Indian types of beauty

by Robert W. Shufeldt

“The women, according to all accounts, have a powerful voice in determining their own future.” And, after marriage this author has said of the Moqui matron, that “she has her faults—the faults of her sex, of our common human nature; but she makes a dutiful wife, and a fond, affectionate mother.”

Passing on through Arizona to the southward and westward, from the Pueblos to the Moquis, we meet first with that fierce and brave race of field Indians, the Apaches, as they are popularly known; and afterward as we near the Californian line, the Apache-Yumas and the Apache-Mojaves, still very different kinds of Indians.

Of these three groups of Indians it has been said by Dr. W. H. Corbusier of the Army that “The Apache-Yumas, Tulkepaias or Natchons, belong to the Yuma, or Katchan family of Indians. The name Apache-Yuma was given to them by the whites, but they are known to the Indians of the Yuma family as Tulkepaia, or in full, Tulkepaiá (sparrow?) venùna (belly) tchehwàle (spotted), and to those of the Tennai family—the so-called Apaches—as Natchon (lizards). Their country is in Arizona, north of the Gila River, between the Verde and the Colorado.”

“The Apache-Mojaves, Yavapaias, or Kohenins, also belong to the Yuma family. The whites call them Apache-Mojaves, but the Indians related to them call them Yavape, Yavapaia, or Nyavapai, and the Tennai call them Kohenin. They claim as their country the whole of the valley of the Verde River and the Black Mesa, as far north as Bill Williams’ Mountain.”[1]

Of the others of these groups, Mr. Henry Gannet has said in the Encyclopædia Britannica, in 1881, that “The Apaches are a branch of the Athabasca family which has wandered far from the parent region, and now range over large parts of New Mexico and Arizona. It is a powerful, warlike tribe, at war with the whites almost continually since the latter entered the country. A large part of the tribe is on the Fort Stanton reservation in Eastern New Mexico, while another portion, under the Chief Victoria, has for a long time been devastating the border settlements of New Mexico. The Tonto-Apaches collected in large numbers on the San Carlos reservation in Arizona, where they are doing something at farming, are of Yuma stock. Besides these there are several bands of Apaches scattered about on other reservations, or roaming without a fixed habitat, swelling the total to about 10,600.”[2]

For brevity’s sake, in the present connection, I shall designate these three groups of Indians, simply as the Apaches, the Mojaves and the Yumas. It will be remembered that several years ago we whipped the Apaches in Arizona into submission, and numbers of them were gathered together and transported on the railroad out of their country to reservations at different points in Florida and again in Alabama. These were of Geronimo’s band, spoken collectively, and it is from this ungovernable tribe that I choose one of their comeliest maidens to represent the style of beauty found among their women. The last the writer saw of this girl she was peering from the car window, as the train which rapidly conveyed those captive people to the far Eastward, momentarily stopped at Wingate, New Mexico.

The Apaches, as a general rule, both men and women, possess splendidly proportioned figures, and in the case of the type I have selected for illustration no exception is found, although, as will be seen in her portrait, her costume precludes the possibility of our judging upon this point. This girl bears the name of Natuende in her tribe, and her garb indicates that she has not yet married—the buckskin over-jacket with its peculiar trimmings, and even the mode of doing up her not very abundant black hair, all having its meaning—a meaning which I am not as yet fully informed upon—that is, sufficiently to render an account of here. She has a smooth dark skin, which is of a deeper or darker tint in winter than it is in summer, and it is prone to change as Natuende happens to be influenced by any of the emotions common to all humanity. Her face has almost the cast of some of the prettier Chinese women, and for this the slight obliquity of her eyes are chiefly responsible. These black orbs can snap out their anger when occasion offers, or tell the tale of the opposite passion, as they no doubt have done long since, to that successful warrior who first inclosed her in his serape. Her narrow, black eyebrows are finely arched, and other features of her face inclined to be clean cut, and their expression upon the whole by no means entirely devoid of intelligence, or even attractiveness (Fig. 6).

But these Apaches, as I have already said, both men and women, are as a rule principally distinguished for their almost faultless figures, their graceful movements, and a certain elasticity of step so characteristic of the typical field Indians, so that when we do find an individual among their young women having any claim to beauty at all, it cannot fail to be enhanced by these facts.

Fig. 6. AN APACHE MAIDEN.