Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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But They Are Neither So Obliquely
Placed, Nor So Small, As In The People Of The Mongol Race.
The
corner of the eye is, however, raised up towards the temple; the
eyebrows are black, or dark brown,
Thin, and but little arched; the
eyelids are edged with very long eyelashes, and the habit of
casting them down, as if from lassitude, gives a soft expression to
the women, and makes the eye thus veiled appear less than it really
is. Though the Chaymas, and in general all the natives of South
America and New Spain, resemble the Mongol race in the form of the
eye, in their high cheek-bones, their straight and smooth hair, and
the almost total absence of beard; yet they essentially differ from
them in the form of the nose. In the South Americans this feature
is rather long, prominent through its whole length, and broad at
the nostrils, the openings of which are directed downward, as with
all the nations of the Caucasian race. Their wide mouths, with lips
but little protuberant though broad, have generally an expression
of good nature. The passage from the nose to the mouth is marked in
both sexes by two furrows, which run diverging from the nostrils
towards the corners of the mouth. The chin is extremely short and
round; and the jaws are remarkable for strength and width.
Though the Chaymas have fine white teeth, like all people who lead
a very simple life, they are, however, not so strong as those of
the Negroes. The habit of blackening the teeth, from the age of
fifteen, by the juices of certain herbs* and caustic lime,
attracted the attention of the earliest travellers; but the
practice has now fallen quite into disuse. (* The early historians
of the conquest state that the blackening of the teeth was effected
by the leaves of a tree which the natives called hay, and which
resembled the myrtle. Among nations very distant from each other,
the pimento bears a similar name; among the Haitians aji or ahi,
among the Maypures of the Orinoco, ai. Some stimulant and aromatic
plants, which mostly belonging to the genus capsicum, were
designated by the same name.) Such have been the migrations of the
different tribes in these countries, particularly since the
incursions of the Spaniards, who carried on the slave-trade, that
it may be inferred the inhabitants of Paria visited by Christopher
Columbus and by Ojeda, were not of the same race as the Chaymas. I
doubt much whether the custom of blackening the teeth was
originally suggested, as Gomara supposed, by absurd notions of
beauty, or was practised with the view of preventing the toothache.
* This disorder is, however, almost unknown to the Indians; and the
whites suffer seldom from it in the Spanish colonies, at least in
the warm regions, where the temperature is so uniform. They are
more exposed to it on the back of the Cordilleras, at Santa Fe, and
at Popayan. (* The tribes seen by the Spaniards on the coast of
Paria, probably observed the practice of stimulating the organs of
taste by caustic lime, as other races employed tobacco, the chimo,
the leaves of the coca, or the betel. This practice exists even in
our days, but more towards the west, among the Guajiros, at the
mouth of the Rio de la Hacha. These Indians, still savage, carry
small shells, calcined and powdered, in the husk of a fruit, which
serves them as a vessel for various purposes, suspended to their
girdle. The powder of the Guajiros is an article of commerce, as
was anciently, according to Gomara, that of the Indians of Paria.
The immoderate habit of smoking also makes the teeth yellow and
blackens them; but would it be just to conclude from this fact,
that Europeans smoke because we think yellow teeth handsomer than
white?)
The Chaymas, like almost all the native nations I have seen, have
small, slender hands. Their feet are large, and their toes retain
an extraordinary mobility. All the Chaymas have a sort of family
look; and this resemblance, so often observed by travellers, is the
more striking, as between the ages of twenty and fifty, difference
of years is no way denoted by wrinkles of the skin, colour of the
hair, or decrepitude of the body. On entering a hut, it is often
difficult among adult persons to distinguish the father from the
son, and not to confound one generation with another. I attribute
this air of family resemblance to two different causes, the local
situation of the Indian tribes, and their inferior degree of
intellectual culture. Savage nations are subdivided into an
infinity of tribes, which, bearing violent hatred one to another,
form no intermarriages, even when their languages spring from the
same root, and when only a small arm of a river, or a group of
hills, separates their habitations. The less numerous the tribes,
the more the intermarriages repeated for ages between the same
families tend to fix a certain similarity of conformation, an
organic type, which may be called national. This type is preserved
under the system of the Missions, each Mission being formed by a
single horde, and marriages being contracted only between the
inhabitants of the same hamlet. Those ties of blood which unite
almost a whole nation, are indicated in a simple manner in the
language of the Indians born in the Missions, or by those who,
after having been taken from the woods, have learned Spanish. To
designate the individuals who belong to the same tribe, they employ
the expression mis parientes, my relations.
With these causes, common to all isolated classes, and the effects
of which are observable among the Jews of Europe, among the
different castes of India, and among mountain nations in general,
are combined some other causes hitherto unnoticed. I have observed
elsewhere, that it is intellectual culture which most contributes
to diversify the features. Barbarous nations have a physiognomy of
tribe or of horde, rather than individuality of look or features.
The savage and civilized man are like those animals of an
individual species, some of which roam in the forest, while others,
associated with mankind, share the benefits and evils which
accompany civilization.
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