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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Varieties Of Form And Colour Are Frequent
Only In Domestic Animals.
How great is the difference, with respect
to mobility of features and variety of physiognomy, between dogs
which have again returned to the savage state in the New World, and
those whose slightest caprices are indulged in the houses of the
opulent!
Both in men and animals the emotions of the soul are
reflected in the features; and the countenance acquires the habit
of mobility, in proportion as the emotions of the mind are
frequent, varied, and durable. But the Indian of the Missions,
being remote from all cultivation, influenced only by his physical
wants, satisfying almost without difficulty his desires, in a
favoured climate, drags on a dull, monotonous life. The greatest
equality prevails among the members of the same community; and this
uniformity, this sameness of situation, is pictured on the features
of the Indians.
Under the system of the monks, violent passions, such as resentment
and anger, agitate the native more rarely than when he lives in the
forest. When man in a savage state yields to sudden and impetuous
emotions, his physiognomy, till then calm and unruffled, changes
instantly to convulsive contortions. His passion is transient in
proportion to its violence. With the Indians of the Missions, as I
have often observed on the Orinoco, anger is less violent, less
earnest, but of longer duration. Besides, in every condition of
man, it is not the energetic or the transient outbreaks of the
passions, which give expression to the features. It is rather that
sensibility of the soul, which brings us continually into contact
with the external world, multiplies our sufferings and our
pleasures, and re-acts at once on the physiognomy, the manners, and
the language. If the variety and mobility of the features embellish
the domain of animated nature, we must admit also, that both
increase by civilization, without being solely produced by it. In
the great family of nations, no other race unites these advantages
in so high a degree as the Caucasian or European. It is only in
white men that the instantaneous penetration of the dermoidal
system by the blood can produce that slight change of the colour of
the skin which adds so powerful an expression to the emotions of
the soul. "How can those be trusted who know not how to blush?"
says the European, in his dislike of the Negro and the Indian. We
must also admit, that immobility of features is not peculiar to
every race of men of dark complexion: it is much less marked in the
African than in the natives of America.
The Chaymas, like all savage people who dwell in excessively hot
regions, have an insuperable aversion to clothing. The writers of
the middle ages inform us, that in the north of Europe, articles of
clothing distributed by missionaries, greatly contributed to the
conversion of the pagan. In the torrid zone, on the contrary, the
natives are ashamed (as they say) to be clothed; and flee to the
woods, when they are compelled to cover themselves. Among the
Chaymas, in spite of the remonstrances of the monks, men and women
remain unclothed within their houses. When they go into the
villages they put on a kind of tunic of cotton, which scarcely
reaches to the knees. The men's tunics have sleeves; but women, and
young boys to the age of ten or twelve, have the arms, shoulders,
and upper part of the breast uncovered. The tunic is so shaped,
that the fore-part is joined to the back by two narrow bands, which
cross the shoulders. When we met the natives, out of the boundaries
of the Mission, we saw them, especially in rainy weather, stripped
of their clothes, and holding their shirts rolled up under their
arms. They preferred letting the rain fall on their bodies to
wetting their clothes. The elder women hid themselves behind trees,
and burst into loud fits of laughter when they saw us pass. The
missionaries complain that in general the young girls are not more
alive to feelings of decency than the men. Ferdinand Columbus*
relates that, in 1498, his father found the women in the island of
Trinidad without any clothing (* Life of the Adelantado:
Churchill's Collection 1723. This Life, written after the year
1537, from original notes in the handwriting of Christopher
Columbus himself, is the most valuable record of the history of his
discoveries. It exists only in the Italian and Spanish translations
of Alphonso de Ulloa and Gonzales Barcia: for the original, carried
to Venice in 1571 by the learned Fornari, has not been published,
and is supposed to be lost. Napione della Patria di Colombo 1804.
Cancellieri sopra Christ. Colombo 1809. ); while the men wore the
guayuco, which is rather a narrow bandage than an apron. At the
same period, on the coast of Paria, young girls were distinguished
from married women, either, as Cardinal Bembo states, by being
quite unclothed, or, according to Gomara, by the colour of the
guayuco. This bandage, which is still in use among the Chaymas, and
all the naked nations of the Orinoco, is only two or three inches
broad, and is tied on both sides to a string which encircles the
waist. Girls are often married at the age of twelve; and until they
are nine years old, the missionaries allow them to go to church
unclothed, that is to say, without a tunic. Among the Chaymas, as
well as in all the Spanish Missions and the Indian villages, a pair
of drawers, a pair of shoes, or a hat, are objects of luxury
unknown to the natives. An Indian servant, who had been with us
during our journey to Caripe and the Orinoco, and whom I brought to
France, was so much struck, on landing, when he saw the ground
tilled by a peasant with his hat on, that he thought himself in a
miserable country, where even the nobles (los mismos caballeros)
followed the plough.
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