Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/620

 602 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Ask a northern Indian what is beauty, and he will answer, a broad flat face, small eyes, high cheek-bones, three or four broad black lines across each cheek, a low forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook nose, a tawny hide, and breasts hanging down to the belt. 1

Those women are preferred who have the Mandschu form ; that is to say, a broad face, high cheek-bones, very broad noses, and enormous ears.*

A small round face, full rosy-red cheeks and lips, white forehead, black tresses, and small dark eyes are marks of a Samoyede beauty. Thus in a Samoyedian song a girl is praised for her small eyes, her broad face, and its rosy color. 3

These three, the most comely among the twenty beauties of Mtesa's court, were of the Wahuma race, no doubt from Ankori. They had the com- plexion of quadroons, were straight-nosed and thin-lipped, with large lustrous eyes. In the other graces of a beautiful form they excelled, and Hafiz might have said with poetic rapture that they were " straight as palm trees and beautiful as moons." .... Mtesa, however, does not believe them to be superior or even equal to his well-fleshed, unctuous-bodied, flat-nosed wives ; indeed, when I pointed them out to him one day at a private audience, he even regarded them with a sneer. 4

Taking the physical aspects separately, we find that the color of the skin is among those most obvious to the eye, and conse- quently one in connection with which prejudice is generally expressed :

The skin, except among the tribes near Delagoa Bay, is not usually black, the prevailing color being a mixture of black and red, the most common shade being chocolate. Dark complexions, as being most common, are naturally held in the highest esteem. To be told that he is light-colored, or like a white man, would be deemed a very poor compliment by a Kaffir. I have heard of one unfortunate man who was so very fair that no girl would marry him. 5

On the western coast, as Mr. Winwood Reade informs me, the negroes admire a very black skin more than one of a lighter tint. But their horror of whiteness may be attributed, according to this same traveler, partly to the belief held by most negroes that demons and spirits are white, and partly to their thinking it a sign of ill-health. 6

HEARNE, A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort, ed. 1796, p. 89.

"PALLAS, in PRICHARD, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, 4th ed., Vol. IV, p. 519.

3 CASTREN, Nordiska resor och forskningar, Vol. I, p. 229; in WESTERMARCK, History of Human Marriage, p. 262.

4 STANLEY, Through the Dark Continent, Vol. I, p. 308. 'SHOOTER, The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country, p. I. 'DARWIN, Descent of Man, Part III, chap. 19.