INDIAN TYPES OF BEAUTY
—BY—
R. W. SHUFELDT,
Captain Medical Department, U.S. Army.
Member of the Philosophical, the Anthropological, the Biological, and the Entomological
Societies of Washington, D.C.; Member of the Cosmos, of Washington; Member of
the American Society, and Honorable Associate of the British Society for Psychical
Research; Member of the American Ornithologists’ Union; Member of the
American Society of Naturalists; Cor. Member Soc. Ital. Anthrop.
Ethnol. and Psicol. Comp. of Florence, Italy; Cor. Member of the
Zool. Soc. of London; Cor. Member Biol. Association of Colorado;
the Academy of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia: of the Academy
of Sciences, Chicago; of the Linnæan Soc. of New
York; Member of the International Copyright League;
Member of the Anthropometrical Soc.; Member
of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science; Member American Society
of Anatomists, etc., etc.
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INDIAN TYPES OF BEAUTY.
One of the most interesting studies in the entire rangeof the science of ethnology is the estimate of beauty arrivedat by various peoples. It really seems that the lowerthe race in the scale of civilization the more fixed and restrictedare their ideas in this direction; that is to say, themen among the lower races can see beauty in the womenof their own tribe presenting certain characteristics, asthe women of the same tribe see comeliness in certain ofthe men, but neither of them recognize any beauty inthose considered beautiful or handsome by the membersof other tribes. On the other hand, the majority of themen, at least among the Indo-Europeans, can often seebeauty in women of the greatest variety of other countriesthan their own. Perhaps one of the best proofs ofthis is the fact that they sometimes marry them. Evenhere in the United States it is not difficult to find instances,and these, too, in any plane of society we mayselect, where men have married women of other races andnationalities. And as a wise philosopher and observer hassaid, “In civilized life man is largely, but by no meansexclusively, influenced in the choice of his wife by externalappearance,” it is fair to presume that the man inany case was attracted by what he considered to be thewoman’s beauty. In my own personal experience, caseshave been met with where those among us have marriednegro women, and negro women as black as ever gracedthe banks of the Congo of the West Coast. Others havemarried Chinese women, and a friend of mine has a verytalented little Japanese wife. Nor is the EnglishmanRolfe the only white man that ever married an Indianwoman; one of the generals in our own army marriedsuch, and there is every reason to believe that he was influencedby her beauty alone.
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With respect to the lower races, Mr. Darwin has said,quoting Mr. Winwood Reade’s observations upon thenative Africans, that these “negroes do not like the colorof our skin; they look on blue eyes with aversion, andthey think our noses too long and our lips too thin.” Hedoes not think it probable that negroes would ever preferthe most beautiful European woman, on the mere groundsof physical admiration, to a good-looking negress. And