,
NEW
MEXICO
.
Major James W. Lynd, who lived among the Dakota Indians for nine years, and was killed by them in the great outbreak of 1862, says (MS. “Hist.
of Dakotas,” Library, Historical Society, Minnesota, p. 47), after calling attention to the fact that the different tribes of the Sioux nation represent several different degrees of darkness of color: “The Dakota child is of lighter complexion than the young brave; this one lighter than the middle-aged man, and the middle-aged man lighter than the superannuated homo, who, by smoke, paint, dirt, and a drying up of the vital juices, appears to be the true copper-colored Dakota. The color of the Dakotas varies with the nation, and also with the age and condition of the individual. It may be set down, however, as a shade lighter than olive; yet it becomes still lighter by change of condition or mode of life, and nearly vanishes, even in the child, under constant ablutions and avoiding of exposure. Those children in the Mission at Hazlewood, who are taken very young, and not allowed to expose themselves, lose almost entirely the olive shade, and become quite as white as the American child. The Mandans are as light as the peasants of Spain, while their brothers, the Crows, are as dark as the Arabs. Dr.
Goodrich, in the ‘Universal Traveller,’ p. 154, says that the modern Peruvians, in the warmer regions of Peru, are as fair as the people of the south of Europe.”
The Aymaras, the ancient inhabitants of the mountains of Peru and Bolivia, are described as having an olive- brown complexion, with regular features, large heads, and a thoughtful and melancholy cast of countenance. They practised in early times the deformation of the skull.
Professor Wilson describes the hair of the ancient Peruvians, as found upon their mummies, as “a lightish brown, and of a fineness of texture which equals that of the Anglo-Saxon race.” “The ancient Peruvians,”
says Short (“North Americans of Antiquity,” p. 187), “appear, from numerous examples of hair found in their tombs, to have been an auburn-haired race.” Garcilasso, who had an opportunity of seeing the body of the king, Viracocha, describes the hair of that monarch as snow-white. Haywood tells us of the discovery, at the beginning of this century, of three mummies in a cave on the south side of the Cumberland River (Tennessee), who were buried in baskets, as the Peruvians were occasionally buried, and whose skin was fair and white, and their hair auburn, and of a fine texture. (“Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee,” p. 191.)
CHOCTAW
.
Neither is the common opinion correct which asserts all the American Indians to be of the same type of features. The portraits on this page and on pages 187 and 191, taken from the “Report of the U. S. Survey for a Route for a Pacific Railroad,” present features very much like those of Europeans; in fact, every face here could be precisely matched among the inhabitants of the southern part of the old continent.
SHAWNEES
.
On the other hand, look at the portrait of the great Italian orator and reformer, Savonarola, on page 193. It looks more like the hunting Indians of North-western America than any of the preceding faces. In fact, if it was dressed with a scalp-lock it would pass muster anywhere as a portrait of the “Man-afraid-of-his-horses,” or “Sitting Bull.”
SAVONAROLA
.
Adam was, it appears, a red man. Winchell tells us that Adam is derived from the red earth. The radical letters ADaM are found in ADaMaH, “something out of which vegetation was made to germinate,” to wit, the earth. ADoM and ADOM signifies red, ruddy, bay-colored, as of a horse, the color of a red heifer. “ADaM, a man, a human being, male or female, red, ruddy.” (“Preadamites,” p.161.)
“The Arabs distinguished mankind into two races, one red, ruddy, the other black.” (Ibid.) They classed themselves among the red men.
Not only was Adam a red man, but there is evidence that, from the highest antiquity, red was a sacred color; the gods of the ancients were always painted red. The Wisdom of Solomon refers to this custom: “The carpenter carved it elegantly, and formed it by the skill of his understanding, and fashioned it to the shape of a man, or made it like some vile beast, laying it over with vermilion, and with paint, coloring it red, and covering every spot therein.”
The idols of the Indians were also painted red, and red was the religious color. (Lynd’s MS. “Hist. of Dakotas,” Library, Hist. Society, Minn.)
The Cushites and Ethiopians, early branches of the Atlantean stock, took their name from their “sunburnt” complexion; they were red men.
The name of the Phoenicians signified red. Himyar, the prefix of the Himyaritic Arabians, also means red, and the Arabs were painted red on the Egyptian monuments.
The ancient Egyptians were red men. They recognized four races of men—the red, yellow, black, and white men. They themselves belonged to the “Rot,” or red men; the yellow men they called “Namu”—it included the Asiatic races; the black men were called “Nahsu,” and the white men “Tamhu.” The following figures are copied from Nott and Gliddon’s “Types of Mankind,” p. 85, and were taken by them from the great works of Belzoni, Champollion, and Lepsius.
In later ages so desirous were the Egyptians of preserving, the aristocratic distinction of the color of their skin, that they represented themselves on the monuments as of a crimson hue—an exaggeration of their original race complexion.
In the same way we find that the ancient Aryan writings divided mankind into four races—the white, red, yellow, and black: the four castes of India were founded upon these distinctions in color; in fact, the word for color in Sanscrit (varna) means caste. The red men, according to the Mahabharata, were the Kshatriyas—the warrior caste-who were afterward engaged in a fierce contest with the whites—the Brahmans—and were nearly exterminated, although some of them survived, and from their stock Buddha was born. So that not only the
