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 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 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 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.