While the American Indians show many minor and even some important
physical variations, and can be separated into several physical types,
they present throughout the continent so many features in common that
they may properly be regarded as one great race, admitting of a general
anatomical description. The Eskimo form a distinct sub-race of the
Alougolo-Malay and must be treated separately.
The Indian, in many of his anatomical characters,
stands between the white and the negro. His skin is of various shades of
brown, tinged in youth, particularly in the cheeks, with the red of the
circulating blood. The term "red Indian" is a misnomer. Very dark
individuals of a hue approaching chocolate or even the color of some
negroes are found in more primitive tribes, especially in the south and
among the old men, who often went nearly naked.
Most women and school children or others who wear
clothing and live a more civilized life are lighter in color. Prolonged
exposure to the elements tends, as with whites, to darken the skin. The
darkest parts of the skin are ordinarily the back of the hands, wrists,
and neck, the axillae, nipples, peritoneal regions, and the exposed
parts of the feet. A newborn infant is of varying degrees of dusky red.
The color of the hair is generally black, Also the
luster and slight bluish or brownish tinge that occurs among whites, not
the dull grayish black of the African Negro. With many individuals of
all ages above early childhood who go much with bare head the hair
becomes partly bleached, especially superficially, turning to a rusty
hue.
The color of the eyes varies from hazel brown to dark
brown. The conjunctiva in the voting is bluish; in adults, especially
the old, dirty-yellowish. The iris is often surrounded with a narrow but
clearly marked ring.
The skin appears to be slightly thicker than that of
the whites. The normal corrugations on the back of the hand and wrist
are from childhood decidedly more pronounced in Indians of both sexes.
The hair of the head is straight, almost circular in
cross-section, slightly coarser than in the average white, rather
abundant and long. The range of variation in natural length is front 40
to 100 cm., or I8 in. to 36 in. Most male Indians would have a slight to
moderate mustache and sonic beard on the chill if they allowed the hair
to grow; but side whiskers in many are absent, or nearly so. Both
mustache and chin beard are scarcer and coarser than with the whites,
straight, of the satin lack as the hair, and in length 4 to 7 cm., or 1½
in. to 2½ in. The hair in the axillæ and on the pubis is moderate in
quantity, in some instances nearly absent, and on the rest of the body
hairs are shorter and less abundant than with the average white person.
The nails are dull bluish in line, and moderately tough.
The face is well rounded and agreeable in childhood,
interesting and occasionally handsome during adolescence and earlier
adult life, and agreeable but much wrinkled in old age. The forehead in
adult., with undeformed skulls is somewhat low and in males slopes
slightly backward. The eyebrows, where not plucked, are frequently
connected by sparser hair above the nose. The eyelashes are moderately
thick and long. The apertures of the eyes are slightly oblique, the
outer canthi, especially the right one, being the higher. In children
the fold called Mongolic is general, but not excessive. The root of the
nose is usually depressed, as in most whites. The size and shape of the
nose vary much, but it is commonly slightly shorter at the base and
relatively wider than in whites, with an aquiline bridge predominating
in men. In many men the point of the nose is lower than the base of the
septum, the distal length exceeding the proximal. This peculiarity is
especially frequent in some tribes. In women the nasal depression is
wider and oftener shallower, and the bridge lower. Thin noses are not
found. The lips are well formed and, barring individual exceptions,
about as thick as in average whites. Prognathisin is greater than in
whites. The malars are in both sexes somewhat large and prominent; this
becomes especially apparent in old age when much of the adipose tissue
below them is gone. The chill often appears less prominent than in
whites, but this effect is due to the greater alveolar protrusion. The
ears are well formed and of good size, occasionally somewhat thick. The
neck is of fair dimensions, never very long or thin.
The body as a rule is of good proportions, symmetrical, and,
except in old age, straight and well nourished. The chest is of ample
size, especially in men. The abdomen, which in children is often rather
large, retains but, slight fullness in later life. The pelvis, on
account of the ample chest, appears some what small, but is not so by
actual measurement. The spinal curves are only moderate, as are the size
and prominence of the buttocks. The thighs are rather shapely; the
calves are usually smaller than in whites. The upper limbs are of good
shape and medium musculature. The feet and hands are well molded and in
many tribes smaller than they ordinarily are in whites. The toes are
rather short, and, where the people walk much barefoot or in sandals,
show more or less separation. The proximal parts of the second and third
toes are often confluent. In the more sedentary tribes the women, and
occasionally also the teen, are inclined to corpulence. The breasts of
women are of medium size; in the childless the conical form
predominates; the nipple and areola are more pronounced than in whites;
in later life the breasts become small and flaccid. The genital organs
do not differ essentially from those of the whites.
The Indian skull is, on the average, slightly smaller than
that of whites of equal height. Cranial capacity in men ranges from
1,300 to 1,500c.c.; in women from about 1,150 to 1,350 c. c. The frontal
region in men is often low and sloping, the sagittal region elevated,
the occipital region marked with moderate ridges and, in the
dolichocephalic, protruding. Sutures are mostly less serrated than in
whites; metopism, except in some localities, is rare, and occipital
division is uncommon, while malar division is very rare and parietal
division extremely so. Intercalated bones are few in undeformed crania;
in deformed crania they are more numerous. The glabella, supraorbital
ridges, and mastoids in male skulls are well-developed and sometimes
heavy; in women they are small or of medium size. The nasal bridge is
occasionally low, the nasal spine smaller than in whites; the lower
borders of the nasal aperture, are not often sharp, but nasal gutters
are rare; subnasal fossæ are rather common. Orbits are of fair volume,
approaching the quadrilateral, with angles rounded. Malars are often
large, submalar depressions medium or shallow. The upper alveolar
process, and occasionally also the lower, shows in both sexes a degree
of prognathism greater than the average in whites, but less than in the
Negro. The protrusion on the whole is somewhat greater in the females.
The face is mesoor ortho-gnathic. The lower jaw varies greatly. The chin
is of moderate prominence, occasionally high, sometimes square in form.
The prominence of the angles in full-grown males is not infrequently
pronounced.
As to base structures, the foramen magnum is seldom large,
and its position and inclination are very nearly the same as in whites;
the styloid process is mostly smaller than in whites and not
infrequently rudimentary; petrous portions on the average are less
depressed below the level of neighboring parts than in whites; anterior
lacerated foramina are smaller; the palate is well formed and fairly
spacious, mostly parabolic, occasionally U-shaped.
The teeth are of moderate size; upper incisors are
ventrally concave, shovel-shaped; canines not excessive; molars much as
in whites; third molars rarely absent when adult life is reached. The
usual cuspidory formula, though variations are numerous, is 4, 4, 3,
above; 5, 5, irregular, below. A supernumerary conical dental element
appears with some frequency in the upper jaw between, in front of, or
behind the middle permanent incisors.
The bones of the vertebral column, the ribs, sternum,
clavicles, and the smaller bones of the upper and lower limbs present
many marks of minor importance. The pelvis is well formed, moderately
spacious, approaching the European in shape. The humerus is rather flat,
at times very much so; the fossa in 31 per cent is perforated; but
vestiges of a supracondyloid process are much rarer than in whites. The
humero-radial index of maximum frequency in adult males is 77 to 80 (in
whites 71 to 75) ; humerofemoral index, 71 to 75 (in whites 70 to 74).
The femur is quite flat below the tuberosities; the tibia, often flat (platycnermic).
Of the brain and other soft organs but little is known.
Two adult male Apache brains, collected by Dr W. Matthews and now
preserved in the U. S. National Museum, weighed after removal 1,191 and
1,304 grams, respectively. Both show good gyration.
The Eskimo differs anatomically from the Indian in many
important features. His hair and eyes are similar in shade, though the
eyes are more obliquely set; but his skin color on the whole is lighter,
being yellowish or light brown, with a pronounced redness of the face.
The Eskimo skull is high, normally scaphoid, and usually spacious. The
face is large and flat, and the nasal bones are narrower than in any
other people. The bones of the body are usually strong. There is less
flattening of the shaft of the humerus, of the upper part of the shaft
of the femur, and of the tibia. The superior border of the scapula shows
often an angular instead of a curved outline.
In anthropometric differentiation the native tribes
north of Mexico are primarily separable into Indians and Eskimo. Some of
the adjacent Indian tribes show Eskimo admixture.
The Indians among themselves vary considerably in
stature, in form of the head and face, and of the orbits, the nose, and
the nasal aperture. Low stature, from 160 to 165 cm. in males, is found
among some of the Californian tribes (as the Yuki of Round Valley
agency), many of the Pueblos, and some of the tribes of the northwest
coast, as the Salish of Harrison Lake and Thompson River, and others.
Among the Tigua, Tewa, Apache, Navaho, Comanche,
northern Ute; Paiute, and Shoshoni, among the majority of California,
Washington, and Oregon tribes, and among the eastern Cherokee,
Chickasaw, Kiowa, and Iowa the height in male adults ranges between 165
and 170 cm., while among the Yuma, Mohave, Maricopa, Pima, Nez Percé,
Sioux, Crows, Winnebago, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Iroquois, Osage, Chippewa,
and eastern Algonquians the prevalent stature of adult men is, from 170
to 175 cm. The range of variation in the majority of tribes and in both
sexes is within 30 cm. The stature does not regularly follow the
geographic or climatic features, nor does it agree wholly with the
distribution of the other principal physical characteristics. The women
are on the average about 12.5 cm. shorter than the men; the difference
is greater among the tall than among the short tribes.
The distribution of the Indians according to cephalic
index is of much interest. Excluding tribes that are known to be much
mixed, there are found in the territory north of Mexico all the three
principal classes of cranial form, namely, dolicho-, brachy-, and meso-cephalic.
Among the extremely dolichocephalic were the Delawares and the southern
Utah cliff-dwellers. Moderate dolichocephaly, with occasional extreme
forms, was and is very prevalent, being found in the Algonquian and the
majority of the Siouan and plains tribes and among the Siksika, Shoshoni,
some Pueblos (e. g., Taos), and the Pima. Pure brachycephaly existed in
Florida, and prevailed in the mound region and among the ancient
Pueblos. It is best represented today among the Apache, Walapai,
Havasupai, Nez Percé, Harrison Lake Salish, Osage, and Wichita, and in a
less degree among the Hopi, Zuñi, most of the Rio Grande Pueblos,
Navaho, Mohave, Yuma, California Mission Indians, Comanche, Winnebago,
many of the northwestern tribes, and Seminole. Mesocephaly existed
principally among the California Indians, the Cherokee, and some of the
Sioux and Iroquois. There are numerous tribes in North America about
whose cephalic form there is still much uncertainty on account of the
prevailing head deformation. As to the height of the head, which must
naturally be considered in connection with the cephalic index, fair
uniformity is found. In the Apache the head is rather low, among most
other tribes it is moderate.
The form of the face is generally allied, as among
other peoples, to the form of the head, being relatively narrow in
narrow heads and broad in the brachycephalic. Orbits show variations,
but the prevalent form is mesoseme. The nose and the nasal aperture are
generally mesorhinic; the principal exception to this is found on the
west coast, especially in California, where a relatively narrow nose (leptorhinie)
was common. The projection of the upper alveolar region is almost
uniformly mesognathic.
The Eskimo range in height from short to medium, with long and high
head, relatively broad flat face, high orbits, and narrow nose, showing
alveolar prognathism like the Indians.
Consult Morton, (1) Crania Americana, 1839, (2)
Distinctive characteristics, 1844; Retzius, Om foramen at hufvudets
benstomme, 1847; Meigs, Observations, 1866; Gould, Investigations, 1869;
Wyman, (I ) Observations on crania, 1871, (2) Fresh water shell mounds,
1875; Verneau, Le bassin suivant les sexes, 1875; Eleventh and Twelfth
Reps. Peabody Museum, 1878; Quatrefages and Hamy, Crania ethnica,
1878-79; Flower, Catalogue of specimens, 1879; Carr, (I ) Observations
on crania from Tennessee, 1878, (2) Measurements of crania from
California, 1880, (3) Observations on crania from Santa Barbara Ids.,
1879, (4) Notes on crania of New England Indians, 1880; Otis, List of
specimens, 1880; Langdon, Madisonville prehistoric cemetery, 1881;
Chudzinsky, Sur les trois encéphales des Esluimaux.1881; Virchow (1) in
Beiträge zur Craniologie der Insulaner von der Westküste Nordamerikas,
1889, (2) Crania Etlinica Americana, 1892; ten Kate, Somatological
Observations, 1892; Matthews and Wortman, Human bones of Hemenway
collection, 1891; Boas, (1) Zur anthropologie der nordamerikanischen
Indianer, 1895, (2) A. J. Stone's measurements of natives of the N. W.,
1901, (3) Anthropometrical observations on Mission Indians, 1896; Boas
and Farrand, Physical characteristics of tribes of British Columbia,
1899; Allen, Crania front mounds of St. John's r., Fla., 1896; Sergi,
Crani esquimesi, 1901; Duckworth, Contribution to Eskimo craniology,
1900; Hrdlicka, (1) An Eskimo brain, 1901, (2) The cratna of Trenton, N.
J., 1902,(3) Thelautsingskeletou, 1903, (4) Notes on the Indians of
Sonora, 1904 (5) Contributions to physical anthropology of Cal. 1905;
Spitzka, Contributions to encephalic anatomy of races, 1902; Tocher,
Note on measurements of Eskimo, 1902; Matiegka, Schädel und Skelette von
Santa Rosa, 1904;Handbook of American Indians, Frederick W. Hodge,1906
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