CHAPTER V.

The question of complexion.

The tendency of scientific thought in ethnology is in the direction of giving more and more importance to the race characteristics, such as height, color of the hair, eyes and skin, and the formation of the skull and body generally, than to language.  The language possessed by a people may be merely the result of conquest or migration.  For instance, in the United States to-day, white, black, and red men, the descendants of French, Spanish, Italians, Mexicans, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, Africans, all speak the English language, and by the test of language they are all Englishmen; and yet none of them are connected by birth or descent with the country where that language was developed.

There is a general misconception as to the color of the European and American races.  Europe is supposed to be peopled exclusively by white men; but in reality every shade of color is represented on that continent, from the fair complexion of the fairest of the Swedes to the dark-skinned inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast, only a shade lighter than the Berbers, or Moors, on the opposite side of that sea.  Tacitus spoke of the “Black Celts,” and the term, so far as complexion goes, might not inappropriately be applied to some of the Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese, while the Basques are represented as of a still darker hue.  Tylor says ("Anthropology,” p. 67), “On the whole, it seems that the distinction of color, from the fairest Englishman to the darkest African, has no hard and fast lines, but varies gradually from one tint to another.”

And when we turn to America we find that the popular opinion that all Indians are “red men,” and of the same hue from Patagonia to Hudson’s Bay, is a gross error.

Prichard says ("Researches into the Physical History of Mankind,” vol. i., p. 269, 4th ed., 1841): 

“It will be easy to show that the American races show nearly as great a variety in this respect as the nations of the old continent; there are among them white races with a florid complexion, and tribes black or of a very dark hue; that their stature, figure, and countenance are almost equally diversified.”

John T. Short says ("North Americans of Antiquity,” p. 189): 

“The Menominees, sometimes called the ‘White Indians,’ formerly occupied the region bordering on Lake Michigan, around Green Bay.  The whiteness of these Indians, which is compared to that of white mulattoes, early attracted the attention of the Jesuit missionaries, and has often been commented on by travellers.  While it is true that hybridy has done much to lighten the color of many of the tribes, still the peculiarity of the complexion of this people has been marked since the first time a European encountered them.  Almost every shade, from the ash-color of the Menominees through the cinnamon-red, copper, and bronze tints, may be found among the tribes formerly occupying the territory cast of the Mississippi, until we reach the dark-skinned Kaws of Kansas, who are nearly as black as the negro.  The variety of complexion is as great in South America as among the tribes of the northern part of the continent.”