African-JSFegro Crania.
Our Chapter VILL. has already shown that Negroes are faithfully
delineated on the monuments of the _X.Vli.th dynasty, or B. c. 1600 —
1700; and that, although we produced no positive Nigritian portraits
of earlier date, yet it is conceded
that Negro tribes were abundant,
along the Upper Nile, as far hack
as the Xllth dynasty; and ergo, they
must have been also contemporary
with the earliest settlers of Egypt.
Although Negro races present considerable
variety in their cranial conformations,
yet they all possess certain
unmistakeable traits in common,
marking them as Negroes, and distinguishing
them from all other species
of man. Prognathous jaws,
narrow elongated forms, receding
foreheads, large posterior development,
small internal capacity,( &c.,
characterize the whole group crani-
ologically.
A few examples suffice to give the
reader a good idea of their prominent
characteristics, andwill enable
him to appreciate cranial distinctions
between the varied Negro and other
African types. (See Eigs. 270-275.)
It cannot fail
Fig. 273.480 to he noticed
that the Caff re
and the Ash-
antee exhibit
far higher con-
f o rma t i o n s
than the rest ;
in accordance
F ig. 270.487
Bushman.
F ig. 271.488
Mozambique.
. F ig. 272.489
BUM wi th recent Caffre. Ashantee. _ . . h i s t o r i c a l 1
events. They approach the Foolah “ gradation.”
F ig. 274.401 Fig. 275.482
Creole Negro. Mummied Negress.
Figure 276 is the portrait of a celebrated Hottentot female, which (seemingly, to
Europeans) presents an extraordinary deformity. Some writers affirm, that her bump, or
hump, is an accidental freak of nature, or a peculiarity resulting from local causes,
is furthermore asserted, that such posterior development cannot
be characteristic of any special race. But, while all these explanations
Fig. 278.
It
F ig . 276.493
are nullified by the fact that, around the Cape of Good
Hope (apd among Hottentot and Bushman races alone) similar
retrotuberance is still quite common, it should not be forgotten
that the proclivities of exotic Dutch Boors, combined with the
action of local aborigines, have already modified the Hottentot and
Bushman, and consequently divested both, to Some extent, of their
pristine uniformity. B itter [supra, p. 380] shows that Arabian
single, and Bactrian double-humped camels (although distinct
“ species”), when bred together, produce offspring sometimes
with one, at others with two humps; and as the Hottentots are
now a very mixed race, why should not the bump, once unde-
viatingly characteristic of the good old race, be frequently absent,
or else diminished in volume* in the present generation?
That the laws governing the phenomena of Nature, if as yet
often inscrutable, are nevertheless perdurable, may be exemplified,
monumentally, even through instances of idiocy or lunacy,
Hottentot Venus.
Rosellini’s plates, com-
pared with Egyptian mummied skulls, and examined by the keen eyes of such comparative
anatomists as Morton, furnish evidence that the natural deformities of humanity were appreciated,
thousands of years ago, by Nilotic a r t; because the “ sagacity of the Egyptian
artist has admirably adapted this man’s (Fig. 278) vocation to his intellectual developments,
for he is employed in stirring the fire Fjq. 277.
in a blacksmith’s shop.” 494
Sculptured Fool. Mummied Idiot.