of south latitude, and the yet blacker Californians are twenty-five degrees north of
the equator.*
“ The nations of New Spain are darker colored than the Indians of Quito
and New Grenada, who inhabit a precisely analogous climate. We even find
that the nations dispersed to the north of the Rio Gila, are browner than those
that border on the kingdom of Guatimala. The people of the Rio Negro are
darker than those of the Lower Orinoco, yet the hanks of the former of these two
rivers enjoy a cooler climate. In the forests of Guiana, especially near the sources
of the Orinoco, there exist several tribes of a whitish complexion, [to whom
allusion has already been made,] who are surrounded by other nations of a darker
brown. The Indians who, in the torrid zone, inhabit the most elevated table land
of the Andes, and those who, under forty-five degrees of south latitude, live upon
fish in the Archipelago of Chonos, have a complexion as much copper-colored as
they who cultivate, under a burning sun, the banana in the narrowest and deepest
valleys of the equinoctial regions. To this it must he added, that the Indians
who inhabit the mountains are clothed, and were so long before the conquest;
while the aborigines that wander on the plains are perfectly naked, and consequently
are always exposed to the perpendicular rays of the sun. Every where,
in short, it is found that the color of the American depends very little on the
local situation w’hich he actually occupies; and never, in the same individual, are
those parts of the body that are constantly covered, of a fairer color than those
that are in contact with a hot and humid air. Their infants are never white
when they are horn; and the Indian caziques who enjoy a considerable degree
of luxury, and who keep themselves constantly dressed in the interior of their
habitations, have all the parts of their body, with the exception of the palms of
their hands and the soles of their feet, of the same brownish red or copper color. ”f
After all, these differences in complexion are extremely partial, forming mere
exceptions to the primitive and national tint that characterises these people from
Cape Horn to the Canadas. The cause of these anomalies is not readily explained:
* “ Si le climat seul était la cause de la couleur brune des Américains, les Portugais auraient dû,
après plusieurs générations, prendre aussi cette couleur ; et cependent il est certain qu’ils ont la même
que leurs ancêtres toutes les fois que leur sang n’est pas mêlé avec celui des Nègres ou des Indians.’’—
Prince de Wied, Voy. au Brésil, II, p. 310.—See also, Humboldt, Monuments, T. I,*p. 23.—•
Dobrizhoffer, II, p. 9.—Borv de St. Vincent, U Homme, II, p. 20.
t Malte-Brun, Geog. Jim. ed. 5, p. 14.
that it is not climate is sufficiently obvious; and whether it arises from partial
immigrations from other countries, remains yetcto be decided.
Nothing can he more variable than the stature of these people, which presents
some remarkable contrasts, of which a few only need be noticed at present, as I
shall revert to this subject on a future occasion. The Patagonians of the main
land, after rejecting the absurd fables of the early voyagers, are the tallest nation
on the American continent. Commodore Byron states that among five hundred
men he saw together, the shortest were at least four inches taller than his own
men.* Captain Wallace, however, took the pains to measure many of them,
among whom one was six feet seven, and several were six feet five; but the
greater part of them were from five feet ten to six feet.f On the other hand
Humboldt found the Chaymas and some other tribes of the Upper Orinoco to he
remarkably short, while in the adjacent Charih nation the men were not less
conspicuous for their great stature. The Pourys and CoroadosJ of Brazil are
diminutive races, while the Abipones of Paraguay are, to a man, of gigantic proportions.
The ldte Mr. Bartram, who passed much time among the Florida
nations, describes the Creek (Muscogee) Indians as strikingly tall and athletic, “ a
full size larger than Europeans; many of them above six feet, and few under that,
or five feet eight or ten inches.” Yet what is very singular, he assures us that
the women of that nation are seldom above five feet high, and that the greater
number of them never attain to that stature; an observation that has also been
made respecting the Indians of Paraguay.^
Although the Americans are generally of good stature, they are not so
generally of strictly athletic proportions. Their chests are often less expanded
and their shoulders narrower than one would expect; defects which are usually
ascribed to habitual indolence; for the men make little exertion with their arms
beyond bending the bow. On the other hand, many nations both of North and
South America, are remarkable for their perfect symmetry: among numerous
examples we may instance the Patagonians of the main land, the Charruas of
Brazil, and the Creeks and Seminoles of Florida. In fact there is ample evidence
to disprove the hypothesis of some closet naturalists, that the physical man of
the new world is of a defective and degenerate organisation.
* Hawks. Voy. I, p. 26.
t Ibid. I, p. 124.—The reader will find an interesting examination of this question in the Introduction
to Hawks worth’s Voyages, and also in De Pauw, Resch. sur les'Amer. T. I, p, 283, &c.
t !Spix and Mart. Trav. II, 239. § Pernettv, Voy. 1 ,299.