LECTURES ON ETHNOGRAPHY.

LECTURE I.
THE PHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHNOGRAPHY.

Contents.—Differences and resemblances in individuals and races the basis of Ethnography. The Bones. Craniology. Its limited value. Long and short skulls. Sutures. Inca bone. The orbital index. The nasal index. The maxillary and facial angles. The cranial capacity. The teeth. The iliac bones. Length of the arms. The flattened tibia. The projecting heel. The heart line. The Color. Its extent; cause; scale of colors. Color of the eyes. The Hair. Shape in cross section; abundance. The muscular structure; anomalies in; muscular habits; arrow releases. Steatopygy. Stature and proportion; the “canon of proportion;” special senses; the color sense. Ethnic relations of the sexes. Correlation of physical traits to vital powers. Causes of the fixation of ethnic traits. Climate; food supply; natural selection; conscious selection; the physical ideal; sexual preference; abhorrence of incest; exogamous marriages. Causes of variation in types. The mingling of races. Physical criteria of racial superiority. Review of physical elements.

That no two persons are identical in appearance is such a truism that we are apt to overlook its significance. The parent can rarely be recognized from the traits of the child, the brother from those of the sister, the family from its members.

On the other hand, the individual peculiarities become lost in those of the race. It is a common statement that to our eyes all Chinamen look alike, or that one cannot distinguish an Indian “buck” from a “squaw.” Yet you recognize very well the one as a Chinaman, the other as an Indian. The traits of the race thus overslaugh the variable characters of the family, the sex or the individual, and maintain themselves uniform and unalterable in the pure blood of the stock through all experience.

This fact is the corner-stone of the science of Ethnography, whose aim is to study the differences, physical and mental, between men in masses, and ascertain which of these differences are least variable and hence of most value in classifying the human species into its several natural varieties or types.

In daily life and current literature the existence of such varieties is fully recognized. The European and African, or White and Black races, are those most familiar to us; but the American Indian and the Mongolian are not rare, and are recognized also as distinct from each other and ourselves. These common terms for the races are not quite accurate; but they illustrate a tendency to identify the most prominent types of the species with the great continental areas, and in this I shall show that the popular judgment is in accord with scientific reasoning.

If an ordinary observer were asked what the traits are which fix the racial type in his mind, he would certainly omit many which are highly esteemed by the man of science. He would have nothing to say, for instance, about the internal structures or organs, because they are not visible; but in approaching the subject from a scientific direction, we must lay most stress upon these, as their peculiarities decide the external traits which strike the eye.

Nor does the casual observer note the mental or physical differences which exist between the races whom he recognizes; yet these are not less permanent and not less important than those which concern the physical economy only. In both these directions the student of ethnography as a science must pursue careful researches.

In the present lecture I shall pass in review the physical elements held to be most weighty in the discrimination of racial types; and, first, those relating to

The Bones.—Most important are the measurements of the skull, that science called craniology, or craniometry.

Ethnologists who are merely anatomists have made too much of this science. They have applied it to the exclusion of other elements, and have given it a prominence which it does not deserve. The shape of the skull is no distinction of race in the individual; only in the mass, in the average of large numbers, has it importance. Even here its value is not racial. Within the limits of the same people, as among the Slavonians, for example, the most different skulls are found, and even the pure-blood natives of some small islands in the Pacific Ocean present widely various forms.[1]

Experiments on the lower animals prove that the skull is easily moulded by trifling causes. Darwin found that he could produce long, or short, or non-symmetrical skulls in rabbits by training.[2] The shape also bears a relation to stature. As a general rule short men have short or rounded heads, tall men have long heads. The longest skulled nation in Europe are the Norwegians, who are also the tallest; the roundest are the Auvergnats, who, of all the European whites, are the shortest.

Nevertheless, employed cautiously, in large averages, and with a careful regard for all the other ethnic elements, the measurements of the skull are extremely useful as accessory data of comparison.

Some craniologists have run up these measurements to more than a hundred; but those worth mentioning in this connection are but few. There is, first, the proportion which the length of the head has to its breadth. This makes the distinction between long, medium and broad skulls, “dolicho-cephalic,” “meso-cephalic,” and “brachy-cephalic.” In the medium skull the transverse bears to the longitudinal diameter the proportion of about 80:100. The proportion 75:100 would make quite a long skull, and 85:100 quite a broad skull, the extreme variations not exceeding 70:100-90:100. (Figs. 1 and 2.)

Figs. 1 and 2.—Long and Short Skulls.

The Asiatic race or typical Mongolians are generally brachy-cephalic, the Eskimos and African negroes dolicho-cephalic; while the whites of Europe and American Indians present great diversity.

The lengthening of the skull may be anteriorly or posteriorly, and this is probably more significant of brain power than its width. In the black race the lengthening is occipital, that is at the rear, indicating a preponderance of the lower mental powers.

Fig. 3.—Lines of Sutures in the Skull.

The height of the skull is another measurement which is much respected by craniologists; but they are far from agreed as to the points from which the lines shall be drawn, so that it is difficult to compare their results.[3] The “sutures,” or lines of union between the several bones of the skull, present indications of great value. In the lower races they are much simpler than in the higher, and they become obliterated earlier in life; the bones of the skull thus uniting into a compact mass and preventing further expansion of the cavity occupied by the brain.[4] (Fig. 3.) Occasionally small separated bones are found in these sutures, more frequently in some races than in others. One of these, toward the back of the head, occurs so constantly in certain American tribes that it has been named the “Inca bone.”[5]

In many savage tribes there are artificial deformations of the skull, which render it useless as a means of comparison. The “Flathead Indians” are an example, and many Peruvian skulls are thus pressed out of shape. It is singular that this violence to such an important organ does not seem to be attended with any injurious result on the intellectual powers.

The orbit of the eyes is another feature which varies in races. The proportion of the short to the long diameter furnishes what is known as the “orbital index.” The Mongolians present nearest a circular orbit, the proportion being sometimes 93:100; while the lowest range has been found in skulls from ancient French cemeteries, presenting an index of 61:100. The latter are technically called “microsemes;” the former “megasemes,” while the mean are “mesosemes.”[6]

In a similar manner the aperture of the nostrils varies and constitutes quite an important element of comparison known as the “nasal index.” Where this aperture is narrow, the nose is thin and prominent; when broad, the nose is large and flat. The former are “leptorhinian,” the latter “platyrhinian,” while the medium size is “mesorhinian.” This division coincides closely with that of the chief races. Almost all the white race are leptorhinian, the negroes platyrhinian, the true Asiatics mesorhinian. The Eskimos have the narrowest nasal aperture, the Bushmen the widest.

The projection of the maxillaries, or upper and lower jaws, beyond the line of the face, is a highly significant trait. When well marked it forms the “prognathic,” when slight the “orthognathic” type. It is much more observable in the black than in the white race, and is more pronounced in the old than in the young. It is considered to correspond to a stronger development of the merely animal instincts.

The relation of the lower to the upper part of the head is measured mainly by two angles, the one the “maxillary,” the other the “facial” angle. The former is the angle subtended by lines drawn from the most projecting portion of the maxillaries to the most prominent points of the forehead above and the chin below. (The angle M G S in the accompanying diagram, Fig. 4.) This supplies data for two important elements, the prognathism and the prominence of the chin. The latter is an essential feature of man. None of the lower animals possesses a true chin, while man is never without one. The more acute the maxillary angle, the less of chin is there, and the more prognathic the subject. The averages run as follows:

The European white	160°.
The African negro	140°.
The Orang-outang	110°.

Fig. 4.—Lines and angles of skull measurement.

The facial angle is that subtended by the same line, from the most prominent point of the upper jaw to the most prominent part of the forehead, and a second line drawn horizontally through the center of the aperture of the ear. (The lines M G, D N.) It expresses the relative prominence of the forehead and capacity of the anterior portion of the brain. The more acute this angle, the lower is the brain capacity. The following are its averages:

The European white	80°.
The African negro	70°. to 75°.
The Orang-outang	40°.

The amount of brain matter contained in a skull is called its “cerebral or cranial capacity.” This is proved by investigation to average less in the dark than in the light races, and in the same race less in the female than in the male sex. Estimated in cubic centimetres the extremes are about 1250 cub. cent. in the Australians and Bushmen to 1600 cub. cent. in well-developed Europeans. We cannot regard this measurement as a constant exponent of intellectual power, as many men with small brains have possessed fine intellects; but as a general feature it certainly is indicative of brain weight, and therefore of relative intelligence. The average human brain weighs 48 ounces, while that of a large gorilla is not over 20 ounces.

The teeth offer several points of difference in races. In the negro they are unusually white and strong, and in nearly all the black people (Australians, Soudanese, Melanesians, etc.), the “wisdom teeth” are generally furnished with three separate fangs, and are sound, while among whites they have only two fangs, and decay early. The most ancient jaws exhumed in Europe present the former character. The prominence of the canine teeth is a peculiarity of some tribes, while in others the canines are not conical, but resemble the incisors.

The size of the teeth has also been asserted to be an index of race, and an effort has been made to classify peoples into small-toothed (microdonts), medium-toothed (mesodonts), and large-toothed (megadonts).[7] But this scheme includes in the first mentioned class the Polynesians with the Europeans, and in the second the African negro with the Chinese, which looks as if the plan has little value.

The milk-teeth have a much closer resemblance to those of the apes than the second dentition, and some naturalists have thought that the forms of the second teeth point often to reversion and are characteristic of races, but this has not been proved.

The teeth and the period of dentition have been studied in man with the view to show that certain races more than others retain the dental forms of the lower animals, but the latest investigations go rather to overthrow than to support these theories.[8]

Turning to the other bones of the skeleton, I shall note a few peculiarities said to be ethnic. The skeleton of a negro usually presents iliac bones more vertical than those of a white man, and the basin is narrower. This peculiarity is measured by what is called the “pelvic index,” by which is meant the ratio of the transverse to the longitudinal diameter. The average ratio is about 90 or 95 to 100.

Another trait of a lower osteology is the unusual length of the arms. This is found to depend upon the relative elongation of the fore-arm and its principal bones, the radius and ulna. From comparisons which have been instituted between the negro and the white, it appears that the proportionate length of their arms is as 78 to 72. The long arms are characteristic of the higher apes and the unripe fetus, and belong, therefore, to a lower phase of development than that reached by the white race.

There is also a peculiarity among many lower peoples in the shape of the shin-bone or tibia. Usually when cut in cross-section, the ends present a triangular surface; but in certain tribes, and in some ancient remains from the caves, the cross-section is elliptical, showing that the tibia has been flattened (platycnemic). This was long regarded as a sign of ethnic inferiority, but of late years the opinion of anatomists has undergone a change, and they attribute it to the special use of some of the muscles of the leg.

The heel-bone, the os calcis or calcaneum, is currently believed to be longer and project further backward in the negro than in the white man. There is no doubt of the projection of the heel, and it is typical of the true negro race, but it does not seem to be owing to the size of the bone, as an examination of a series of calcanca in both races proves. The lengthening is apparent only, and is due to the smallness of the calf and the slenderness of the main tendon, the “tendon of Achilles,” immediately above the heel.[9]

With the pithecoid forms of the bones is often associated another simian mark. The line in the hand known to chiromancy as the “heart” line, in all races but the negro ceases at the base of the middle finger, but in his race, as in the ape, it often extends quite across the palm.

The bones offer the most enduring, but not the most obvious distinctions of races. The latter are unquestionably those presented by

The Color.—This it is which first strikes the eye, and from which the most familiar names of the types have been drawn. The black and white, the yellow, the red and the brown races, are terms far older than the science of ethnography, and have always been employed in its terminology.

Why it is that these different hues should indelibly mark whole races, is not entirely explained. The pigment or coloring matter of the skin is deposited from the capillaries on the surface of the dermis or true skin, and beneath the epidermis or scarf skin.[10] I have seen a negro so badly scalded that the latter was detached in large fragments, and with it came most of his color, leaving the spot a dirty light brown.

The coloration of the negro, however, extends much beyond the skin. It is found in a less degree on all his mucous membrane, in his muscles, and even in the pia mater and the grey substance of his brain.

The effort has been made to measure the colors of different peoples by a color scale. One such was devised by Broca, presenting over thirty shades, and another by Dr. Radde, in Germany; but on long journeys, or as furnished by different manufacturers, these scales undergo changes in the shades, so that they have not proved of the value anticipated.

As to the physiological cause of color, you know that the direct action of the sun on the skin is to stimulate the capillary action, and lead to an increased deposit of pigment, which we call “tan.” This pigment is largely carbon, a chemical element, principally excreted by the lungs in the form of carbonic oxide. When from any cause, such as a peculiar diet, or a congenital disproportion of lungs to liver, the carbonic oxide is less rapidly thrown off by the former organs, there will be an increased tendency to pigmentary deposit on the skin. This is visibly the fact in the African blacks, whose livers are larger in proportion to their lungs than in any other race.[11]

While all the truly black tribes dwell in or near the tropics, all the arctic dwellers are dark, as the Lapps, Samoyeds and Eskimos; therefore, it is not climate alone which has to do with the change. The Americans differ little in color among themselves from what part soever of the continent they come, and the Mongolians, though many have lived time immemorial in the cold and temperate zone, are never really white when of unmixed descent.

A practical scale for the colors of the skin is the following:

Dark.	{1. Black.
	{2. Dark brown, reddish undertone.
	{3. Dark brown, yellowish undertone.

Medium.	{1. Reddish.
	{2. Yellowish (olive).

White.	{1. White, brown undertone (grayish).
	{2. White, yellow undertone.
	{3. White, rosy undertone.

The color of the eyes should next have attention. Their hue is very characteristic of races and of families. Light eyes with dark skins are rare exceptions. Other things equal, they are lighter in men than in women. Extensive statistics have been collected in Europe to ascertain the prevalence of certain colors, and instructive results have been obtained.[12] The division usually adopted is into dark and light eyes.

Dark eyes.	{1. Black.
	{2. Brown.

Light eyes.	{1. Light brown (hazel).
	{2. Gray.
	{3. Blue.

The eye must be examined at some little distance so as to catch the total effect.

Next in the order of prominence is

The Hair.—Indeed, Haeckel and others have based upon its character the main divisions of mankind. That of some races is straight, of others more or less curled. This difference depends upon the shape of the hairs in cross-section. The more closely they assimilate true cylinders, the straighter they hang; while the flatter they are, the more they approach the appearance of wool. (Fig. 5.) The variation of the two diameters (transverse and longitudinal) is from 25:100 to 90:100. The straightest is found among the Malayans and Mongolians; the wooliest among the Hottentots, Papuas and African negroes. The white race is intermediate, with curly or wavy hair. It is noteworthy that all woolly-haired peoples have also long, narrow heads and protruding jaws.

Fig. 5.—Cross Sections of Hairs.

The amount of hair on the face and body is also a point of some moment. As a rule, the American and Mongolian peoples have little, the Europeans and Australians abundance. Crossing of races seems to strengthen its growth, and the Ainos of the Japanese Archipelago, a mixed people, are probably the hairiest of the species. The strongest growth on the head is seen among the Cafusos of Brazil, a hybrid of the Indian and negro.

The Muscular Structure.—The development of the muscular structure offers notable differences in the various races. The blacks, both in Africa and elsewhere, have the gastrocnemii or calf muscles of the leg very slightly developed; while in both them and the Mongolians the facial muscles have their fibres more closely interwoven than the whites, thus preventing an equal mobility of facial expression.

The anomalies of the muscular structure seem about as frequent in one race as in another. The most of them are regressive, imitating the muscles of the apes, monkeys, and lower mammals. Indeed, a learned anatomist has said that the abnormal anatomy of the muscles supplies all the gaps which separate man from the higher apes, as all the simian characteristics reappear from time to time in his structure.[13]

Certain motions or positions, such as I may call “muscular habits,” are characteristic of extensive groups of tribes. The method of resting is one such. The Japanese squats on his hams, the Australian stands on one leg, supporting himself by a spear or pole, and so on. The methods of arrow-release have been profitably studied by Professor E. S. Morse. He finds them so characteristic that he classifies them ethnographically, with reference to savagery and civilization, and locality. The three most important are the primary, the Mediterranean, and the Mongolian releases. The first is that of many savage tribes, the second was practiced principally by the white race, the last by the Mongolians and their neighbors. (Figs. 6, 7, 8.) The last two are the most effective, and thus gave superiority in combat.

Fig. 6.—Primary Arrow-Release.

Fig. 7.—Mediterranean Arrow-Release.

Allied to muscular variation are the peculiar deposits of fatty tissue in certain portions of the system. The Hottentots are remarkable for the prominence of the gluteal region, imparting to their figure a singular projection posteriorly. It is called “steatopygy,” and appears to have been, in part at least, a cultivated deformity, regarded among them as a beauty. The thick lips of the negro, and the long and pendent breasts of the Australian women, are other examples of ethnic hypertrophies.

Fig. 8.—Mongolian Arrow-Release.

Stature and Proportion.—Differences in stature are tribal, but not racial. The smallest peoples known, the Negrillos, the Aetas, the Lapps, belong to different races, as do the tallest, the Patagonians, the Polynesians, the Anglo-Americans. The researches of Paolo Riccardi and others prove that stature is correlated with nutrition; the better the food, other things being equal, the taller the men.[14] It is also markedly hereditary; the stature of children will average that of their parents.

What is called the “canon of proportions” of the human body varies with the race and the nation. There is indeed an ideal, an artistic canon, which the sculptor or the painter seeks to body forth in his productions; and this seems in close conformity with an extensive average of the proportions of the highest peoples; but it is never found in individuals, and it is essentially unlike in man and woman, in youth and age, in the blonde and brunette.[15] Nor is the ideal of the artist also that which is consonant with the greatest muscular development or highest powers of endurance.

Special Senses.—It cannot be said that the different races display positive discrepancies in the special senses. Their development appears to depend on cultivation, and all races respond equally to equal training. There is, to be sure, a higher musical sense in the native African than in the native American, but quite as much difference is seen between European nations.

Much has been written of the color-sense as a trait of nations. It has been said that some tribes, some races, appreciate hues more keenly than others; that within historic times marked gains in this respect are noticeable. I think these statements are incorrect. The savage of any race distinguishes precisely the difference of hues when it is to his material interest so to do; but concerns himself not at all about colors which have no effect on his life. He is well acquainted with the colors of the animals he hunts, and has a word for every shade of hue. This proves that his color-sense is as acute as that of civilized people, and merely lacks specific training.

Ethnic Relations of the Sexes.—There are some curious facts in reference to the relative position of the sexes in different peoples. As a rule the expression of sex in form and feature is less in the lower than in the higher races. Travelers frequently refer to the difficulty of distinguishing the men from the women among the American Indians or the Chinese. Investigate the fact, and you will find that it is not that the women are less feminine in appearance, but the men less masculine. In other words, the expression of sex in such peoples is less in man than in woman. This seems to be true also of the highest ideals of manhood in artistic conception. The Greek Apollo, the traditional Christ, present a feminine type of the male. This was carried to its excess in the Greek Hermaphrodite.

The reason for this approximation to the female in art-ideals is probably the zoological fact that the law of beauty in the human species is the reverse of that in all the other higher mammals, the female sex with us being the handsomer. This also becomes more evident in the comparison of the best developed peoples.

On the other hand, the muscular force of the sexes presents the greatest contrast in nations of the highest culture. The average European woman of twenty-five or thirty has one-third less muscular power than the average European man. But among the Afghans, the Patagonians, the Druses and other tribes, the women are as tall and as strong as the men; and in Siam, Ashanti, Ancient Gaul, and elsewhere, not only the field-laborers but the soldiers were principally women, selected because of their greater physical force and courage.

As the value of mere brute force in a social organization lessens in comparison to mental powers, the condition of woman improves, and her faculties find appropriate play. Her brain capacity, though absolutely less, is relatively more than man’s. That is, the difference of the whole average weight of woman and man is greater in proportion than the difference of their brain weights.

It is believed, also, that the viability or prospect of life in woman is greater in higher than in lower peoples; and generally greater than in men. European statistics show that 106 boys are born to 100 girls: but at twelve years of age the sexes are equal, the boys suffering a greater mortality. At eighty years of age, there are nearly three women living to one man, indicating a superior longevity.

Correlation of Physical Traits to Vital Powers.—The physical traits are correlated to the physiological functions in such a manner as profoundly to influence the destiny of nations. They enable or disable man with reference to the climatic and other conditions of his surroundings. For instance, certain races can support given temperature better than others. The intense heat and humidity of Central Africa or Southern India are destructive to the pure whites, while the climate north of the fortieth parallel soon exterminates the blacks. The food on which the Australian thrives destroys the digestive powers of the European. Exemption and liability to diseases differ noticeably in races. The white race is more liable to yellow fever, malarial diseases, syphilis, scarlet fever and sunstroke; the colored races to measles, tuberculosis, leprosy, elephantiasis, and pneumonia.

Indeed, from the physical point of view, the pure white is weaker than the dark races, worse prepared for the combat of life, with inferior viability. This has been shown by the careful researches of statisticians.[16] But in the white this is more than compensated by the development of the nervous system and the intellectual power. He can bear greater mental strain than any other race, and the activity of his mind supplies him with means to overcome the inferiority of his body, and thus places him at the head of the whole species.

The tolerance of disease is an obscure but momentous element in the comparison of races. It is almost a proverb among the Spanish-American physicians that “when an Indian falls sick, he dies.” The greater longevity of the European peoples is due to their ability to support disease long and frequently, without succumbing to it. On the other hand, surgical injuries, wounds and cuts, appear to heal more rapidly among savage peoples.[17] It is clear that in civilized conditions this is less important than tolerance.

The Causes of the Fixation of Ethnic Traits.—These causes are mainly related to climate and the food-supply. The former embraces the questions of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure (altitude), malarial or zymotic poisons, and the like. All these bear directly upon the relative activity of the great physiological organs, the lungs, heart, liver, skin and kidneys, and to their action we must undoubtedly turn for the origin of the traits I have named. On the food-supply, liquid and solid, whether mainly animal, fish or vegetable, whether abundant or scanty, whether rich in phosphates and nitrogenous constituents or the reverse, depend the condition of the digestive organs, the nutrition of the individual, and the development of numerous physical idiosyncrasies. Nutrition controls the direction of organic development, and it is essentially on arrested or imperfect, in contrast to completed development, that the differences of races depend.

These are the physiological and generally unavoidable influences which went to the fixation of racial types. They are those which placed early man under the dominion of natural, unconscious evolution, like all the lower animals. To them may be added natural selection from accidental variations becoming permanent when proving of value in the struggle for existence, as shown in the black hue of equatorial tribes, special muscular development, etc.

But I do not look on these as the main agents in the fixation of special traits. No doubt such agencies primarily evolved them, but their cultivation and perpetuation were distinctly owing to conscious selection in early man. Our species is largely outside the general laws of organic evolution, and that by virtue of the self-consciousness which is the privilege of it alone among organized beings.

This conscious selection was applied in two most potent directions, the one to maintaining the physical ideal, the other toward sexual preference.

As soon as the purely physical influences mentioned had impressed a tendency toward a certain type on the early community, this was recognized, cultivated and deepened by man’s conscious endeavors. Every race, when free from external influence, assigns to its highest ideal of manly or womanly beauty its special racial traits, and seeks to develop these to the utmost. African travelers tell us that the negroes of the Soudan look with loathing on the white skin of the European; and in ancient Mexico when children were born of a very light color, as occasionally happened, they were put to death. On the other hand the earliest records of the white race exalt especially the element of whiteness. The writer of the Song of Solomon celebrates his bride as “fairest among women,” with a neck “like a tower of ivory;”[18] and one of the oldest of Irish hero-tales, the Wooing of Emer, chants the praises of “Tara, the whitest of maidens.”[19] Though both Greeks and Egyptians were of the dark type of the Mediterranean peoples, their noblest gods, Apollo and Osiris, were represented “fair in hue, and with light or golden hair.”[20]

The persistent admiration of an ideal leads to its constant cultivation by careful preservation and sexual selection. Thus the peoples who have little hair on the face and body, as most Chinese and American Indians, usually do not like any, and carefully extirpate it. The negroes prefer a flat nose, and a child which develops one of a pointed type has it artificially flattened. In Melanesia if a child is born of a lighter hue than is approved by the village, it is assiduously held over the smoke of a fire in order to blacken it. The custom of destroying infants markedly aberrant from the national type is nigh universal in primitive life. Such usages served to fix and perpetuate the racial traits.

A yet more powerful factor was sexual preference. This worked in a variety of ways. If is well known to stock breeders that the closer animals are bred in-and-in, that is, the nearer the relationship of father and mother, the more prominently the traits of the parents appear in their children and become fixed in the breed. It is evident that in the earliest epoch of the human family, the closest inter-breeding must have prevailed without restriction, as it does in every species of the lower animals. By its influences the racial traits were rapidly strengthened and indelibly impressed. This, however, was long before the dawn of history, for it is a most remarkable fact that never in historic times has a tribe been known that allowed incestuous relations, unless as in ancient Egypt and Persia, for a sacrificial or ceremonial purpose. The lowest Australians, the degraded Utes, look with horror on the union of brother and sister. The general principle of marriage in savage races is that of “exogamy,” marriage outside the clan or family, the latter being counted in the female line only. This strange but universal abhorrence has been explained by Darwin as primarily the result of sexual indifference arising between members of the same household, and the high zest of novelty in that appetite. Whatever the cause, the consequences will easily be seen. The racial traits once fixed in the period before this abhorrence arose would remain largely stationary afterwards, and by exogamous marriages would be rendered uniform over a wide area.

This form of conscious selection has properly been rated as one of the prime factors in the problem of race differentiation.[21] The apparently miscellaneous and violent union of the sexes in savage tribes is in fact governed by the most stringent traditional laws, and their confused cohabitations are so only to the mind of the European observer, not to the tribal conscience.[22]

Causes of Variation in Types.—The physical type once fixed by the influences just mentioned remains very stable; yet may fall under the influence of conditions which will greatly modify it.

Changes in climatic surroundings and of the food supply exert a visible effect. These generally come about by migration, though geologic action has occasionally completely altered the climate of a given locality, as at the glacial epoch, which change would have the same effect as migration.

How far migration may alter race-types after many generations is not yet defined. The Spanish-American of pure white blood, whose ancestors have lived for three centuries in tropical America, the citizen of the United States who traces his genealogy to the passengers in the Mayflower or the Welcome, have departed extremely little from the standard of the Andalusian or the Englishman of to-day, though the contrary is often asserted by those who have not personally studied the variants in the countries compared. Conditions of climate and food materially impress the individual, but not the race. The Greeks of Nubia are as dark as Nubians, but let their children return to Greece and the Nubian hue is lost. This is a general truth and holds good of all the slight impressions made upon pure races by unaccustomed environments.

Another cause of variation is the recurrence to remote ancestral traits, or the appearance of what seem merely accidental variations, which may be perpetuated. It is not very unusual in pure African negroes and Chinese to observe instances of reddish hair and gray or brown eyes.

Those peculiar congenital conditions known as albinism and melanism may be frequent and are unquestionably transmissible by descent.[23]

The Mingling of Races.—But the mightiest cause in the change of types is intermarriage between races, what the French call métissage. This has taken place from distantly remote epochs, especially along the lines where two races come into contact. In such regions we always find numerous mixed breeds, leading to a shading of one race into another by imperceptible degrees.

The widespread custom of exogamous marriage fostered the blending of types, and it was greatly increased in early days by the institution of human slavery, the habit of selling captives taken in war, the purchase of wives and concubines, and the rule in early conquest that the men of the conquered were killed or sent off, and the women retained as the spoils of the victors. In all ages man has been migratory, and very remote relics of his arts show that war and commerce led to extensive intermixture of races long before history took up the thread of his wanderings.

It is noticeable, however, that these prolonged interminglings have not produced another race. The nearest approach to it is in the Australians, but these do not refute my statement as we shall see later. Many ethnologists have indeed classed the mixed types as separate races, running the number of the sub-species of the genus homo up to thirty or forty. But this was hasty generalization.

I would impress upon you this fact, that since the intermingling of two races does not produce a third race, it is not likely that any of the existing races arose from a fusion of two others. The result of observation shows that after two or three generations the tendency in mixed breeds is to recur to one or the other of the original stocks, not to establish a different variety.

Were it not for such constant crossings, we have reason to believe that the race types would resist all environment and retain their traits under all known conditions. It is only where the element of métissage prominently enters that we are unable to assign individuals to one or another race.

Such being the case, it is a fair comparison to set one race over against another and deduce the

Physical Criteria of Racial Superiority.—We are accustomed familiarly to speak of “higher” and “lower” races, and we are justified in this even from merely physical considerations. These indeed bear intimate relations to mental capacity, and where the body presents many points of arrested or retarded development, we may be sure that the mind will also.

There are two explanations of the presence of the inferior physical traits in certain races of men; the one, that of the evolutionists, that they are reversions or perpetuations of the ape-like (simian, pithecoid) features of the lower animal which was man’s immediate ancestor; the other, that of the special creationists, that they are instances of surviving fetal peculiarities, or else deficiency or excess of development from unknown causes.

The following are the principal traits of the kind:

Simplicity and early union of cranial sutures.

Presence of the frontal process of the temporal bone.

Wide nasal aperture, with synostosis of the nasal bones.

Prominence of the jaws.

Recession of the chin.

Early appearance, size and permanence of the “wisdom” teeth.

Unusual length of the humerus.

Perforation of the humerus.

Continuation of the “heart” line across the hand.

Obliquity (narrowness) of the pelvis.

Deficiency of the calf of the leg.

Flattening of the tibia.

Elongation of the heel (os calcis).

When all or many of these traits are present, the individual approaches physically the type of the anthropoid apes, and a race presenting many of them is properly called a “lower” race. On the other hand, where they are not present, the race is “higher,” as it maintains in their integrity the special traits of the genus Man, and is true to the type of the species.

The adult who retains the more numerous fetal, infantile or simian traits, is unquestionably inferior to him whose development has progressed beyond them, nearer to the ideal form of the species, as revealed by a study of the symmetry of the parts of the body, and their relation to the erect stature.

Measured by these criteria, the European or white race stands at the head of the list, the African or negro at its foot.

The investigations of anthropologists extend much beyond the outlines I have now presented you. All parts of the body have been minutely scanned, measured and weighed, in order to erect a science of the comparative anatomy of the races. Much of value has been discovered; but nothing absolutely characteristic, nothing which enables us to divide more sharply one race from another than the facts I have given you. It is a question, indeed, whether not too much, but too exclusive attention has not been devoted by many anthropologists to the purely physical aspects of their science. They have multiplied useless anatomical refinements and a pedantic nomenclature. The more valuable general distinctions and their technical terms I present to you in the following table:—

Scheme of Principal Physical Elements.

Skull	Dolichocephalic, long skulls.
	Mesocephalic, medium skulls.
	Brachycephalic, broad skulls.

Nose	Leptorhine, narrow noses.
	Mesorhine, medium noses.
	Platyrhine, flat or broad noses.

Eyes	Megaseme, round eyes.
	Mesoseme, medium eyes.
	Microseme, narrow eyes.

Jaws	Orthognathic, straight or vertical jaws.
	Mesognathic, medium jaws.
	Prognathic, projecting jaws.

Face	Chamæprosopic, low or broad face.
	Mesoprosopic, medium face.
	Leptoprosopic, narrow or high face.

Pelvis	Platypellic, broad pelvis.
	Mesopellic, medium pelvis.
	Leptopellic, narrow pelvis.

Color	Leucochroic, white skin.
	Xanthochroic, yellow skin.
	Erythrochroic, reddish skin.
	Melanochroic, black or dark skin.

Hair	Euthycomic, straight hair.
	Euplocomic, wavy hair.
	Eriocomic, wooly hair.
	Lophocomic, bushy hair.

LECTURE II.
THE PSYCHICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHNOGRAPHY.

Contents.—The mental differences of races. Ethnic psychology. Cause of psychical development.

I. The Associative Elements. 1. The Social Instincts; sexual impulse; primitive marriage; conception of love; parental affection; filial and fraternal affection; friendship; ancestral worship; the gens or clan; the tribe; personal loyalty; the social organization; systems of consanguinity; position of woman in the state; ethical standards; modesty. 2. Language; universality of; primeval speech; rise of linguistic stocks; their number; grammatical structure; classes of languages; morphologic scheme; relation of language to thought; significance of language in ethnography. 3. Religion: universality of; early forms; family and tribal religions; universal or world religions; ethnic study of religions; comparison of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism; material and ideal religions; associative influences of religions. 4. The Arts of Life: architecture; agriculture; domestication of animals; inventions.

II. The Dispersive Elements: adaptability of man to surroundings. 1. The Migratory Instincts; love of roaming; early commerce; lines of traffic and migration. 2. The Combative Instincts: primitive condition of war; love of combat; its advantages; heroes; development through conflict.

The mental differences of races and nations are real and profound. Some of them are just as valuable for ethnic classification as any of the physical elements I referred to in the last lecture, although purely physical anthropologists are loath to admit this. No one can deny, however, that it is the psychical endowment of a tribe or a people which decides fatally its luck in the fight of the world. Those, therefore, who would master the highest significance of ethnography in its function as the key to history, will devote to this branch of it their most earnest attention.

The study of the general mental peculiarities of a people is called “ethnic psychology.” As a science, it may be treated by various methods, applicable to the different aims of research. For our present purpose, which is to study the growth, migrations and comminglings of races and peoples, the most suggestive method will be to classify their mental distinctions under the two main headings of Associative and Dispersive Elements. The predominance of one or the other of these is ever eminently formative in the character and history of a people, and both must be constantly considered with reference to their bearings on the progress of a nation toward civilization.

The psychical development of men and nations finds its chief explanation, less in the natural surroundings, the climate, soil, and water-currents, as is taught by some philosophers, than in their relations and connections with each other, their friendships, federations and enmities, their intercourse in commerce, love and war. Around these must center the chief studies of ethnographic science, for they contain and present the means for reaching its highest, almost its only aim—the comprehension of the social and intellectual progress of the species.