclusions whatever to be drawn, seeing that individual variations are as great in exotic races as among Europeans, to judge by Negroes (1013 to 1587 grammes) and by Annamese (from 1145 to 1450 grammes). Even in the great series of Europeans, surprises await us in comparing the figures. Thus Peacock found an average of 1388 grammes for the English from a series of 28 brains, whilst Boyd finds 1354 grammes from a series of 425 brains. The difference (34 grammes) is greater here than between the brains of Annamese and Europeans, and hardly less than that which we have just found between Negroes and Europeans (45 grammes). For the French the figures are more in agreement. Broca found from the weights of 167 brains an average of 1359 grammes, and Bischoff[104] from 50 brains an average of 1381 grammes; difference, 22 grammes.

[Pg 99]

Not having at our disposal sufficient data for the weight, let us see if the cranial capacity could not supply them, for we know, since the investigations of Manouvrier,[105] that we have just to multiply by the co-efficient 0.87 the capacity of the cranial cavity to get with reasonable exactitude the weight of the brain which it contained. This is what we learn from the figures of cranial capacity brought together by Topinard,[106] after the necessary corrections, and reduction to cubic measurement by the system of Broca: among Europeans the measurement is 1565 c.c. on an average for men, varying from 1530 c.c. (22 Dutch) to 1601 c.c. (43 Finns). We have in various series the following succession of cranial capacities for the populations of the other parts of the world: the greatest is contained in a series of 26 Eskimo (1583 c.c.), the least that of 36 Australians (1349 c.c.) and of 11 Andamanese (1310 c.c.). Between these two extremes the other populations would be thus arranged in a decreasing order of capacity: 36 Polynesians (1525 c.c.), 18 Javanese (1500 c.c.), 32 Mongols (1504 c.c.), 23 Melanesians (1460 c.c.), 74 Negroes (1441 c.c.), and 17 Dravidians of Southern India (1353 c.c.).

The difference between the highest and lowest of these figures is 255 c.c., a little greater than that which is shown between man and woman in all races. On the other hand, Manouvrier[107] gives the following weights, deduced from cranial capacities: 187 modern Parisians, 1357 grammes; 61 Basques, 1360 grammes; 31 Negroes, 1238 grammes; 23 New Caledonians, 1270 grammes; 110 Polynesians, 1380 grammes; and 50 Bengalis, 1184 grammes; the difference of the two extremes is 196 grammes. Must we then see in these differences the influence of stature and bulk of body, as[Pg 100] appears unquestionable in the sexual difference? We are tempted to believe it when we see that the mean weight of the largest brain in Europe has been found among the Scotch (1417 grammes, an average obtained by Reid and Peacock from 157 brains), whose stature is the highest of the human family, and that the mean weight of the Italians, whose average stature is rather small, is only 1308 grammes (from 244 cases weighed by Calori). The Polynesians and the Caucasians,[108] peoples of high stature, also outweigh the Andamanese and the Javanese, of very low stature. However, we see (from weights and cranial capacity) that Negro populations of very high stature, also Australians and New Caledonians of medium stature, have the cerebral weight much smaller than the Eskimo and certain Asiatics of low stature, like the Javanese.

There is here a double influence, that of stature and that of race. We might have introduced a third element—the weight of the body, but it represents too many different things, and may vary according to the degree of stoutness of the individual, the dietary regimen, etc. C. Voit found, when operating on two dogs of nearly equal bulk, that the weight of the brain of the well-fed dog represented 1.1 per cent. of the weight of its body, whilst the brain of the dog which had fasted for twenty-two days represented 1.7 per cent. of the weight of the body.[109] At all events, we cannot deny the influence of the bulk of the active parts of the body on the volume of the brain.[110] But then a new question arises. Is[Pg 101] the increase of the volume of the brain made at the cost of the white substance formed solely of conducting-fibres, or of the grey substance formed principally of cells with their prolongations (neurons), that is to say, of the part which is exclusively affected by the psychic processes? This question still waits its solution. It is not the gross weight of the brain, but really the weight of the cortical layer which should be compared in the different races and subjects, in order to judge of the quantity of substance devoted to the psychic functions in each particular case.[111] Before the very delicate weighings of this kind are made, we have a round-about method of ascertaining the quantity of that substance by the superficial area which it occupies. The cerebral cortex, composed of the grey substance, forms on the surface of the brain sinuous folds called cerebral convolutions. Now, in brains of equal volume, the greater the surface of the cortex, the more numerous, sinuous, and complicated will be these folds. As the thickness of the grey layer is very much the same in all brains, it is evident that the complexity in the structure of the convolutions corresponds to the increase of the grey substance, and consequently of the psychic force. Now, the little that is known of the cerebral[Pg 102] convolutions in different races, and of various subjects in the same race, appears to conform to this deduction. The brains of idiots, of the weak-minded, present very simple convolutions, almost comparable to those of the anthropoid apes, whose brain is like a simplified diagram of the human brain. On the other hand, distinguished personages, great scholars, orators, men of action, exhibit a complexity, sometimes truly remarkable, of certain convolutions. I say expressly certain convolutions, for all these folds, arranged according to a certain plan, common to all men, have not the same value from the physiological point of view. In the grey layer of certain of them are the centres of motor impulses, and of the general sensibility of the body (for example, those which are arranged around the fissure of Rolando,[Pg 103] Fig. 25, 2, 2), and only regulate the voluntary movements of the limbs, the trunk and the head; others are connected with different forms of sensibility—visual (Fig. 25, 4), auditory (Fig. 25, 6), gustatory, olfactory, etc. But there are, between the different motor or sensorial regions (centres of projection) which take nearly a third of the grey substance of the brain, a great many more convolutions the grey substance of which is connected with no special function (white spots in Fig. 25). What is their purpose? Basing his opinion on the tardy myelinisation[112] of the nerve-fibres which terminate in it, subsequent to the birth of the individual and to the myelinisation of the fibres of the sensory and motor centres, Flechsig[113] supposes that these convolutions were designed to enable the different cerebral centres to communicate with each other and to render us conscious of this communication; therefore he has named their grey substance “centres of association” (Fig. 25, 1, 3, 5). Without the convolutions, the other centres would remain isolated and condemned to a very restricted activity. Now, as the eminent anatomist Turner[114] has shown so clearly, it is found that the convolutions of the sensory and motor centres do not present any great differences in the brain of a child, a monkey, a Bushman, or of a European man of science, like Gauss; what differentiates these brains is the degree of complexity of the convolutions concerned with association. There, then, is the part of the brain which we want to utilise for the purpose of comparison, reduced by almost a third. But let us suppose that differences of volume and weight are found in these two-thirds of the grey substance. Have we more reason to think that we are approaching the solution of the problem?

[Pg 104]

It is believed that certain cells of the grey substance only, the great and the little pyramidal-shaped cells, are associated with the psychical functions, and that each of these, forming with its axis-cylinder, dendrons and other branching prolongations what is called a neuron, is not in constant connection with, and does not occupy a fixed position once for all in regard to, other similar neurons, but may by means of its prolongations place itself alternately in contact with a great number of these.[115] Hence the complexity of the nervous currents resulting from these continual changes of contact. Thus the cerebral activity might not merely be measured by the quantity and the size of the cells of the grey substance, but also by the number and the variety of the habitual contacts which are probably established after an education, a training of the cells. As from the same number of keys of a piano the tyro can produce only a few dissimilar sounds, while an artist elicits varied melodies, so from cerebral cells practically equal in number a savage is only able to extract vague and rudimentary ideas, while a thinker brings out of them intellectual treasures. How far are we, then, from the true appreciation of cerebral work with our rude weighings of an organ in which, with one part that would assuredly help us to the solution of the problem, we weigh at least three other parts having nothing or almost nothing to do with it! And even if we succeeded in finding the number, the weight, and the volume of the neurons, how are we to estimate the innumerable combinations of which they are capable? The problem appears almost insoluble. However, in science we must never lose hope, and—who knows?—perhaps some day the solution of the question will be found, and it will then appear as simple as to-day it appears a matter of course to see through the body with radioscopical apparatus.

[Pg 105]

2.—PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.

Functions of nutrition and assimilation: Digestion, alimentation, growth, temperature of the body, etc.—Respiration and circulation: Pulse, composition of the blood, etc.—Special odour—Functions of communication: Expression of the emotions, acuteness of the senses, etc.—Functions of reproduction: Menstruation, menopause, increase in the number of conceptions according to season, etc.—Influence of environment: Acclimatation—Cosmopolitanism of the genus Homo and the races of mankind—Cross-breeding.

3.—PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.

Difficulties of studying them—Immunities—Nervous diseases of uncivilised peoples.

THE differences observable in the fulfilment of the organic functions—nutrition, respiration, circulation of the blood, reproduction, etc.—according to race are unquestionable; but they are still too little studied for us to be able to speak with as much certainty of them as of morphological differences. Further, these functions exhibit so many individual variations that it will always be difficult to rely on averages; besides, the latter present as far as we know a great uniformity.

The functions of nutrition and assimilation scarcely present any varieties according to race. Indigent populations living from hand to mouth by hunting, fishing, the gathering of fruit, etc., exposed to the alternations of famine and plenty, surprise us by their faculty of absorbing a great quantity of food; thus the Eskimo and the Fuegians feed for several days running on a stranded whale. The tendency to obesity is[Pg 106] observed in certain races more than in others; very frequent among the Kirghiz, it is rare among their neighbours the Kalmuks, etc. The early obesity of Jewish women, which is besides artificially fostered in Africa and in the East, is also to be noted. Growth in different races would prove of some interest, but investigations into this subject have been made only in Europe and America.[116] Great difficulties stand in the way of these inquiries among uncivilised peoples, as it is almost impossible to ascertain the exact age of individuals. In a general way stature and weight increase with age somewhat irregularly, and as if by fits and starts; almost always a period of rapid growth in height succeeds a period of calm, during which the dimensions of the body increase in width (shoulders, pelvis, etc.). It has also been remarked that growth in height is especially rapid from the month of April to July and August, that it diminishes from November to March; and that, lastly, weight increases especially from August-September to the end of November. Sexual differences make themselves felt from birth. We have already seen (p. 26) that at birth the stature of boys exceeds that of girls by a figure which varies from two to eight millimetres (.08 to .32 of an inch), let us say of half a centimetre (less than the quarter of an inch) on an average. During the first year stature increases very rapidly: the child a year old is one and a half times as tall as at birth. The increase is less rapid until the fourth year, when the height is double what it was at birth. From the fourth year the growth is a little slower till the age of puberty, when there is a fresh start, and when the sexual differences are especially marked; girls grow more rapidly than boys between ten and fifteen years of age, but after fifteen boys take the lead and grow at first quickly, then slowly till their twenty-third year, at which age they have almost attained[Pg 107] the limit of their stature; while women seem to stop growing at twenty.

The size of most of the organs increases pretty regularly; the heart in girls at the age of puberty and the brain in the two sexes are the only exceptions to this rule. The weight of the brain is 2 1⁄2 times greater at one year than at birth, 3 1⁄3 at five years, 3.7 at ten, and 3.9 at fifteen; later its growth diminishes, to reach its maximum before the age of twenty, 4 times its initial weight, and to decline slightly after forty or forty-five years.

At birth the brain represents 12.4 per cent. of the total weight of the body, at a year old 10.9 per cent., at five 8.4, at fifteen 3.8, and at twenty-five 2.3 per cent. only.[117] Unfortunately we have hardly any parallel observations on non-European populations. The only observations of this kind based on a sufficient number of subjects (several thousands) relate to the Japanese. According to Baelz, the stature of the Japanese increases after the age of puberty only 8 per cent., whilst it increases 13 per cent. among Europeans. On the other hand, Drs. Hamada and Sasaki say that growth diminishes greatly among Japanese men from sixteen or eighteen, and is found to be completely arrested at the age of twenty-two.[118] There is abundance of evidence that Negroes, Melanesians, and Malays attain their maximum height between eighteen and twenty-one. Dietary regimen and comfortable circumstances have a great influence on growth, as I have already said when speaking of stature (p. 31).

The activity of transformations in the system certainly presents differences according to climate, but not according to race. Thus the alimentary supply is conditioned solely by the heat required.[119] The temperature of the body hardly varies two[Pg 108] or three tenths of a degree, for instance, among two peoples so different as regards type and mode of life as the French of the north and the Fuegians. In fact, the temperature taken in the mouth is from 37.1° to 37.2° C. among the former and 37.4° among the latter.[120] Besides, among Europeans the individual variations range between 37.1° and 37.5° C. Among Negroes the temperature appears to be, on the contrary, a little lower than that of Europeans.

Let us pass on to the respiratory functions. The vital capacity or the quantity of air in the expanded lungs, which is 3.7 cubic metres among the English according to Hutchinson, and from 3 to 4 cubic metres among Europeans in general, falls to 3 metres among the Whites and the Indians of the United States (Gould), and even to 2.7 among the Negroes of this latter country. The difference is very trifling; however, it has to be taken into consideration, seeing that among Europeans persons of high stature have an absolute capacity superior to that of people of low stature. Frequency of respiration seems to be greater among uncivilised peoples than with Europeans (14 to 18 respirations per minute); it is from 16 to 20 respirations among the Fuegians, 18 to 20 among the Mongol-Torgootes, 19 among the Kirghiz, and 18 among the Afghans.[121]

For the circulation of the blood here are a few scattered data. The pulse is the same among the Fuegians (72 beats per second) and the Tarantchi of Chinese Turkestan (72.9 beats) as among Europeans (71 to 72); it is a little faster among the Whites and the Negroes of the United States (74.8 and 74 beats), and much faster among the Indians of America and the Mulattos (76.3 and 77 beats), among the Torgootes[Pg 109] (76.6), and among the Kirghiz (77.7). The number of red globules in the blood varies but little according to race: Europeans have on an average five millions of them to the cubic millimetre, Hindus and Negroes seem to have half a million less, and the Fuegians half a million more.[122] But these differences are insignificant when we think that the number of these elements of the blood may vary by a million in the same subject according to the state of his health, nutrition, etc.

Certain travellers (Erman, Huc) have asserted that they could recognise a population by its odour. Without going so far as this, it must be admitted that some ethnic groups and, more particularly, the Negroes and the Chinese have their specific odour, which gets fainter with scrupulous cleanliness, but, it is said, never disappears. In the case of the Negro this odour is due especially to the abundance of the secretion of his very voluminous and numerous sebaceous glands. It was on this property that the planters relied for putting their dogs on the scent of the fugitive Negro. The Blacks themselves are perfectly aware of it, it appears, and those of the West Indies have even framed this proverb—

The odour of musk exhaled by the Chinese is attested by a great amount of evidence; that of the Australians and New Caledonians appears to be also duly reported. We must not confound these odours sui generis with those which certain peoples contract from the food they eat, as, for instance, the odour of garlic among the populations of Southern Europe and the Jews.[123]

With regard to muscular force, the data furnished by the[Pg 110] dynamometer are deceptive, and cannot teach us anything; besides, the individual differences are enormous.

Functions of Relation.—A whole chapter could be written on the muscles and gestures serving for the expression of the emotions, and on their differences according to race.[124] Let us content ourselves with a single example connected with astonishment and surprise. These feelings are expressed almost everywhere by the raising of the eyebrows and the opening of the mouth; several peoples (Eskimo, Tlinkits, Andamanese, Indians of Brazil) accompany this play of feature by a slap on the hips; the Ainus and the Shin-Wans of Formosa give themselves a light tap on the nose or the mouth, whilst the Thibetans pinch their cheek. The Negro Bantus have the habit of moving the hand before the mouth as a sign of astonishment, and the Australians, as well as the western Negroes, protrude their lips as if to whistle (Fig. 141). In a general way the play of physiognomy is more complicated the more the people is civilised. Certain peoples execute movements of facial muscles difficult to imitate, such as the protrusion of the upper lip alone, which the Malays execute with the same facility and grace as a chimpanzee (Hagen). I shall speak in Chapter IV. of conventional gestures. The attitudes of the body in repose also vary with the different peoples: the kneeling attitude is common to Negroes (Figs. 135 and 142); the squatting position is frequently used by them and the peoples of the East, and also by the Americans; the upright position on one foot, the other being bent and the sole supported on the knee of the former, is met with as well in Oceania as among the Bejas, Negroes, etc.[125]

The acuteness of the senses is superior to ours among uncultured and half-civilised peoples. The Andamanese can discover certain fruits in the forests a long way off, being guided solely by the sense of smell. Taking as a unit the normal visual[Pg 111] acuteness calculated according to the formula of Snellen, we shall have the following figures for different populations:—1.1 for the Germans; 1.4 for the Russians; 1.6 for the Georgians; 2.7 for the Ossetes and Kalmuks; 3 for the Nubian Bejas; and 5 for the Indians of the Andes. It is in a Kalmuk that the individual maximum of visual acuteness (6.7) has been noted.[126] An interesting fact has been observed by Dr. Herzenstein from the study of 39,805 Russian soldiers, viz., that visual acuteness is greater as the pigment of the iris and the hair is more developed. In fact, we only find among the fair-haired 72.4 per cent. of individuals whose visual acuteness is stronger than the normal, and 2.7 per cent. whose acuteness is weaker, whilst among the dark-haired the corresponding figures are 84.1 and 1.7; they see then, other things being equal, better than the fair-haired.[127]

The functions of reproduction are so difficult to study, even among civilised peoples, that it is almost impossible to say anything positive about them when dealing with savage peoples. Thus, for example, we can scarcely draw up an exact table of the first appearance of menstruation. This period varies from the age of ten (Negresses of Sierra Leone) to that of eighteen (Lapps). The influence of climate is unquestionable; authors as competent as Tilt in England, Krieger in Germany, Dubois and Pajot in France, are agreed on this point. They state that the first indication of the period of puberty appears between eleven and fourteen in warm countries, between thirteen and sixteen in temperate countries, and between fifteen and eighteen in cold countries. But they are also obliged to admit the influence of other factors—race, occupation, dietary regimen, etc. Thus in Austria, with the same climate and in the same social conditions, Jewish girls menstruate at fourteen to fifteen, Hungarian girls at fifteen to sixteen, and Slovak girls at fourteen to sixteen (Joachim); on the other hand, it is known that[Pg 112] dwelling in a town, indolent life, premature sexual excitations, accelerate the appearance of the menses. Alimentation has also its share of influence in the matter. Thus among the badly-fed girls of the despised caste of Illuvar (Southern India) their periods appear at about sixteen, while the girls of India in general menstruate at eleven, twelve, or thirteen.[128] It must not be thought that in all countries the appearance of the menses is also indicative of the period when sexual relations begin. Among the majority of the peoples of India, among the Turks, the Mongols, the Persians, among the Polynesians, the Malays, and the Negroes, young girls enter into sexual relations much before the appearance of the menses—at eleven, ten, and even nine years of age. The time when marriage takes place is also not an indication; it is a matter of social convention, among the savage as among the half-civilised. Thus among the Mongol Torgootes girls begin to have sexual relations at fourteen on an average, and marry at eighteen; for boys the corresponding figures are fourteen and a half and nineteen (Ivanovsky).

The time of the appearance of the critical age is subject to so many fluctuations that even for European populations it is scarcely possible to establish averages, but most of the figures oscillate around the ages of forty-five to fifty. It is known that in woman ovulation goes on regularly throughout the year without those accelerations or exasperations of the genesic functions in certain seasons which are observed among animals in heat. In this respect the human female differs totally from wild animals (except the apes, among whom menstruation has been noted), and approximates closely to the female of domestic animals. And yet certain facts seem to indicate that it has not always been so. These facts have reference to the greater frequency of conceptions during certain periods of the year.

The Swedish physician Wargentin was the first to point out in 1767 this frequency in his own country. Since then, several statisticians, doctors, and naturalists have confirmed it:[Pg 113] Quetelet for Belgium and Holland (maximum of births in February, the maximum of conceptions in May); Wappæus for Central Europe (two maxima of conception, in winter, and at the end of spring or the beginning of summer); Villermé (same periods) for different countries, including those of the southern hemisphere; Sormani for Italy (conceptions in July); Mayr for Germany (conceptions in December); Beukemann for the different provinces of the German empire (maximum of conceptions in December in the north, in spring in the south); Hill for India (maximum of conceptions, December-January); lastly, different authors for Russia (maximum of conceptions in winter).

The explanations which have been put forward up to the present of this phenomenon are of different kinds. According to certain authors, the maxima observed in many countries in the spring are owing to the fact of there being in this season “plenty of everything,” better nourishment, in short, something which compels the genesic instinct of man, like that of most animals, to participate in the “awakening of nature.” To this it is replied by other observers that in certain countries the maxima are reported in the winter months, that is to say in the season when the temperature and the relative absence of the good things of life do not seem to be a priori favourable to generation; these scientists look for the cause in the social organisation. They notice that in countries of the north it is in the month of December that, after having finished their work in the fields, the inhabitants give themselves up to festivities and rejoicings, and that it is in this month the greatest number of unions are contracted; on the other hand, in the south the most popular festivals are those of the spring at the awakening of nature. Others, again, assert that these differences are owing as much to religion as to latitude.

All these explanations are somewhat unscientific, and have never been verified by figures or experience. According to Rosenstadt,[129] cosmic and social influences do not count at[Pg 114] all in the question, for often the periods during which recrudescence of conceptions occurs are the same for countries differing entirely in climate, religion, and manners (Italy, Russia, Sweden). These influences may, at the most, create conditions favourable to the bringing about of the phenomenon, may prepare the ground for it. But as to the phenomenon itself it would be, according to Rosenstadt, merely the remains in man of his animal nature, a “physiological custom” inherited from the animals, his ancestors.

Primitive man would inherit from his ancestors the habit of procreating by preference at particular times. On the arrival of this period of sexual excitement fecundations would take place wholesale. With the development of civilisation man has sexual relations all the year round, but the “physiological custom” of procreating at a certain period does not entirely disappear; it remains as a survival of the animal state, and manifests itself in the recrudescence of the number of conceptions during certain months of the year. This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that among certain savage tribes copulation seems to take place at certain periods of the year; for example, among the Australians at the time of the yam harvest (see Chap. VII., Marriage, etc.).[130]

It is perhaps as a survival of these habits that we must regard the annual festivals followed by wholesale marriages among the Sonthals, and the wholesale marriages still practised to-day in Brittany on the eve of Lent. Thus in the little market-town of Plougastel-Daoulas (Finistère), containing only 7000 inhabitants, thirty-four marriages were celebrated at once on the 5th of February 1896, and the preceding year, before Lent, forty-eight couples had been united on the same day in this locality.[131] The famous “Bharzwad Jang,” or “Marriage of the Shepherds,” a ceremony practised by certain tribes (Mer, Shir, Rabai) of Western Kathiawar (India), is also perhaps a survival of this custom. It consists in the[Pg 115] celebration of marriage on the same day, but at stated intervals (of about twenty-four years), of all the bachelors of the tribe. At the last ceremony of this kind, which took place from the 28th of April to the 3rd of May 1895, 775 couples were thus married at once.[132]

The question of the fertility of women in different populations is one of great interest as regards the future of these populations, but it is scarcely more than outlined yet. If we know in a general way that the birth-rate is very low in France and somewhat low in the non-immigrant part of the population of the United States, that it is very high in Russia and among the Jews, etc., we know almost nothing about the subject in connection with uncivilised peoples; in their case, as in our own, we must take into account the different elements of the problem—social conditions, voluntary limitation (Australians), infanticide (Polynesia), etc.

Influence of Environment.—I can scarcely treat here as fully as I could wish such interesting questions as the influence of external circumstance, of acclimatation and crossings or hybridisation, inasmuch as they are still very little and imperfectly studied. The direct influence of environment has rarely been observed with all the scientific exactness to be wished. Ordinarily we have to rest satisfied with phrases which do not mean a great deal.[133] Even the influence of con[Pg 116]ditions so abnormal as the complete absence of light and solar heat, those sources of everything living, during several months, has only been observed incidentally. Nossiloff,[134] however, has noted day by day the influence of the polar night on an ordinary population (not hardened and picked, like the crews of polar expeditions) and proved its depressing action, manifesting itself in general apathy of body and mind, in a tendency to drowsiness, and in diminution of the height and the thoracic perimeter; this action is especially noticeable in children, who visibly pine away during this period. Unfortunately the observations of Nossiloff are limited to a small number of subjects.

It is more than probable that all the modifications which the organism undergoes as a result of the influence of environment are mostly of a chemical nature, and have only a remote effect on the human frame. According to W. Kochs,[135] the whole question of acclimatation in tropical countries resolves itself into the quantity of water in the organism. He bases his deductions principally on the difference found to exist in the quantity of water contained in the flesh of oxen of the Argentine Republic in comparison with that[Pg 117] found among cattle of Northern Germany. The former have from 80 to 83 per cent. of water, while the latter have from 72 to 75 per cent. only. If it is the same with man, as Kochs supposes, he would have from 7 to 8 per cent. less solid matter to burn in his body in the tropics than in temperate countries, and the vital energy would be affected accordingly. Thus only the organism that had acquired the quantity of water necessary for supporting the heat of the tropics would be acclimatised; this is so true that Whites acclimatised in tropical countries suffer more from the cold in Europe than their compatriots who have never left Europe.[136] Besides, the Negroes of Senegal begin to suffer from cold when the thermometer falls below 20° C. (68° Fahr.), whilst the Fuegians who are not more warmly clad bear very well the cold of 0° to -4° C. (32° to 25° Fahr.).

Taken as a whole, the genus Homo is cosmopolitan. In fact, man inhabits the whole earth from the icy regions of Greenland (in the neighbourhood of the eightieth degree of N. latitude) to the torrid zone which stretches between the tropic of Cancer and the Equator. He is found in countries situated at 75 or 200 metres below the level of the sea (Caspian depression, depression of Louktchin in Eastern Turkestan), as well as on table-lands at an elevation of more than 5000 metres (Thibet). But if we consider the numerous sub-divisions of the genus Homo which are called species, sub-species, or races, the question of cosmopolitanism becomes more complicated as at the same time the positive data for its solution are less numerous.

Apart from the European and Negro races, peoples have never changed their habitat abruptly—have not transported themselves in a body into climates very different from their native country, though slow migrations, advancing from place to neighbouring place, have been numerous at all times and among all peoples; these have been followed by acclimatation, the sole criterion of cosmopolitanism. It must also be remarked that civilised peoples withstand better than[Pg 118] savages changes of every kind. In this respect the former bear a stronger resemblance than the latter to domestic animals, which rarely become sterile outside of their native country. According to Darwin,[137] this results from the fact that civilised peoples, as well as domestic animals, have been subjected in the course of their evolution to more numerous variations, more frequent changes of place, and also more important crossings.

The question whether each race of mankind can live and reproduce itself—that is to say, become acclimatised—on any point of the globe will, evidently, only be resolved when attempts of this kind are undertaken by each race and pursued during several generations. Now there are no exact data on this subject except for the so-called white race and in some measure for Negroes. Without reckoning cosmopolitan peoples like the Jews and the Gypsies, it is certain that the majority of European peoples can as a race get acclimatised in the most diverse regions, in Canada (English and French) as in Brazil (Portuguese and Germans), Mexico (Spaniards), Australia (English), Southern Africa (Dutch Boers). The assumed failures of acclimatation are connected with countries where there has never been any European colonisation (India, Java), and where it is known that there are isolated cases of the collective acclimatation of several families.

According to Clements Markham and Elisée Reclus, the Englishman not only as an individual but as a race is able to live in the Cisgangetic peninsula.[138] Many generations of Englishmen have flourished in various parts of India. Numerous examples could be cited of children being acclimatised without detriment to their strength or health. According to Francis Galton, the mortality in 1877 of European soldiers in India (12.7 per 1000) was less than that of native soldiers (13.4) and Hindus in general (35). In the Dutch Indies the Dutch have kept themselves in good health for several genera[Pg 119]tions.[139] We must leave out of the question certain unhealthy regions (like Lower Senegal) where the natives suffer almost as much as Europeans. On the whole, the so-called white race appears to have the aptitude of acclimatation in all countries, provided, of course, that it makes the necessary sacrifices for several generations.

If it be said of certain regions that they are not colonisable by Europeans, it is thereby implied that the sacrifices entailed by acclimatation are out of all proportion to the advantages to be gained by colonisation. As to Negroes, they thrive in temperate countries like the United States, where they multiply at the same rate as the Whites. By a strange anomaly they do not seem to thrive as well in Mexico, in the Antilles, and in Guiana—that is to say in the same isothermal zone (26°–28° C., or 70°–82° Fahr.) as their native country; nevertheless they live and reproduce there.

Upon the whole, if we consider (1) that the most mixed and most civilised races are those which are soonest acclimatised, (2) that the tendency of races to intermingle, and of civilisation to develop, goes on increasing every day in every part of the world, we may affirm without being accused of exaggeration that the cosmopolitanism of mankind, if it does not yet exist to-day in all races (which seems somewhat improbable), will develop as a necessary consequence of the facility of acclimatation. For it to become general is only a matter of time.

As to the fertility of acclimatised families, it has been established outside of hybridisation. Thus it has been possible to trace back certain English families in the Barbadoes for six generations.[140] As much may be said of the French in the islands of Mauritius and Réunion. In the Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul, between 25°–30° S. latitude—that is, in a sub-tropical region—it has been ascertained that there are three or four generations of German colonists,[Pg 120] whose children enjoy very good health.[141] Lastly, in Matabeleland there are already two or three generations of Dutch.[142] It must be said that certain European races are more capable than others of becoming acclimatised in tropical countries. Thus it is universally acknowledged that people of the south of Europe—Spaniards, Italians, Provençals—become sooner acclimatised in Africa and equatorial America than the English and the Germans of the north.

But in spite of the facility of acclimatation, race-characters hardly seem to change in the new environment; the chemical constituents of the tissues having changed, the body adapts itself without change either in outward form or even colour.

The German colonists of Brazil and the Steppes of the Volga bear a perfect resemblance to each other after more than a century of separation from their race-brothers of Swabia or Franconia. It is the same after two or three centuries with the English of the Barbadoes, the French of Réunion, the Dutch of the Transvaal, etc.

The phenomena of hybridity are even less studied than those of the influence of environment; I shall speak of some of these in regard to different populations, but the facts are too isolated and disputed for any general conclusions to be drawn.

In reality, all that we know is that a great number of races produce half-breeds by crossing, but whether these half-breeds in so crossing produce a new race or revert to one of the ancestral types has not been demonstrated. Humanity appears to move in a confused medley of the most diverse and composite forms, without any one of them being able to persist; for the means of persistence, artificial selection or sexual selection, are wanting. The only selection which may have a decided influence on the predominance of the characters of a race in its interminglings is that which proceeds from the number of individuals of each of the races concerned in[Pg 121] the blending and their respective fecundity, but this selection has hardly begun to be studied.

It remains to speak of psychological characters—that is to say, of temperament and the different manifestations of mind, feeling, and affections. But it must be admitted that it is almost impossible to treat these in the face of many contradictory facts. Speaking generally, it may be said that the American and Mongoloid races are grave, meditative, a little obtuse, melancholic; and that, on the contrary, the Negro races and Melanesians are playful, laughing, lively, and superficial as children. But there are many exceptions to such general rules. Each traveller, each observer, tends to judge in his own way a given people according to the nature of the relations (pacific, hostile, etc.) which he has had with it. We are unable to affirm anything when we have once made up our minds to escape from the commonplace generalities that savages are wanting in foresight and general ideas, that they are cruel, that their imitative faculties are highly developed, etc.

Pathological characters are better known, as for example, in regard to immunities. It is a proved fact that Negroes, for instance, are proof against the contagion of yellow fever; that they resist much better than Europeans the terrible intermittent fevers which prevail on the coasts of Africa. But if savage peoples enjoy certain immunities, they are, on the contrary, very susceptible to the infectious diseases which civilised peoples introduce among them; whole tribes have been exterminated by syphilis, measles, and consumption in South America, Polynesia, and Siberia.[143] There are also diseases peculiar to certain populations, such, for example, as the sleeping sickness among the Wolofs and Songhaï, which manifests itself in an invincible tendency to sleep.[144] It has[Pg 122] long been asserted that savage peoples are not afflicted by nervous and mental diseases. Nothing of the kind. The genuine “great hysteria” of Charcot has been observed among Negresses of Senegal, among Hottentot women and Kafirs, as well as in Abyssinia and Madagascar.[145] Other nervous diseases have been noticed among Hurons and Iroquois,[146] and in New Zealand. Some forms of neurosis appear to be limited to certain ethnic groups. Such is the “Amok” of the Malays—a sort of furious and imitative madness perhaps provoked at the same time by suggestion. Developed especially among the Malays, it is also met with among the Indians of North America, where it has been called “jumping” by the Whites. The “Myriachit” of the Ostiaks and other natives of Siberia, the “Malimali” of the Tagals of the Philippines, the “Bakchis” of the Siamese, are similar diseases. Under the name of “Latah” are designated among the Malays all sorts of nervous diseases, but more particularly the imitative madness which impels women to undress before men, to throw children up in the air in imitation of a game of ball, etc. Besides, the name Latah is also given to a mental state in which the patient is afraid of certain words (tiger, crocodile), and which is met with somewhat frequently not only among the Malays, but also among the Tagals and the Sikhs of India.[147]

[Pg 123]

Various stages of social groups and essential characters of human societies: Progress.—Conditions of Progress: Innovating initiative, and tradition—Classification of “states of civilisation.”

I.—LINGUISTIC CHARACTERS.

Methods of exchanging ideas within a short distance—Gesture and speech—Divisions of language according to structure—Jargons—Communications at a relatively remote distance: optic and acoustic signals—Transmission of ideas at any distance and time whatever—Handwriting—Mnemotechnic objects—Pictography—Ideography—Alphabets—Direction of the lines of handwriting.

SO far we have considered man as an isolated being, apart from the groupings which he forms with his fellows. But in order to get a correct idea of the sum-total of the manifestations of his physical life, and especially of his psychical life, we must further consider him in his social environment.

Nowhere on the earth has there been found a race of men the members of which lived completely alone and isolated as the majority of animals are seen to do. It is in fact but very rarely that the latter combine into societies; they form a family group only temporarily during the period of raising the young, etc. Man, on the contrary, becomes almost helpless apart from society, incapable of maintaining the struggle for existence without the help of his fellow-men. The development of all the manifestations of “sociality” is then the measure of progress of human societies. The more man[Pg 124] is “socialised,” if I may thus express it, the less he depends on nature.

This dependence on nature has long served as a criterion in ethnography for dividing peoples into two groups—the “civilised” and the “savage.” The name given by the Germans to “savages,” Naturvölker (peoples in a state of nature), explains sufficiently this way of looking at things. According to their greater or less dependence on nature, peoples were divided into hunters, shepherds or nomads, and tillers of the soil or settlers, without, however, characterising in a very precise way each of these states. Morgan was the first to bring a little definiteness into this nomenclature, and at the same time he has shown the necessity of introducing another criterion into the estimate of states of civilisation. In fact, to establish the three forms of socialisation—savage, barbarous, and civilised—he has accepted as a distinctive mark between the second and the third the existence of handwriting—that is to say, of the material means used by the two forces necessary to the inception and maintenance of progress: innovating initiative, and conservation of what has been acquired.[148] He has not made as much of this classification as, in my opinion, he might have done. In fact, the ethnic groups of the earth only differ among themselves from the social point of view by the degree of culture—its essence being always and everywhere the same: pursuit of more and more easy means of satisfying wants and desires. Now, if the form assumed by this species of activity, in a word, if production, subject to the influence of climate, geographical position, etc., is the basis of all social development, as Grosse has so well shown,[149] the nature and evolution of the needs and desires themselves depend up to a certain point on the “temperament” of the[Pg 125] race, which must likewise be taken into consideration. The nature and amount of psychic force in any given society, the evolution of which is effected by its mode of production, may in its turn, having attained a certain degree of development, re-act on the economic state, and modify it. We see nothing like this in the animal communities. Bees and ants arrange their hives and manage the affairs of their community to-day as they did a thousand insect-generations ago. It is very probable that race has something to do with psychic force, but up to the present time the fact has not been scientifically demonstrated. However that may be, in order to form a correct opinion as to the degree of civilisation of any people, we should have to take into consideration not only its material culture, but also its état d’âme, its psychology, to realise the psychical resources which it has at its command. Thus certain peoples (Australians, Bushmen), though at the bottom of the scale as regards material culture, are nevertheless well endowed from the artistic point of view; in the same way the Polynesians of a hundred years ago, who were inferior in knowledge of pottery and metallurgy to the Negroes, were superior to them in general intelligence and the richness of their mythology.

But progress is only possible if, side by side with individual power of initiating change, there exists in the social aggregate what may be called the power of conservation. There may be produced among savage peoples, as Ratzel[150] has so well pointed out, persons of exceptional natural talent, men of genius; but the activity of these will almost always be sterile. Even if they succeed in ameliorating the material condition, in raising the moral or intellectual level of the members of their tribe or of their class, the result of their activity has only an ephemeral existence, their efforts are not continued, and after their death, for want of the conservative power, everything falls back into the primitive condition. The secret of civilisation lies not so much in efforts of isolated individuals as in accumulation of these efforts, in the transmission from one generation to[Pg 126] another of the acquired result, of a sum-total of knowledge which enables each generation to go further without beginning everything over again ab ovo. In this way progress is unlimited by the very conditions of its origin, and civilisation is only the sum of all the acquisitions of the human mind at any given period.

The conservative and transmittive power become really established in a society only when the means of communicating thought are sufficiently developed, when language has taken a definite form, and an easy method is devised of fixing it by conventional signs more or less indelible and transmissible to future generations. Thus, to estimate different states of civilisation we must have recourse to linguistic characters, understanding by such everything which concerns the means of communicating ideas in time and space—that is to say, spoken or mimetic language and its graphic representation. But before passing rapidly in review the linguistic characters, I owe the reader a few words of explanation of the terms which I am about to use in designating “states of civilisation.”

In these latter days a classification of these states nearly in accordance with the desiderata which were formulated at the beginning of this chapter has been proposed by Vierkandt.[151] This classification takes material culture into account, but the primordial division which is adopted in it, between peoples in a state of nature (or better, uncivilised) and civilised peoples, is based on the development of certain psychical traits denoting a greater or less development of individuality, of the spirit of free investigation, etc. Savage peoples, without any true civilisation, are divided in this classification into semi-civilised and uncivilised properly so-called, with sub-divisions into nomads and tillers of the soil for the former, and hunters and wanderers for the latter.

Admitting the criterion of the existence or non-existence of writing and the relative value of the two elements of progress[Pg 127] mentioned above, I arrive at a classification of “states of civilisation” which recalls somewhat that of Vierkandt, but which differs from it on several points. It may be summarised as follows:—

(1) Savage peoples, progressing exceedingly slowly, without writing, sometimes possessing a pictographic method; living in little groups of some hundreds or thousands of individuals. They are divided into two categories: hunters[152] (examples: Bushmen, Australians, Fuegians) and tillers of the soil (examples: Indians of North America, Melanesians, the majority of Negroes).

(2) Semi-civilised peoples, making an appreciable but slow progress, in which the conservative power predominates, forming authoritative societies or states of several thousands or millions of individuals; having an ideographic or phonetic writing, but a rudimentary literature. They are divided likewise into two categories: tillers of the soil (examples: Chinese, Siamese, Abyssinians, Malays, Ancient Egyptians, and Peruvians) and nomads (examples: Mongols, Arabs).

(3) Civilised peoples, making rapid progress, in which the initiating and innovating power predominates, forming states based on individual liberty, and consisting of several millions of individuals; having a phonetic writing and a developed literature. Their economic state is especially characterised by industrialism and cosmopolitan commercialism (examples: the majority of the peoples of Europe and North America).

Having said this much, we shall begin the study of ethnic characters with those which we may consider the indispensable condition of all associability, that is to say the linguistic characters.

Without pursuing the inquiry whether language is born of inarticulate cries, of onomatopæias or otherwise, whether it has a single or a multiple origin, we may content ourselves[Pg 128] with stating the fact, that language does not constitute the only means by which men may understand each other and communicate ideas. There are several others. They may be arranged in three groups:—means of communicating near at hand: gestures and words; means of communicating at a relatively remote distance: various signals; means of communicating at any distance and time whatever: writing.

Gestures.—Many gestures are natural and common to all men. All who have had to ask for anything to eat or drink in a foreign country without knowing the language, must have appreciated this means of international communication. However, the same gestures do not always and everywhere signify the same thing. Let us take, for example, the simplest ideas, negation and affirmation. In Central and Northern Europe these ideas are expressed, as every one knows, by a bending of the head forward and by lateral movements of the head. But there are few exotic peoples (Andamanese, Ainus, certain Hindus) who make use of the same gestures. Most of them, on the contrary, affirm by shaking the head laterally (Arabs, Botocudos, certain Negroes) and deny by raising it; most frequently this latter gesture is accompanied by an uplifting of the eyebrows (Abyssinians) or a particular smacking of the tongue (Syro-Arabs, Naya-Kurumbas, etc.). The natives of the Admiralty Islands express negation by a tap on the nose.[153] In Italy and generally in Mediterranean Europe, the signs of negation, with many other feelings besides, are expressed by gestures of the hands; thus to say “no,” the hand is moved sharply before the breast, the fingers being closed except the forefinger, which is held up vertically. Perhaps the practice of carrying burdens on the head, thus preventing the movements of this part of the body, has had something to do with the abundant development of gestures with the arms by which the European of the south may be recognised. An almost analogous sign, but consisting in a slow movement outward and downward, signifies “yes” among the Indians of North America. These last have pushed to the utmost limits the use of the language[Pg 129] of gesture. G. Mallery has collected the treasures of this language, which is being lost to-day, and has drawn up a vocabulary of it.[154] At the period when this language flourished, the Indians were able to express by gestures not only common and proper nouns, but also verbs, pronouns, particles, etc.; they made elaborate speeches by combining the gestures of the body, the head, and the arms. They introduced abbreviations exactly as that is done in pictographic writing. Here is an example of how a Dakota Indian (Fig. 26) says by means of gestures, I am going home: he brings his hand with the forefinger stretched out towards his breast (I), then extends it forward and outward as high as the shoulder (am going), and, closing the fist, he lets it drop abruptly (home). It is supposed that extreme diversity of dialects has been the chief cause of the development of this strange sign-language; it would serve as a bond between tribes which could not converse with one another.

Speech.—Setting aside the almost unique example of the North American Indians, gestures are generally only the[Pg 130] auxiliaries of speech. The latter, which is the exclusive appanage of the genus Homo, while it is formed of a somewhat limited number of articulate sounds, nevertheless presents such a mass of varied combinations of these sounds that at first one would expect to be lost in the multitude of languages, dialects, idioms, vernacular forms, etc. Fortunately, linguists have been able to establish the fact that, in spite of their apparent diversity, dialects are capable of being grouped into languages, and the latter into linguistic families, which, in their turn, have been reduced, according to their morphological structure, to three principal groups: monosyllabic or isolating languages, agglutinative languages, and inflectional languages.

In the monosyllabic languages all the words are roots, there are neither suffixes nor prefixes nor any modification of the words, and their relation in a proposition is only given by the respective places which they occupy in it. Thus in the Chinese language the word ta may signify “great, greatness, greatly, to enlarge,” according to its position in the phrase. The grammar is entirely a matter of syntax. Homophonous words of various signification abound in it, and in speech are only distinguished by the way in which they are pronounced, by the tones, high, low, rising, falling, interrogatory, etc.

In agglutinative languages the words are formed of several elements, adhering, agglutinated together, of which one only possesses its own peculiar value, the others being coupled with it to define it, and having an entirely relative signification. The first of these elements is the root of the word, whilst the others are only obsolete roots, having lost their own signification, and are reduced to the rank of determinative particles or affixes with a definite meaning. The affixes may be placed before the root (as in the Bantu languages), and then they bear the name of prefixes, or at the end (as in Turkish and Mongolian), and then they are called suffixes. Thus the suffix lar or liar in Turkish gives the signification of the plural of the word to which it is joined (ex. arkan, the rope; arkanlar, the ropes); the suffix[Pg 131] tchi designates the person concerned with something, etc., for instance, arkantchi, rope-maker; the suffix ly indicates possession (ex. arkanly, with a cord, attached). Other suffixes, la, lyk, denote action, quality (arkanla, to attach with a cord; arkanlyk, the best kind of cord).[155]

Among the agglutinative languages we distinguish a special group called polysynthetic or incorporating languages; this group is formed exclusively of American idioms. It is characterised by the phenomenon of incorporation, by syncope or by ellipsis, of nouns to the verb, so as to form but one word of the whole proposition; for instance, in Algonkin, the phrase-word nadholiniu, “bring us the canoe,” is formed of the elided words naten bring, amochol canoe, i euphonic, and niu to us. A similar incorporation takes place when in Italian they say, for instance, dicendo-ci-lo, “in telling it to us.”

The inflectional languages differ from the agglutinative to this extent, that the root may modify its form to express its relations with another root. But this change is not indispensable; sometimes the inflection may be attained by the modification of prefix or suffix. Thus, in Hebrew, the root mlch gives, when modified, malach he reigned, malchu they reigned, melechu the king, melachim kings, etc.

With the exception of the Chinese, the peoples of Indo-China, and the Thibetans, who speak monosyllabic languages, and also the Indo-Europeans and the Semito-Hamites, who use inflectional languages, all the rest of mankind belongs, by its mode of speech, to the division of agglutinative language. It must not be thought, however, that the difference is very marked in the three categories which I have just mentioned. We have already seen, for example, that the inflectional languages, like Italian, may have agglutinative forms; the Arab, the Frenchman, the Provençal have also recourse occasionally to agglutination; on the other hand, most of the isolating languages of Indo-China and Thibet exhibit several agglutinative characteristics, and even in[Pg 132] Chinese, that pre-eminently monosyllabic language, there may be distinguished “full” roots having their signification, and “empty” roots playing the part of affixes.

It was thought until quite recently that originally all the languages of the earth were monosyllabic, that by a process of evolution they became transformed into agglutinative languages, passing thence into the final and most perfect form, the inflectional. But the immense disproportion between the number of peoples speaking the agglutinative languages and that of the other two categories; the presence of the agglutinative forms in monosyllabic languages; the unequivocal tendency of several inflected languages, like English, towards monosyllabism; lastly, the recent researches of Terrien de Lacouperie into the ancient pronunciation of Thibetan and Chinese words, have appreciably shaken this belief: one is rather led to see in agglutination the most primitive form of language. From it would be derived monosyllabism, polysyntheticism, and inflection; the two latter forms would tend in their turn towards monosyllabism.[156] I shall mention with regard to each of the principal ethnic groups, the peculiarities of the languages which they speak, and in Chapter VIII. I shall say a few words about linguistic classifications and the relation between “peoples” and “languages.” For the moment it is enough to point out that besides morphological structure, there are other characters: vocabulary, grammatical and phonetic forms, which enable us to group the allied idioms into linguistic families. Let me add that side by side with the thousands of languages and principal dialects distributed among the populations of the earth, there exist jargons, that is to say, semi-artificial languages, originating especially in the necessities of commerce.[157]

[Pg 133]

Let us not forget either that the different sexes and certain castes or classes, especially of sorcerers and priests, have often a special language, sacred or otherwise, but always unknown to persons of the other sex or of other castes, and kept secret. Language varies also among certain peoples (for example, among the Javanese) according as a superior speaks to an inferior, or vice versâ.

Signals.—To communicate at a distance relatively remote, all peoples make use of optic or acoustic signals. Optic signals are at first amplified gestures; thus the various tribes of Red Indians recognised each other at a distance by making conventional signs with the arms and the body. An arm raised high with two fingers uplifted and the others closed, signified “Who are you?” etc. Signals by means of lighted fires, to announce the tidings of a beast killed, the approach of the enemy, etc., still remain in use among the Indians of America, not only in the north, but also in the south of the continent as far as Cape Horn. Signalling by means of objects visible from afar, of a more complicated kind, is in everyday use even among civilised peoples, forming the basis of optic telegraphy; and there exists for sailors of all nations a truly international language, by means of flags of different colours, the code and the dictionary of which are found on board of every ship bound on a long voyage.

Among acoustic signals, apart from conventional cries and sounds of instruments, we must note two kinds of language of a quite special character. There is, firstly, the whistle language, which by means of whistles more or less loud, succeeding in a certain order and produced simply by the mouth, sometimes by introducing into it two fingers, enables a conversation to be held at a distance.

This language has attained a high degree of perfection in[Pg 134] the Canary Islands,[158] but is also known in other parts of the globe (among the Berbers of Tunis, for instance). This language, however, must not be confounded with conventional signals, always the same, given by the whistle for commands in the navy, for example. The other mode of communicating at a distance, a highly developed one, is the drum language of the Dualas and other Bantu Negroes of the Cameroons, the Gallas, the Papuans, etc. With simply a drum they succeed, by varying the number and the order of the beats, in forming a veritable language of two hundred to three hundred words, very complicated and difficult to learn.[159]

Writing.—The idea of communicating his thought graphically, in time and in space, to his fellow, must have come to man from the origin of civilisation; but through what stages must it have passed before becoming embodied in a system at once so simple and ingenious as that of alphabetic writing! Before inventing phonetic writing in general, man must have passed through the period of ideographic writing, and this is already an advance on another and prior method of representing and communicating thought, a method much more simple, which may be called in a general way the use of symbolic objects and mnemonic marks. As typical of this use of symbolic objects we may mention the messages of the Malays of Sumatra, which are formed of packets containing different objects: small quantities of salt, pepper, betel, etc., having respectively the signification of love, hate, jealousy, etc. According to the quantity and arrangement of the objects in the packet the message serves to express such or such a feeling. This system attains its perfection in the Wampums of the Red Indians. These are either chaplets of beads of different colours fashioned from shells (Fig. 83, 7), also used as money, or embroideries made with the same beads on long ribbons forming kinds of belts, which have[Pg 135] the value of diplomatic documents to the Indians.[160] The staff-messages in use among the Melanesians, the Niam-Niams, the Ashantis, and the peasants of Lusatia and Silesia, etc., have the same signification. This is often a sort of passport or a summons; the form of the staff, as well as the particular marks which it bears, are so many signs to make known the commands of the chief, or of the mayor, the order of the day for the assembly, etc.

The notches which these staffs sometimes bear form a connecting link with the mnemonic marks which the less civilised peoples have the habit of making on trees, on bits of bark, or pieces of wood. It is the first step towards writing properly so called. Little horn tablets bearing notches have been found in the sepulchral caverns of the quaternary period at Aurignac (Dordogne). Even still the Eskimo, the Yakuts, the Ostiaks, the Macusis of Guiana, the Negroes of the west coast of Africa, the Laotians, the Melanesians, the Micronesians, commonly make use of them to keep their accounts, or note simple facts; they even continue in use among Europeans, as a survival of the old practice under the form of “baker’s tallies,” or words to denote letters (Buchstabe, little staff of “beechwood,” in German), etc. Here, for instance, is the translation of what was conveyed by a notched tablet found by Harmand in a Laotian village attacked by a cholera epidemic (Fig. 27): Twelve days from now (12 notches to the right) every man who shall venture to penetrate into our enclosure will remain a prisoner, or pay us four buffaloes (4 notches lower down) or twelve ticals (pieces of money) as ransom (12 notches). On the other side, but doubtful, is the number of men (8), women (9), and children (11) of the village.[161]

An analogous mnemotechnical object is the knotted cord,[Pg 136] which is met with among a great number of peoples, Ostiaks, Angola and Loango Negroes, Malagasi, Alfurus of the Celebes, etc. According to the number and colour of the cords, and the number of the knots which they bear, events past or to come are brought to mind, accounts of a bartering transaction kept, etc. Among the Micronesians of the Pelew Islands, when two individuals make an appointment with one another for a certain date, each makes on a cord as many knots as there remain days to run. Undoing a knot each day and coming to the last knot at the date of the appointment, they of necessity recall it. According to Chinese tradition, the first inhabitants of the banks of the Hoang-ho, before the invention of writing properly so called, also made use of little cords knotted to notched staffs as mnemonic instruments. Besides, is not our practice of tying a knot in our handkerchief to remember something a simple survival of these customs? The method of expressing certain events and certain ideas by means of knots made in different ways and variously arranged has been carried to the last degree of perfection in the case of the quipus of the ancient Peruvians. The quipus are cord rings to which are attached various little cords of different colours. On each of these little cords are found two or more knots variously formed. The Peruvian and Bolivian shepherds again make use of similar quipus, but much less complicated, to keep accounts. Let us also note in the same order of ideas the different marks of ownership, of family relationship, of tribeship (the Totems of the Red Indians, the Tamgas of the Kirghiz, etc.), which it is the custom to put on weapons, dwellings, animals, and even the bodies of the[Pg 137] men (New Zealand). Hence are derived trade-marks and armorial bearings.

Lastly, are not the pebbles bearing strokes printed in red, the number of which varies from one to nine, and several other signs (Fig. 28), found by M. Piette[162] in the palæolithic stations of the south of France, at Mas-d’Azil (Ariège), also mnemonic objects? It has been asserted that they were playing dice, but the size of the pebbles is against this view.

The methods which I have just mentioned are the precursors of true writing. This really only begins with drawings expressing a sequence of ideas, with pictography. Imperfect attempts at pictography are found in the drawings of the Melanesians, representing different events of their life; in certain rock-pictures of the Bushmen (Fig. 64) and Australians. But already among the Eskimo, side by side with the simple representation of objects, certain figures are seen to appear denoting action or relations between objects: this is the beginning of ideographic writing. Here, for example, is the gist of a hunting story engraved by an Eskimo of Alaska on[Pg 138] an ivory whip (Fig. 29). The first figure (1) represents the story-teller himself, his right hand making the gesture which indicates “I,” and his left, turned in the direction in which he is going, means “go.” Continuing our translation, we read the subsequent figures as follows:—(2) “in a boat” (paddle raised); (3) “sleep” (hand on the head) “one night” (the left hand shows a finger); (4) “(on) an island with a hut in the middle” (the little point); (5) “I going (farther);” (6) “(arrive at) an (other) isle inhabited” (without a point); (7) “spend (there) two nights;” (8) “hunt with harpoon;” (9) “a seal;” (10) “hunt with bow;” (11) “return in canoe with another person” (two oars directed backward); (12) “(to) the hut of the encampment.” As is evident, this ideography bears a relation to the language of gesture. It might be thus assumed a priori that it is highly developed among the Indians of North America, and as a matter of fact it is. The number of pictographs on tablets of wood, bits of bark, skins (often on those forming the tent), is enormous in every tribe. These are messages, hunting stories, songs, veritable annals embracing cycles of seventy, a hundred and more years (the latter bear the picturesque name of “winter tales”).[163] We may judge of the degree of development of this art among the Indians by the following example of a petition (Fig. 30) presented in 1849 to the President of the United States by the Chippeway chiefs asking for the possession of certain small lakes (8) situated in the neighbourhood of Lake Superior (10), towards which[Pg 139] leads a certain road (11). The petition is painted in symbolic colours (blue for water, white for the road, etc.) on a piece of bark. Figure 1 represents the principal petitioning chief, the totem of whose clan is an emblematic and ancestral animal (see Chapter VII.), the crane; the animals which follow are the totems of his co-petitioners. Their eyes are all connected with his to express unity of view (6), their hearts with his to express unity of feeling. The eye of the crane, symbol of the principal chief, is moreover the point of departure of two lines: one directed towards the President (claim) and the other towards the lakes (object of claim). In the other pictographs the symbolism is carried yet further by the reproduction either of parts of the object for the object itself (head or footmarks for the whole animal, etc.), or by conventional objects for very complicated ideas. Thus the Dakotas indicate “a fight” by the simple drawing of two arrows directed against each other (Fig. 31, 1); the Ojibways represent morning by the rising sun (2), “nothing” by the gesture of a man stretching out his arms despairingly (3), and “to eat” by the gesture of the hand carried to the mouth (4), exactly as the ancient Mexicans and Egyptians have drawn it in their hieroglyphics, or again, the natives of Easter Island (Fig. 31, 5) in[Pg 140] their rude attempt at ideographic writing on their “speech tablets.”[164] The writing of these tablets is but a series of mnemonic signs which succeed each other in boustrophedon arrangement (see p. 142), being used for sacred and profane songs, or for magical rites.

From a similar pictographic method is derived the figurative writing in hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Mexicans of the table-land of Anahuoc and their neighbours the Mayas of the peninsula of Yucatan. This mode of writing is a step in advance; certain figures have the phonetic value of the first syllable of the word which they represent. It is the rebus or “iconomatic” system, as Brinton calls it. Thus the first words of the Lord’s Prayer are represented in the Mexican code by the figures of a flag (Fig. 32) (pantli), a stone (tetl), the fruit of the Indian fig (nochtli), and another stone (tetl), the first syllables of which form pa-te-noch-te (Pater-noster).[165] The drawings not representing more than sounds, in this species of writing there is a tendency to simplify them, and thus we see the primitive figure being transformed into a conventional sign representing a sound, a[Pg 141] syllable. This transformation may be traced in the Egyptian hieroglyphics as well as in the cuneiform writing of the ancient Assyrians. In Chinese writing the same phenomenon has taken place, as is evident from Fig. 33, which represents the ancient hieroglyphics side by side with the modern—morning, 1; the moon, 2; a mountain, 3; tree, 4; dog, 5; horse, 6; man, 7. These characters, though simplified, have kept their first signification corresponding to the figure. The association of these figures with the purely phonetic signs constitutes one of the principal resources of Chinese writing, which enables homophonic words,[166] etc., to be distinguished.

Chinese characters have been adopted by only one people with an agglutinative language, the Japanese, who along with these characters (Mana) use another method of writing (Kana), which is syllabic. The Egyptians, speaking an inflectional language, had, on the contrary, to abandon hieroglyphic writing at an early period in order to pass on to syllabic[Pg 142] writing and running characters (hieratic and demotic). It is supposed that from the Egyptian (hieroglyphic and hieratic) writing was derived the alphabet styled the Phœnician, the prototype of most of the alphabets of the world.[167]

The direction of the lines in writing is especially determined by the nature of the materials written upon. As long as it is a question of tracing on rocks, monuments, etc., there is no dominant direction, and the signs are disposed, as in the pictograph, at hazard, in any direction whatever. Even the ancient Greeks wrote sometimes from right to left, sometimes from left to right, sometimes in “boustrophedon”—that is to say, alternately, in both directions, as oxen walk during ploughing.

But from the time people began to write on palm leaves, on bits of bark, on tablets, papyrus, paper, it has been found necessary to choose a uniform direction.

The brush of the Chinese determined the direction downwards and from right to left, as for painting. The ancient Syriac estranghelo was also written in the same way, but from left to right; this direction still persists in Mongol writing, which is derived from it, while Arabic had transformed it into horizontal writing from right to left. And to-day certain peoples, for instance the Somalis, yet write Arabic downwards, and read it from right to left, turning over the leaf at 90°. Writing from right to left may have been favoured by the sacred custom of the Arabs placing themselves with their face to the east, the light coming from the right; besides, contrary to what takes place with us, in Arabic writing the paper must be made to move from left to right with the left hand, while the right hand, which writes, remains motionless.[168]

[Pg 143]

The propagation of the different methods of ancient and modern writing and their adoption by different peoples, are closely bound up with the religion and progress in civilisation of these peoples. Thus the Mussulman world has adopted the Arabic writing; the Buddhists of the north, without distinction of race, hold in great esteem the sacred Thibetan characters, whilst those of the south venerate the Pali writing. The Mongol and Manchu alphabets are remains of the Uighuro-Nestorian influence and of the Syriac writing in Central Asia, as the Javanese alphabet is the remains of the civilising domination of the Hindus in Java. With the expansion of European colonisation the characters of the Latin alphabet become more and more prevalent; in Europe even, they tend to relegate to the second place the other characters (gothic, cyrilic, etc.). At the same time, new modes of writing are coming to the front, the telegraphic alphabet, stenography, precursors of a writing of the future, universal, international, simple, and rapid.

[Pg 144]

II.—SOCIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.

1. MATERIAL LIFE: Alimentation: Geophagy—Anthropophagy—Preparation of foods—Fire—Pottery—Grinding of corn—Stimulants and narcotics—Habitation: Two primitive types of dwellings—Permanent dwelling (hut)—Removable dwelling (tent)—Difference of origin of the materials employed in the two types—Villages—Furniture—Heating and lighting—Clothing: Nakedness and modesty—Ornament precedes dress—Head-dress—Ethnic mutilations—Tattooing—Girdle, necklace, and garland the origin of all dress—Manufacture of garments—Spinning and weaving—Means of existence: tools of primitive industry—Hunting—Fishing—Agriculture—Domestication and rearing of animals.

Alimentation.—The first and most imperious preoccupation of man at all times is the search for food. It is therefore natural that we should begin our brief account of sociological characters with those relating to this preoccupation.

In tropical countries man finds in nature without effort edible plants in sufficient quantity for his support. It is said that in the island of Ceram a single sago-tree will yield what will nourish a man for a whole year.

In temperate countries there are also not wanting vegetable species which, with only slight effort on man’s part, produce nutritive substances. The animal world also supplies everywhere a great variety of species suitable for food. These, for the most part, belong to the division of vertebrates or molluscs; however, certain of the arthropods (crustaceans, insects, etc.),[Pg 145] echinoderms (sea-urchins), nay, even worms (large earthworms of China, Tonkin, and Melanesia), also furnish their contingent to human gluttony.

The mineral kingdom contributes only salt, which, however, is unknown to certain tribes, as, for example, the Veddahs (Sarazin), the Somalis (Lapicque), etc. Besides, according to Bunge,[169] peoples whose food is almost exclusively animal (as is the case of the Veddahs, Eskimo, etc.) never eat salt, while those whose chief food is of vegetable origin experience an irresistible need for this condiment, probably because of the insufficiency of mineral substances in plants.

Perhaps also to this need of supplying the deficiency of mineral substances (calcareous or alkaline salts) is due the habit of eating certain earthy substances—kaolin, clay, limestone. Geophagy has, in fact, been observed in all parts of the world: in Senegal (the earth called “konak”), in Persia (argillaceous earth from Nichapur and the saline steppes of Kirman, composed of carbonate of magnesia and chalk),[170] and especially in the Asiatic archipelago, in India, and South America. In the markets of Java are sold little squares or figures in baked clay (“ampo” in Javanese) which are much valued, especially by pregnant women.[171] In Calcutta are sold similar products, and in several towns of Peru hawkers offer for sale little figures in edible earth. The Indians of Bolivia eat a white clay, a kind of kaolin called “pasa.”[172] The Whites settled in South America are likewise addicted to geophagy. Women assert that the eating of earth gives a delicate complexion to the face. The same custom has also been pointed out among women in several countries of Europe, more especially in Spain, where the sandy clay which is[Pg 146] used for making the “alcarrazas” is especially in vogue as an edible earth.[173]

We must now pass on to speak of another food—human flesh. Anthropophagy is much less general than is usually believed. Many peoples have been wrongly accused of this crime against humanity by travellers who have had neither the time nor the means necessary to verify the fact, and by writers who here formed a hasty generalisation from isolated facts.[174]

Cannibalism has also been too hastily inferred from the observation of facts like “head-hunting,” or the practice of adorning houses with human skulls and bones. As with human sacrifices, these are perhaps survivals of ancient cannibalism, but not proofs of its existence at the present time.

Besides, it must be noted that most of the statements of authors have reference to bygone times, which would lead us to suppose that anthropophagy is a custom tending to disappear among all peoples, even among those who have not been converted to one of the religions whose dogmas condemn this practice (Christianity, Buddhism, worship of Riamba in Africa,[175] Islamism, etc.).

It appears from the very conscientious work of P. Bergemann,[176] that actually the only regions of the world where anthropophagy has been really proved to exist are Oceania (including the Asiatic Archipelago), Central Africa, and Southern America.

The Battas of Sumatra, the natives of the Solomon Islands, of New Britain, and of certain islands of the New Hebrides, as well as a large number of Australian tribes, are known as[Pg 147] incorrigible cannibals. We can speak less confidently as to the other inhabitants of Oceania. Dyaks, Fijians, New Caledonians, Karons of New Guinea, seem to have abandoned cannibalism. In South America positive facts abound concerning the anthropophagy of the Arovaques and certain Indians of Columbia, the Botocudos and some other Brazilian tribes; but for the rest of the continent they resolve themselves into the statements of ancient travellers or to the report of survivals. On the other hand, Central Africa appears to be the chief seat of anthropophagy. It is of frequent occurrence among the Niam-Niams, the Monbuttus, the Bandziris, and other tribes of the River Ubangi, as well as among the tribes of the Congo basin, the Basangos, the Manyuema, the tribes of Kassai, etc. We have likewise genuine proofs enough for the Fans of French Congo and certain tribes of the Benguelas. In general, cannibalism appears to be unknown in Africa beyond the tenth degree of latitude to the north and south of the Equator.

Cannibalism is practised for three reasons: necessity, gluttony, superstition.

Necessary Anthropophagy may take place in consequence of the want of animal food, as in Australia, or in consequence of accidental circumstances (shipwreck, famine), as it may occur even among civilised peoples; but this kind of cannibalism is as rare as that which is attributable to gluttony. It is said, however, that the Melanesians of the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, and New Britain hunt man merely to satisfy their taste for human flesh. The Niam-Niams pursue the same kind of sport not only for the flesh, but for the human fat which they utilise for lighting purposes. Various tribes of the Ubangi buy slaves or capture men separated from their fellows in order to fatten them up and eat them afterwards; sometimes, to improve the flavour of this kind of meat, the carcasses are left to soak in water; similar facts have been observed among the Manyuema. However that may be, the majority of cases of cannibalism may be explained by superstitious beliefs. There is especially a[Pg 148] belief in the possibility of appropriating the virtues and the qualities of a man by eating the whole or certain portions of his body—the heart, the eyes, the liver. Sometimes drinking the blood of the victim is regarded as sufficient.[177]

Of the three causes which I have just enumerated the first two are probably the remains of downright anthropophagy—that is to say, of the habit of eating one’s relatives and especially one’s offspring just the same as any other flesh, as it exists among many animals. The Australians, for example, are known to eat their children which they have killed for other reasons (restriction of progeny).

R. S. Steinmetz[178] has thought it possible to bring together all these cases of anthropophagy under the name of “endocannibalism,” or the practice of eating parents and relatives. He mentions a great number of tribes in which this practice exists alone or combined with “exocannibalism,” that is to say the habit of eating the flesh of strangers. This second sort of cannibalism, much more widely diffused, however, than endocannibalism, is alone amenable to moral, religious, or social ideas, while endocannibalism is but the remains of a natural state of primitive man, the residue of instincts which still stirred his soul at the period when he wandered solitary through the virgin forests without realising the possibility of forming any social group whatever.[179]

Ritual anthropophagy persists for a considerable length of time, and may accord with a relatively developed civilisation. The Battas, the Monbuttus, the Niam-Niams, are tribes[Pg 149] almost half civilised; one has a well-developed method of writing and a style of ornament, the others have a fairly advanced social organisation. As a survival, anthropophagy manifests itself not only in the practice of cutting off the heads (Dyaks) in human sacrifices, but also in a multitude of religious or superstitious practices among a great number of even civilised peoples. The belief in the supposed curative properties of human flesh, especially that of executed criminals, is still in full force in China,[180] and was so in Europe in ancient times and in the Middle Ages; the Salic law forbade the magical practices associated with anthropophagy. To drink from the skull of an enemy was a very widespread custom in Asia and Europe, and even until the beginning of this century the remains of the skull of a hanged criminal figured among the remedies in the pharmacopœias of Central Europe.

Preparation of Foods.—There is no people on earth which eats all its food quite raw, without having subjected it to previous preparation. Some few northern tribes, the Eskimo, the Chukchi, eat, it is true, reindeer’s flesh and fish quite raw, but they cut these up, prepare dried provisions from them, and moreover they cook their vegetable food.

Food is prepared by cutting it into pieces, subjecting it to a fermentation, moistening it, triturating it, and especially by exposing it to the action of fire.

No tribe exists, even at the bottom of the scale of civilisation, which is not to-day acquainted with the use of fire, and as far back as we can go into prehistoric times we find material traces of the employment of fire (cinders, charcoal, pieces of worn-out pyrites, cracked flint, etc.). However, the preservation of fire produced by the natural forces (conflagrations, lightning, volcanoes, etc.) must have preceded the production of fire (Broca, Von den Steinen). Most of the forces of nature transformable into heat—light, electricity, motion, and chemical affinity—have been turned to account by man in the production of fire with more or less success. Kindling flame by concentrat[Pg 150]ing the solar light with bi-convex glasses and mirrors, mentioned from the remotest antiquity, could never have become general. It is the same with electricity. On the other hand, motion and chemical affinity have been at all times, and still are, pre-eminently the two productive forces of fire. Motion is utilised in three different ways: by the friction of two pieces of wood, by the striking together of two pieces of certain mineral substances, or by pneumatic compression. The last method is little used; it has been observed among the Dyaks of Borneo and in Burma. It is based on the principle of the pneumatic tinder-box of our scientific demonstration rooms. But the two other modes of utilising motion are still in general use among all savage peoples.[181]

A little red-hot ember capable of setting fire to certain substances (tinder, down, dry grass, etc.) may be obtained either by rubbing together two pieces of wood, or by sawing one across the other, or by turning the end of one in a little hole made in the other. Hence, three ways of making fire by friction, each having a well-defined geographical area. The first way (simple rubbing), the most primitive and the least easy, is employed especially in Oceania. It consists in rubbing a little stick of hard wood, bending it downward, against a log of soft wood held between the knees (Fig. 34). A little channel is thus hollowed out of the log, and in the end the operator succeeds in obtaining incandescent particles of pulverised wood, which gather at the bottom of the channel. He has only to throw in a little dry grass or tinder and to blow upon it to obtain the flame.

[Pg 151]

The sawing method (Fig. 35) is employed by the Malays and by some Australian tribes, as well as in Burma and India. A piece of bamboo split longitudinally is sawn with the cutting edge of another piece of bamboo until the sawdust becomes hot and sets fire to the tinder on which it falls.

The twirling or rotatory method (Fig. 36), which consists in turning the end of a fragment of wood supported on the surface of another fragment, is the most generally used. It is met with among Negroes, the Indians of North and South America, the Chukchi, in certain regions of India, etc. The most primitive apparatus consists of a log or board of soft wood, held horizontally with the feet, on which is placed the blunted point of a cylindrical stick of hard wood. Twirling the stick rapidly between the hands in both directions, a little hole is hollowed and the dust of the wood which gathers around the point becomes incandescent. It is thus that some tribes of Zulus and of Australians, the Ainus, etc., make fire.

But to this primitive apparatus important improvements are made among other populations, especially among the Redskins and the Eskimo. The hole in a horizontal board is[Pg 152] hollowed out beforehand, then a communication is made between this hole and one of the vertical faces of the board by a channel through which escapes to the outside the woody powder produced by rubbing, in the form of little incandescent cylinders, which falls on the tinder. As to the upright stick, different contrivances are fitted to it to render its motion more rapid and more regular. Thus the Eskimo wind round it a cord which is drawn alternately in both directions;[182] in this case the upper end of the stick is held by an assistant or by the operator himself. They apply also to these apparatus a mouth-drill, etc.

The second method of obtaining fire, that of striking together two pieces of iron pyrites or two pieces of flint, or flint against pyrites, must, like the first, have been known from the most remote period. To-day it is only employed by some few backward tribes—Fuegians, Eskimo, Aleuts. With the knowledge of iron, which replaced pyrites, the true “flint and steel” was invented; it very quickly superseded in Europe and Asia the production of fire by friction, as, in its turn, it has been superseded by apparatus utilising the chemical affinity of different bodies (matches).

But the old processes survive in traditions, in religion. Thus the present Brahmins of India obtain fire for religious ceremonies by the friction of two sticks, in front of shops where English matches are sold; it is still by friction that the Indians of America, amply provided with matches, procure fire for the sacred festivals. Even in Europe, in Great Britain, and in Sweden, at the beginning of this century the fire intended for superstitious uses (to preserve animals and people against contagious diseases) was kindled by rubbing together two pieces of wood. This practice was forbidden by a decree, dating from the end of last century, in the same district of Jönköping whence to-day are sent forth by millions the famous Swedish matches.[183]

[Pg 153]

The long and difficult processes of obtaining fire compel savage tribes to preserve it as one of the most precious things. Almost everywhere it is to women that the care is committed. Among the Australians, women who let the fire go out are punished almost as severely as were the Roman vestals of old. The Papuans of Astrolabe Bay (New Guinea) prefer to go several leagues in search of fire to a neighbouring tribe than to light another (Miklukho-Maclay). The preparation of “new fire” among a great number of tribes, especially in America and Oceania, is celebrated with festivals and religious ceremonies.[184]

Cooking.—Fire, once discovered, heat, light, and at the same time the means of rendering a great variety of foods more digestible, were artificially assured to man. But it is somewhat difficult to roast a piece of meat in the fire, especially when there is not a metal skewer at hand, as was the case with primitive man. So, at an early stage, he tried to find some method of cooking his food, especially fruits. He heated stones in the open fire, and with these stones he cooked his meat and vegetables. The process is still in use to-day among tribes unacquainted with pottery. Thus the Polynesians before their “civilisation” by Europeans proceeded in the following way to cook their food. Stones heated in the fire were put at the bottom of a hole dug in the ground; upon these stones was spread a layer of leaves, on which were placed the fruit of the bread-tree, then a fresh layer of leaves and other heated stones; care being taken to cover the whole with leaves and earth. In half-an-hour a delicious dish was drawn out of the hole.[185]

Among most savage Indonesians food is cooked in bamboo vessels filled with water, in which heated stones have been previously plunged. This method of cooking with stones is also in use at the two extreme points of America, among the[Pg 154] Indians of Alaska and the Fuegians. It is even used in Europe among the Serbian and Albanian mountaineers.

Pottery.—But real cooking, even of the simplest sort, is only possible with the existence of pottery, the manufacture of which must have followed closely on the discovery of a method of obtaining fire, for no example is known of unbaked pottery.

There are still peoples unacquainted with this art, such as the Australians and the Fuegians, but the absence of it is not always the sign of an inferior degree of civilisation, as we may see in the Polynesians before the arrival of Europeans, and also the present Mongols, whose cooking utensils consist of iron, wooden, and leather vessels, for pottery which easily breaks would be an encumbrance in nomadic life.

The most primitive pottery is made without the potter’s wheel. In its manufacture we may admit, with Otis Mason,[186] three special methods of working. Modelling by hand; moulding to an exterior or interior mould, usually a basket or other object of wicker-work, which burns away afterwards in the baking (Figs. 37 and 38); and lastly, a method of proceeding which may be called coiling in clay. Long strings of clay are[Pg 155] taken and rolled so as to form a cone or a cylinder, or any other form of the future pot, then the sides are made even.

The Zuñi Indians of New Mexico begin this work in a little basket-dish (Fig. 39), which shows the connection of this method with that of moulding, whilst the Wolofs, whom I have seen working in the same way, as well as the Kafirs (Fig. 135, to the left), have only as a base to work upon a clay disc or a wooden porringer, moulding being unknown to them. But in both cases this mode of manufacture is already a step towards pottery formed by the wheel, only instead of the clay it is the hand of the workman which turns, naturally much more slowly. Besides, the primitive wheel, that is to say, a disc or a board set in motion by the hand, sometimes without a pivot, as still seen in China, does not revolve with the dizzy speed of the true wheel, the construction of which is an adaptation of the general processes of the transmission of forces by means of levers and wheels.

In regard to pottery it must be noted that its manufacture is left almost exclusively to women among most of the tribes of America, while it is entrusted without distinction to men and women in Africa.

Grinding of Corn.—We need not dwell on the means of[Pg 156] preparing food independently of the action of fire (milk and its products, pemmican, etc.); they vary infinitely. Let us deal briefly, however, with the method of preparing grain. Many peoples are unacquainted with flour: they eat the grain either roasted or cooked, as we do still the most anciently known perhaps of the graminaceæ, rice and millet. In the primitive state of agriculture certain tribes of North America combined in one single operation the threshing, winnowing,[Pg 157] and roasting of grain. After being triturated between the hands, the grain is thrown into a basket-dish (Fig. 40) in which are red-hot stones; the straw burns, the husk comes off and partly burns too, whilst the grain is being roasted.

From the time when some intelligent man perceived when crushing a grain of corn, perhaps by chance, between two stones, that flour might supply a more delicate food than roasted grain, the art of the miller was discovered. There are three ways of preparing flour: pounding in a mortar, trituration on a flat surface, and true grinding by means of a mill turned by the hand or other motor power—animals, water, wind, steam.

The mortar, used by a great number of savage or half-civilised tribes to crush not only grain but also the roots of starchy plants, cassava, yam, etc., must have been known for a very long time. Its most primitive form is met with among the Indians of North America—a block of granite or sandstone in which a cavity has been made, with a piece of porous rock, almost cylindrical, for the pestle. In Africa and Oceania the mortar and pestle are of wood. Almost everywhere the pounding is done by women. The rudest hand-mills, such as are met with among the Arabs, the Kabyles, the Bushmen, are made of a round stone pierced in the centre, turned on another stone by means of a handle passing through the hole. Incisions on the triturating surface of the millstone is not found as yet in these primitive machines.

The preservation of food is known to a great number of savage and half-civilised tribes. The Eskimo preserve their meat by means of cold, many fisher peoples resort to salting, the art of preparing true pemmican by enclosing the food in a mass of grease or honey is known to the Veddahs of Ceylon, to Negroes, etc.

Stimulants.—Among most savage peoples special fermented beverages are found: “koumiss,” or fermented mare’s milk, among the Turco-Mongols; bamboo beer among the Moïs of French Indo-China; millet or eleusine beer among the Negroes; sago-juice wine among the populations of the coast[Pg 158] of the Indian Ocean—Dravidians (Fig. 81), Indonesians, Malays; “pulque,” derived from the juice of the agave, among the Mexicans of the high table-lands. I must lastly mention “kava,” the national beverage of the Polynesians, concocted from the juice of the leaves of a pepper-plant (Piper methysticum), which is made to ferment by means of the ptyalin of the saliva, these leaves being previously chewed in company, each spitting out his “quid” into the common dish.

The distillation of fermented liquids for the purpose of obtaining alcohol is known to most semi-civilised peoples. We need but instance the “arka” of the Turco-Mongols derived from “koumiss,” the arrack of the Chinese and Japanese, etc.

Among the stimulants, tonics, narcotics, drugs, etc., other than fermented beverages, and tea, coffee, and chocolate of international fame, must be mentioned the kola nut used as a stimulant on a large scale in the whole of Western Africa; the “maté” (Ilex paraguayensis) taking the place of tea in a large portion of South America; different roots and certain fish (like the Fistularia serrata of Java)[187] used by way of aphrodisiacs; lastly, the “coca” of the Peruvians and Bolivians (Erithroxylon coca), the leaves of which taken as an infusion plunge you, says Mantegazza, in the most delicious dreams, while pulverised and chewed with lime they only act as a stimulant. It is possible that the chewing of betel or siri, that is to say, areca palm nut mixed with shell lime and wrapped in a leaf of betel (Chavica betle), produce the same effect; but this habit appears to be induced by hygienic considerations in regard to the mouth. However that may be, the chewing of betel nut, inseparable from Malaysian civilisation, always has a tendency to blacken the teeth of peoples addicted to it.[188]

[Pg 159]

The practice of tobacco smoking, universal at the present day, only spread into Europe in the sixteenth century. In the primitive home of this plant, America, the Indians smoke moderately, although the pipe with them plays a ceremonial part (“the calumet of peace,” etc.). The pipe, which in Europe is yielding place to the cigar, is still held in great honour throughout the whole of Asia, where ethnographers point out more than 150 ethnic varieties of this object, without counting the numerous forms of “narghile.” The cigarette appears to be of Malay origin.[189] The habit of smoking opium, which so speedily becomes an invincible passion, tends at the present day to spread wherever Chinese influence penetrates: in Corea, Indo-China, etc.

The practice of smoking haschish, a product of Indian hemp (Cannabis Indica), is localised in Persia and Asia Minor; but it is found also among the Baluba Negroes of the Congo basin, who attach to it a great importance from the politico-religious point of view.

Not satisfied with eating, drinking, inhaling by the mouth, and chewing stimulants, man absorbs them too by the nose. The habit of taking a pinch of snuff, formerly the fashion in the best society of Europe, seems now to be relegated to the lower classes. But among several of the Bantu Negroes of Uganda, of the Cameroons, and the east coast of Africa, snuff-taking (introduced by Europeans?) is still in great honour, and Kafirs in high positions carry coquettishly very small snuffboxes in the lobe of their ears. Instead of snuff, the Mura Indians of the Lower Amazon take “parica,” a very stimulating powder, which is derived from the dry seeds of a vegetable called “Inga.” The stuff is taken by two persons together, during the festival of the ripening of the Inga. One of these Indian braves puts the parica into a tube and puffs it into the nose of his companion.[190]

As Letourneau[191] judiciously observes, the chief motive for[Pg 160] the use of various drugs and stimulants all over the earth is the desire experienced by every human being to emancipate himself, if even for a moment, from the ordinary conditions of existence. He is only too happy to be able to find at pleasure, in the midst of the fatigues, the annoyances, and the miseries of daily life, a moment of forgetfulness, the semblance of refuge.

Habitation.—The natural shelters—caverns, overhanging rocks, holes in the ground, thick foliage, hollow trunks of trees, etc.—must have been utilised by primitive man as places of abode. But which of these shelters served as a model for the first artificial dwellings? Not the cavern, for even now it is made use of just as it is by civilised populations in China, Tunisia, Afghanistan, and even France, in the valley of the Cher. Besides, with the exception, perhaps, of the huts of the Eskimo, half underground and covered with a dome of ice blocks, constructions in mineral substances are scarcely found among savage peoples.[192] Substances of vegetable origin were those first utilised for fixed habitations (hut, etc.), and substances derived from animals for dwellings which could be carried.[193]

The hut, which is the prototype of the fixed habitation, is derived probably from the screen formed of a series of branches stuck in the ground, as one sees it still among the Australians. Sometimes this screen is constructed of large palm-leaves resting against crossed branches, as for example among the Veddahs of Ceylon, Andamanese, the Botocudos, and other Indians of Brazil. The leafy branches of these screens had but to be arranged in the form of a circle or in two parallel rows, their tops joined together, the interstices[Pg 161] stopped up with grasses, moss, and bark, in order that the frail shelter might be transformed into a stronger dwelling, a better protection against the inclemencies of the weather. The form which this primitive dwelling was thus obliged to take depended then, before everything else, on the arrangement of the branches of the screen: if put in the form of a circle the hut became conical provided the branches used in its construction were rigid and but little spread out (Fuegians); hemispherical, cupola-shaped, if they were flexible and leafy (Australians); if they were placed in two parallel rows the hut took the form of a two-sided roof, flat (Indians of the Amazon), or convex (Todas), according to the materials.

Trying to secure themselves still better from the rain, the wind, and the sun, the first architects must have dug out the soil beneath the hut, as the Ainus, the Chukchi, the Kamtchadales still do at the present time, and this may have suggested the idea, as Tylor says,[194] of extending the vertical[Pg 162] walls above the ground. The rushes, the little twigs, and the clods of potter’s clay or grass which were used at first to stop up the holes, eventually formed the walls, and the ancient hut thus raised was transformed into a dwelling a little more com[Pg 163]fortable, having roof and walls. This was probably the origin of the hive-shaped huts of the Zulu Kafirs (Fig. 41), and the cylindrical, conical-roofed huts of the Ovampos (Fig. 42), and the Gauls of the time of Cæsar. Straw entering into the composition of the roof, and sometimes even the body of these dwellings, they may be styled straw huts or thatched huts. As to the quadrangular huts, they are transformed in the same manner into those little houses so characteristic of the Muchikongos, of French Congo and the coast of Guinea.[195] Among the peoples inhabiting the shores of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, from the Kamtchadales and the Indians of the north-west of America to the Maoris and the natives of Madagascar, the quadrangular houses are erected on poles even when they are far from water. The materials of which they are constructed are bamboos, reeds, and palm-leaves.[196]

In order to give solidity to the straw and reed-built walls, it must have been necessary at an early period to plaster them over with potter’s earth (Senegal, palafittes of the bronze age in Europe). In very dry countries it was seen that lumps of clay were able of themselves to form sufficiently solid walls, and this observation has led naturally enough to the making of sun-dried bricks, which were known to the Babylonians, to the Egyptians, and are still used to-day in the Sudan, in Turkestan, and Mexico.

Movable Habitations.—From the moment when the tired hunter of primitive times fell asleep beneath the skin of a wild beast spread out on two or three poles, and folded it up on the morrow to carry it away with him in his wanderings, the tent was invented. Skins continued to be the best material for its construction until the invention of felt and stuffs, plaited or woven of a sufficient breadth. Bark has only been used[Pg 164] exceptionally, in Siberia for example, and for summer tents only (Fig. 43). Like the hut, the tent may be circular, conical (Indians of North America), cupola-shaped (Kafirs), or quadrangular in the form of a prismatic roof (Thibetans, Gypsies). The last-mentioned of these forms has not been improved on, and the Arab tent of the present day, which is derived from it, differs from its prototype only in its dimensions and the awning set up at the entrance. On the other hand, the two circular forms have been improved on by the use of pieces of wattling instead of poles, and felt instead of skins. The tent has thus become a comfortable dwelling, the best suited to the life of half-civilised nomads, a real house with a roof, conical in the “Gher” of the Mongols (Fig. 44), almost hemispherical [Pg 166] in the “Yourte” of the Kirghiz.[197] This dwelling of the nomads has even served as a model for the permanent wooden habitations of the tribes of the Yenisei or Altai. Their wooden house has a ground-plan of hexagonal or octagonal form, imitating the circular yourte or felt tent (Fig. 45), and it is only little by little, under Russian influence, that it is transformed into a four-sided house.[198] The “mazankis” of the Teleuts of Siberia[Pg 167] and the Little Russians with their walls of fascines plastered with clay and lime, are only imitations of wattled tents.

As social life becomes more complicated, there appear, side by side with the dwelling properly so called, other struc[Pg 168]tures: granaries and storehouses, ordinarily built on wooden pillars (among the Malays and the Ainus), or on a clay stand (among the Negroes of the Sudan) or a wooden support (Fig. 42), to protect them against the attacks of wild beasts. Access to them, as to the houses on poles, is gained by primitive ladders, a series of notches in a tree-trunk. Other structures, light straw huts on trees, serve as refuges in case of attack and as posts of observation to watch the movements of enemies. The idea of defence was also the first motive for the grouping of houses into villages. In non-civilised countries almost always the villages and urban agglomerations are surrounded with palisades (Kraal of the Kafirs, Fig. 46), ditches, sometimes filled with traps and prickles (Laos), lastly, with walls. Watch-towers replace the airy posts of observation on trees (example: Lesghi village of the Caucasus). According to the forms of propriety (see Chapter VII.), several families may inhabit enormous houses in which each has a special apartment adjoining the common space in which dwell the non-married people (Nagas, Mossos, Pueblo Indians). The “communal houses,” so general in all Oceania and among certain peoples of Indo-China, which serve at the same time as “bachelor’s dens,” as “clubs,” as temples, as inns, represent the common rooms of phalansteries as separated from the private parts.

With habitations are naturally connected furniture, methods of heating and lighting. Among primitive peoples all the furniture consists of some skins and straw or dry grass for bed and seat. Mats are already a sign of a fairly advanced civilisation; carpets, seats, and beds come after (Figs. 44 and 120). The wooden pillow in the form of a bench is found from Japan and New Guinea to the country of the Niam-Niams and the Eastern Sudan, where it must probably have penetrated from Egypt. Chests for linen, plate, etc., are quite late inventions.

For heating purposes a fire in the middle of the hut was used in the first instance. The Fuegians burn enormous trees, which project from the hut and are brought forward into[Pg 169] the fire as the end is consumed. The smoke issues by the open extremity of the hut. The Altaians, the Kamtchadales, the Tunguses, the Kalmuks, are content with a similar fire kept in the middle of the tent or wooden house (Figs. 44 and 45). Among the Russian peasants one may meet with houses, “koornaïa izba,” having a stove, but not a chimney; the smoke issues by the windows and by an orifice in the roof. In Corea the smoke of the stove is carried under the planks; in China under a sort of clay bed (Kang). The mantelpiece, raised above the hearth, appears to be a European invention which preceded that of the true chimney, which latter appeared in the eleventh century. Among the Eskimo the seal oil, which burns in great lamps of earth dried in the sun, serves to give warmth and light at the same time.

Very finely made lamps have been described as existing among the Indians of North America. The Polynesians burn coco-nut oil in a half of the shell of the coco-nut itself, using the fibres which cover the fruit by way of wick. In Egypt, in Babylon, in Europe, lamps have been known from the earliest times.[199] But most primitive peoples are still content to burn fat pine-knots or resinous torches for lighting purposes. The Moïs-Lays of French Indo-China obtain light by means of little pieces of fir-wood burning aloft on a chandelier formed of a double metal fork.[200] This description may be applied word for word to the “loocheena” of the Russian peasants, the use of which has not disappeared at the present time. Moreover, the torch was much used in the whole of Europe side by side with closed and open lamps before the invention of the candle, the light of which grows dim to-day before the petroleum lamp even in China and Turkestan, and before the electric light among us.

[Pg 170]

Dress and Ornament.—To say that primitive man went about quite naked is almost a commonplace, but to say that nudity is not synonymous with savagery would appear a paradox to many. And yet nothing is more true. Among the peoples who know nothing of dress there are some quite savage, like the Fuegians, the Australians, the Botocudos, and others who have attained a certain degree of civilisation, like the Polynesians (before the arrival of Europeans) and the Niam-Niams. Let us remember, moreover, that the Greeks of classic antiquity only half covered their nakedness. It does not necessarily follow that the less clothes a people wears the more savage it is. It is a question of climate and social convention, entirely like the emotion of modesty, which is not at all something natural and innate in man. It is not met with among animals, and one could mention dozens of cases of peoples among whom the sentiment is entirely lacking. On the contrary, the fashion of covering the female genital organs, for example among different tribes of the Amazon,[201] and the male organs among the New Caledonians[202] or the New Hebrideans, is such as rather to attract attention to these parts than to hide them. The same thing may equally be said of the little ornamented aprons barely covering the genital organs which are worn by the Kafir women (Fig. 47), etc. Certain authors (Darwin, Westermarck) even think that ornament in general, that of the region of the abdomen in particular, was one of the most powerful means of sexual selection, by attracting attention to the genital organs. It is, rather, the garment which gives birth to the sentiment of modesty, and not modesty which gives birth to the garment. Among a people as civilised as the Japanese, men and women bathe together quite naked without any one being shocked. It was the same in Russia during the last century.

And yet, to prove how conventional all this sentiment of modesty is, it is only necessary to say that the Japanese [Pg 172] are shocked to see the nude in works of art;[203] that it is as indecent for a Chinese woman to show her foot as for a European woman to expose the most intimate parts of her body; that a Mussulman woman surprised in the bath by indiscreet eyes hastens before anything else to hide her face, the rest of the body being exposed to view without any great[Pg 173] shock to modesty; that a European woman could never uncover her breast in the street and does it in a ballroom, etc.

Starting from the primordial nudity of mankind, we are led to inquire what was the motive which prompted men to clothe themselves. In countries with a rigorous climate it was the necessity of protecting themselves from cold and damp, but in the other parts of the world this has not been the case. The sentiment of vanity, the desire of being different from others, of pleasing, of inspiring with horror, begot ornaments which became transformed little by little into dress.

Adornment of the Body.—Strange as it may appear at the outset, the fact that ornament preceded dress is well established in ethnography. It is, moreover, often difficult to draw the boundary-line between the two. Thus the first and most primitive mode of personal adornment is certainly that in which the body itself is adorned without the putting on of any extraneous objects whatsoever. And the most simple of these primitive adornments, the daubing of the body with colouring matter, may also be considered as one of the first garments. Almost all peoples who go naked practise this mode of adornment (Figs. 59 and 124), but it is held in special esteem on the American continent. The colours most used are red, yellow, white, and black, yielded by such substances as ochre, the juice of certain plants, chalk, lime, and charcoal. Certain tribes of the Amazon basin fix a covering of feathers on their body, daubed with a sticky substance. The painting of the face (Figs. 158 and 159) is colouring only of a modified form. Thibetan women coat their face over with a thick layer of paste or starch, which with a refinement of coquetry they inlay with certain seeds arranged so as to form designs more or less artistic, without interfering with the red spots on the cheeks made with the juice of certain berries. Chinese women only put a thin coating of rice-starch without seeds, and the Javanese women, like our ladies of fashion, are content with rice powder. The red spots on the cheeks of Mongolian and Thibetan women are the prototypes of the paint which spoils[Pg 174] so unnecessarily the fresh complexion and the faces, naturally so beautiful, of the women of Southern Europe (Spain, Serbia, Roumania).

The custom of applying lac to the teeth, in vogue among the Malays, the Chinese, and the Annamese; the colouring of the lips so generally practised from Japan to Europe; the dyeing of the nails and the hair with “henna” (Lawsonia inermis) in Persia and Asia Minor; lastly, the painting of the eyebrows and eyelashes in the east, the dyeing of the hair in the west, are various manifestations of this same mode of primitive adornment.

Side by side with colouring must be placed tattooing, which leaves more indelible marks. There exists an infinite number of varieties of it, which, however, may be reduced to two[Pg 175] principal categories: tattooing by incision, in which the design is produced by a series of scars or gashes, and tattooing by puncture, in which the design is formed by the introduction under the skin of a black powder by means of a needle. The first method is practised by dark-skinned peoples, Negroes, Melanesians, Australians (Figs. 14, 15, 149, and 150). In this case the incision having injured the non-pigmented dermic layer the scars are less coloured than the surrounding skin. Tattooing by puncture is only possible among clear-skinned peoples; among the latter may be instanced the New Zealanders, the Dyaks, and the Laotians, called “green-bellies.” In the case of a great number of peoples, tattooing is restricted to one sex only, chiefly to women (Ainus, Fig. 49, Chukchi), or else to certain categories of persons (postilions and drawers of carriages in Japan; sailors, criminals, and prostitutes in Europe).

Tattooing may be already considered as an ethnic mutilation; but there exist many others of a less anodyne character which are also connected with ornamentation. Chinese women deform their feet by means of tight bandages, and end by transforming them into horrible stumps (Figs. 50 and 51), which only[Pg 176] allow them to walk by holding on to surrounding objects. European and other “civilised” women compress themselves in corsets to such an extent that they bring on digestive troubles, and even displacement of the kidneys.[204] The Australians draw out the teeth of young men on their reaching the age of puberty; Negroes of the western coast of Africa break the teeth and transform them into little points; the Malays file them into the form of a half-circle, a saw, etc. As to cranial deformations, a whole chapter would not suffice to describe them all. Topinard distinguishes four principal types of such, without counting the various special forms (trilobate skull of the islanders of Sacrificios, etc.). In general the skulls are lengthened by this practice into a sort of sugar-loaf, the top of which points more or less upward and backward. It is chiefly by compression, by means of bandages, boards, or various caps and head-dresses, that the desired form of the head is obtained.[205]

Intentional deformation is practised by the Chinooks and other Indian tribes of the Pacific slope of the United States; by the Aymaras of Bolivia; in the New Hebrides; among a great number of tribes of Asia Minor, where the deformed skulls recall those which Herodotus had described under the name of macrocephali. In Europe the custom of altering the shape of the head has spread a little everywhere; the best known deformation is that which Broca had described under the name of “Toulousaine,” and which is still practised both in the north and south of France (Fig. 52). What effect may deformation of the head have on intellectual development? Inquiries made in this direction afford no positive information; but it may be presumed that without being as harmful as some people believe, the deformation, by displacing the convolutions of the brain, may favour the[Pg 177] outbreak of cerebral diseases in persons predisposed to them.[206]

Adornment with Objects attached to the Body.—The perforation of the ear, the nose, and the lips is made with the view of placing in the hole an ornament of some kind or other. Thus this species of mutilation may be considered as a natural step towards the second manner of adornment, which consists in placing or suspending gauds on the body. When people have few garments or none at all they are compelled to hook[Pg 178] these objects to the body itself. The Botocudo perforates the lobes of the ears and the lower lip to insert into them heavy wooden plugs; other Indians of South America perforate the cheeks to stick feathers therein; the Papuans and the Australians the nasal septum, that it may hold a bone or stick (Figs. 53 and 149); the Caribs and the Negroes of the Ubangi the lower lip, for the insertion of crystal, bone, or metal rods, or simply pins. Similar customs persist, moreover, among peoples more amply clothed. The nose-rings among the Dravidians or among Tatar women; the ear-pendants of the American Indians (Figs. 158, 159, 160, and 161); the bone plugs placed in the cheeks among the Eskimo; the metal plates or precious stones inlaid in the teeth among the Malays of Sumatra, exist to prove this point. And the ear-rings of our civilised European women are the last vestige of a savage form of adornment which requires the mutilation of an organ.

The hair also is used to attach ornaments: flowers, jewels, ribbons, chips, feathers (Figs. 47, 117, 154, 158, 159, and frontispiece). As to the arrangement of the hair, it depends a great deal on its nature. The Negroes, with their short and woolly hair, are enabled to have a complicated head-dress (Figs. 47 and 141). Peoples with smooth hair are content to leave it floating behind (Americans, Fig. 160, Indonesians), or to gather it up into a chignon (Annamese, Coreans, Eskimo), in one or several plaits (Chinese), or in several rolls or bands, stuck together and disposed in various ways (Mongols, Japanese, Fig. 120, Chinese). But it is among peoples with frizzy and slightly woolly hair that the head-dress attains a high degree of perfection. We have but to mention the capillary structures of the Bejas (Fig. 138), the Fulbés (Fig. 139), the Papuans and some Melanesians, whose mops of hair with a six-toothed comb coquettishly planted at the top are so characteristic (Figs. 152 and 153).

The custom of shaving the hair of the head and the beard, as well as the habit of plucking out the hairs, are more general among peoples whose pilous system is little developed than [Pg 180] among hairy peoples. All the Mongolians, all the Indians of America, and almost all the Oceanians shave or pluck out the hair. Amongst them the razor, sometimes a fragment of obsidian or glass, is used in conjunction with depilatory tweezers. The wearing of the beard or long hair is often a matter of fashion or social convention. From the time of the patriarchs the beard has been honoured in the East, while in the West the fluctuations of fashion or opinion have made of its presence or absence a sign of opposition (Protestant clergy before the eighteenth century in Germany, Republicans of the middle of this century in France), or a distinctive mark of certain classes (Catholic clergy, servants, actors, soldiers in many states). Several superstitious ideas are connected with human hair. From at least the ninth century to the end of the Middle Ages, the Slavs and the Germans shaved the crown of their children’s heads, believing that it facilitated teething.