Races and Peoples: Lectures on the Science of Ethnography

by Daniel G. Brinton

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.