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Of the Chiriguanos, a Peruvian tribe, Mr. Temple says, "They are of a copper-color, approaching to sallowness, with long shining black hair, and as the Indians of South America generally are, without beards. Had I seen them in Europe I should have supposed them to be Chinese, so closely do they resemble those people in their features."*

same

"In some points of physiology," remarks Mr. Davis of the Chinese, "the people whom we describe bear a considerable resemblance to the North American Indians. There is the lank, black, and shining hair, the same obliquity of the eyes, and eyebrows turned upwards at the outer extremities, and a corresponding thinness, and tufty growth of beard. The Chinese, too, is distinguished by a nearly total absence of hair from the surface of the body. We may remark here that the Esquimaux, as represented in the plates to Captain Lyon's Voyage, bear a very striking resemblance to the Tau-kea, or 'boat-people' of the coast of China, who are treated by the government as a different race from those on shore, and not allowed to intermarry with them. Whether the miserable inhabitants of the cold regions to the north, have thus migrated southward, along the coast, at some former periods, in search of a more genial climate, must be a mere matter of conjecture, in the absence of positive proof."+

Mr. Ledyard, who had personal opportunities of observing the peculiar physiognomy of the American Indians, and who had travelled through Siberia, is still more positive in his assertions, as to the resemblance between the Americans and Mongols. His testimony being of the highest kind, deduced from

* Temple's Travels in Peru, vol. ii. p. 184. The Chinese, by I. F. Davis, vol. i. p. 251.

his own personal examination, we shall quote extensively from his remarks upon this subject, premising that in his use of the term Tartar, he applied it to all those tribes possessing the Mongol physical characteristics. In a letter to Mr. Jefferson, from Siberia,* he says, "I shall never be able, without seeing you in person, and perhaps not then, to inform you how universally and circumstantially the Tartars resemble the aborigines of America. They are the same people—the most ancient and the most numerous of any other; and had not a small sea divided them, they would all have been still known by the same name." "I know of no people among whom there is such a uniformity of features, (except the Chinese, the Jews, and the Negroes,) as among the Asiatic Tartars. They are distinguished indeed by different tribes, but this is only nominal. Nature has not acknowledged the distinction, but, on the contrary, marked them, wherever found, with the indisputable stamp of Tartars. Whether in Nova Zembla, Mongolia, Greenland, or on the banks of the Mississippi, they are the same people, forming the most numerous, and, if we must except the Chinese, the most ancient nation of the globe: but I, for myself, do not except the Chinese, because I have no doubt of their being of the same family." "I am certain that all the people you call red people on the continent of America, and on the continents of Europe and Asia as far south as the southern parts of China, are all one people, by whatever names distinguished, and that the best general name would be Tartar. I suspect that all red people are of the same family." And again: "With respect to the national or gene

* Spark's Life of Ledyard, pp. 66, 201, 246, 255.

alogical connection which the remarkable affinity of person and manners bespeaks between the Indians on this and on the American continent, I declare my opinion to be, without the least scruple and with the most absolute conviction, that the Indians on the one and on the other are the same people."

The Malays. In the vast insular regions of the Pacific, Indian and Southern oceans, it is supposed several distinct varieties of the human family have been traced.

That class which resembles the Negroes, and which, together with its various intermixtures, has been found inhabiting New Holland, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Van Diemen's Land, the Andaman, Philippine, Molucca, Fejee and other neighboring islands, we have already adverted to. The other comprises all those nations denominated Malays and Polynesians, and which, from a general and striking analogy observable in their appearance, customs and language, have usually been arranged by physiologists under the human variety entitled the Malay. They occupy the Malayan peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java and other East Indian islands, and all those remote groups of the Pacific extending to Easter island near the American continent, and from the Sandwich islands on the north, to New Zealand in the Southern ocean. They may perhaps be justly divided into two orders, the Malays proper and the Polynesians.

The Malays, in the opinion of Cuvier, are not easily referrible to either of the three great races, but he adds, " Can they be clearly distinguished from their neighbors, the Caucasian Hindoos and the Mongolian Chinese? As for us, we confess we cannot discover any sufficient characteristics in them for that purpose."*

* Règne Animal, vol. i. p. 55, Am. Edit.

M. Lesson, also, who has bestowed great research upon these insular nations, has concluded that the Malays are a mixed race of Mongols and Indo-Caucasians.*

The complexion of the Malays is brown, from a light tawny or yellow hue to a deep bronze; the hair is long, lank and black, the beard weak; their eyes are black and oblique, the nose full and broad towards the apex, the mouth large, the bones of the face large and prominent, and the head narrow and compressed. Their persons are generally below the middle size and somewhat robust.†

The real Polynesian nations are described generally as of a dark complexion, varying from olive through shades of reddish brown to a copper-color, with long black hair, straight or curling, and scanty beards. "The general complexion of both men and women (of the Polynesian tribes) is a dark coppery brown, but it varies from the lightest hue of copper to a rich mahogany or chocolate, and in some cases almost to black."§ Sometimes features are observed which approach to the Caucasian variety.

The natives of the Sandwich islands are described by Mr. Ellis as "in general, rather above the middle stature, well formed, with fine muscular limbs, open countenances, and features frequently resembling those of Europeans." "Their hair is black or brown, strong, and frequently curly. Their com

* M. Lesson, Voyage du Coquille, Zool., p. 43, cited in Morton's Crania Americana, p. 56.

† Marsden's Hist. of Sumatra, pp. 38, 45. Malte Brun, vol. iii. p. 414. Lawrence's Lectures, p. 367.

Ellis's Poly. Res., vol. i. pp. 73, 74. Marshall's Voyage, in Mav., vol. ix. p. 157. Porter's Voy., pp. 114, 111, 96.

§ King and Fitzroy, vol. ii. p. 570.

plexion is neither yellow like the Malays, nor red like the American Indians, but a kind of olive and sometimes reddish brown."*

Mr. Ledyard remarks of the inhabitants of the Society islands, that "they are tall, strong, well limbed, and fairly shaped." "Their complexion is a clear olive or brunette, and the whole contour of the face quite handsome, except the nose which is generally a little inclined to be flat. Their hair is black and coarse. The men have beards, but pluck the greatest

part of them out."+

Of the Otaheitans, Captain Fitzroy says, "To my eye they differed from the aborigines of southern South America, in the form of their heads, in the width or height of their cheek bones, in their eyebrows, in their color, and most essentially in the expression of their countenances. High foreheads, defined and prominent eyebrows, with a rich bronze color, give an Asiatic expression to the upper part of their faces; but the flat noses (carefully flattened in infancy) and thick lips, are like those of the South Americans."

The natives of the Pelew islands are of a deep copper-color, with long black hair and scanty beard. They are well made and of middle stature. The inhabitants of Easter island were a handsome race with oval countenances, jet black hair, scanty beard, and black eyes.

Here again, the resemblance between the Malays and Polynesians and Americans has attracted the attention of those who have possessed the opportunity of comparing their physical ap

* Missionary Tour through Hawaii, p. 22. + Ledyard, p. 62. King and Fitzroy, vol. ii. p. 509. Wilson's Voyage, in Mavor, vol. ix. pp. 15, 64. Beechey's Voy., p. 43.

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