The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

All the colours presented by the human skin have two common elements, the white of the dermis and the red of the blood. Moreover, each has its own proper element, resulting from the colourings of the pigment. The rays reflected from these different tissues combine into a resultant which produces the different tints and traverses the epidermis. This latter plays the part of roughened glass. The more delicate and the finer it is, the more perceptible is the colour of the subjacent parts.

This arrangement explains why, among certain coloured races, for example, among the Sandwich Islanders, the upper classes, who do not live an exposed life, often exhibit the colour in a most pronounced form. Among them sun-burning masks the colour of the pigment, as it masks with us the colour of the dermis and its vessels.

From the preceding, we can also understand why the White alone can be said to turn pale or to blush. The reason is, that in him the pigment allows the slightest differences in the afflux of blood to the dermis to be perceived. With the Negro as with us, the blood has its share in the colouring, the tint of which it deepens or modifies. When the blood is wanting, the Negro turns grey from the blending of the white of the dermis with the black of the pigment.

It is well known that from the point of view of the colouring, human races can be divided into four principal groups: white, yellow, black, and red races. But we must guard against attaching an absolute sense to these expressions. Every grouping of races founded solely on colour would break close relations, and would lead to comparisons which would evidently be at variance with the sum of the remaining characters. Nevertheless, this systematic point of view brings to light some interesting general facts.

The races of a white colour present sufficient homogeneity. From the sum of their characters, they belong almost exclusively to the type which borrows its name from this kind of colouring. It is, moreover, useless to insist upon the differences of tint which the latter exhibit, from the English or German woman of the upper classes to the Portuguese, and especially to the Arab. Nevertheless, in the northern regions and in Central Asia, some populations, the Tchukchees for example, appear to unite with a white colour certain characters which connect them with the yellows.

In the purest white, the epidermis easily loses its transparency as soon as the colour deepens. The sub-cutaneous veins can then only be recognised by their swelling. It is only with individuals whose skin is very fine and transparent, that the course of the veins is marked by the well-known bluish colour. Whenever this trait is exhibited by any population whatever, it may with certainty be connected with the white type. For this reason I have not hesitated to place among the Allophylians some of the most savage tribes of the north western shores of North America, and the Tchukchees, of whom I have just spoken.

The populations with a black skin are far from being as homogeneous as the preceding. All black men are not Negroes; there are some, who, from the sum of their more important characters, are closely connected with the white stock. Such, for example, are the Bicharis and other negröid populations, on the borders of the Red Sea, whose skin is much blacker than that of some negroes, but whose hair and characters are perfectly Semitic.

Among Negroes properly so called, the tints vary, perhaps, much more than with the White. Without going further than Cairo, individuals may be seen, who, without any traces of the mixture of races, are of a brown colour with a considerable mixture of black. The Yolofs are of a bluish black, resembling the wing of a raven, and Livingstone speaks of some tribes on the Zambesi who are the colour of café au lait. But, perhaps, mixture of races has some action in this extreme modification of the colour.

Populations with a yellow skin present facts analogous with the preceding, but not so numerous nor so striking. Perhaps this difference is only due to the difficulty of recognising the shades of the fundamental colour. Nevertheless, a more or less pronounced yellow colour equally characterises the great Mongolian stock, and the Houzouana or Bosjesman race, which it is impossible to separate from the Negroes. On the other hand, this same tint is so well marked among the mulattoes that they are often designated by the name of yellows, in distinction to the Blacks and the Whites.

Of the four groups into which the colour of human races may be divided, the least characteristic is the red. It has been attempted to make it the attribute of the Americans. This is a mistake. On the one hand, in America the Peruvian, Autisian, Araucanian, and other races are more or less deep brown, the Brazilio-Guaranians of a yellowish colour slightly tinted with red, etc. On the other hand, in Formosa a tribe has been found as red as the Algonquins, and more or less copper tints are met with among Corean, African populations, etc.