The beard is always scanty, but increases with the admixture of white blood. As a rule, the desert Indians, as the Apache, are spare and muscular in build, while those of the timbered regions are heavier, although not proportionately stronger. Height and weight vary as among Europeans, the Pueblos averaging but little more than five feet, while the Cheyenne and Arapaho are exceptionally tall, and the Tehuelche of Patagonia almost massive in build. Their hands and feet are comparatively small.
The nose is usually straight and well shaped, and in some tribes strongly aquiline. The eye is not held so open as in the Caucasian and seems better adapted to distance than to close work. The hair is brown in childhood, but always black in the adult until it turns grey with age.
#Warlike indian tribes skin#
In a few tribes, as the Flatheads, the skin has a distinct yellowish cast. The color is not red, as is popularly supposed, but varies from very light in some tribes, as the Cheyenne, to almost black in others, as the Caddo and Tarimari. The most marked physical characteristics of the Indian race type are brown skin, dark brown eyes, prominent cheek bones, straight black hair, and scantiness of beard. As exploration was extended north and south it was found that the same race was spread over the whole continent, from the Arctic shores to Cape Horn, everywhere alike in the main physical characteristics, with the exception of the Eskimo in the extreme North, whose features suggest the Mongolian.
When Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in 1492 he was welcomed by a brown-skinned people whose physical appearance confirmed him in his opinion that he had at last reached India, and whom, therefore, he called Indios, Indians, a name which, however mistaken in its first application continued to hold its own, and has long since won general acceptance, except in strictly scientific writing, where the more exact term American is commonly used. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more all for only $19.99. Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download.
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