CAUSES OF COLOR.
The various colors seen in the natives in Africa, where amalgamation
with other races is impossible, has drawn forth much criticism, and
puzzled the ethnologist not a little. Yet nothing is more easily
accounted for than this difference of color amongst the same people,
and even under the same circumstances. Climate, and climate alone, is
the sole cause.
And now to the proof. Instances are adduced, in which individuals,
transplanted into another climate than that of their birth, are said to
have retained their peculiarities of form and color unaltered, and to
have transmitted the same to their posterity for generations. But cases
of this kind, though often substantiated to a certain extent, appear to
have been much exaggerated, both as to the duration of time ascribed,
and the absence of any change. It is highly probable, that the original
characteristics will be found undergoing gradual modifications, which
tend to assimilate them to those of the new country and situation.
The Jews, however slightly their features may have assimilated to those
of other nations amongst whom they are scattered, from the causes
already stated, certainly form a very striking example as regards the
uncertainty of perpetuity in color.
Descended from one stock, and prohibited by the most sacred
institutions from intermarrying with the people of other nations, and
yet dispersed, according to the divine prediction, into every country
on the globe, this one people is marked with the colors of all; fair in
Briton and Germany; brown in France and in Turkey; swarthy in Portugal
and in Spain; olive in Syria and in Chaldea; tawny or copper-colored
in Arabia and in Egypt;[14] whilst they are “black at Congo, in
Africa.”[15]
Let us survey the gradations of color on the continent of Africa
itself. The inhabitants of the north are whitest; and as we advance
southward towards the line, and those countries in which the sun’s rays
fall more perpendicularly, the complexion gradually assumes a darker
shade. And the same men, whose color has been rendered black by the
powerful influence of the sun, if they remove to the north, gradually
become whiter (I mean their posterity), and eventually lose their dark
color.[16]
The Portuguese who planted themselves on the coast of Africa a few
centuries ago, have been succeeded by descendants blacker than many
Africans.[17] On the coast of Malabar there are two colonies of Jews,
the old colony and the new, separated by color, and known as the “black
Jews,” and the “white Jews.” The old colony are the black Jews, and
have been longer subjected to the influence of the climate. The hair of
the black Jews are curly, showing a resemblance to the Negro. The white
Jews are as dark as the Gipsies, and each generation growing darker.
Dr. Livingstone says,--“I was struck with the appearance of the people
in Londa, and the neighborhood; they seemed more slender in form, and
their color a lighter olive, than any we had hitherto met.”[18]
Lower down the Zambesi, the same writer says: “Most of the men are
muscular, and have large, ploughman hands. Their color is the same
admixture, from very dark to light olive, that we saw at Londa.”[19]
In the year 1840, the writer was at Havana, and saw on board a
vessel just arrived from Africa some five hundred slaves, captured
in different parts of the country. Among these captives were colors
varying from light brown to black, and their features represented the
finest Anglo-Saxon and the most degraded African.
There is a nation called Tuaricks, who inhabit the oases and southern
borders of the great desert, whose occupation is commerce, and whose
caravans ply between the Negro countries and Fezzan. They are described
by the travellers Hornemann and Lyon.
The western tribes of this nation are white, so far as the climate and
their habits will allow. Others are of a yellow cast; others again,
are swarthy; and in the neighborhood of Soudan, there is said to be a
tribe completely black. All speak the same dialect, and it is a dialect
of the original African tongue. There is no reasonable doubt of their
being aboriginal.
Lyon says they are the finest race of men he ever saw, “tall,
straight, and handsome, with a certain air of independence and pride,
which is very imposing.”[20] If we observe the gradations of color
in different localities in the meridian under which we live, we
shall perceive a very close relation to the heat of the sun in each
respectively. Under the equator we have the deep black of the Negro,
then the copper or olive of the Moors of Northern Africa; then the
Spaniard and Italian, swarthy, compared with other Europeans; the
French, still darker than the English, while the fair and florid
complexion of England and Germany passes more northerly into the
bleached Scandinavian white.[21]
It is well-known, that in whatever region travellers ascend mountains,
they find the vegetation at every successive level altering its
character, and gradually assuming the appearances presented in more
northern countries; thus indicating that the atmosphere, temperature,
and physical agencies in general, assimilate, as we approach Alpine
regions, to the peculiarities locally connected with high latitudes.
If, therefore, complexion and other bodily qualities belonging to races
of men, depend upon climate and external conditions, we should expect
to find them varying in reference to elevation of surface; and if they
should be found actually to undergo such variations, this will be a
strong argument that these external characteristics do, in fact, depend
upon local conditions.
Now, if we inquire respecting the physical characters of the tribes
inhabiting high tracts in warm countries, we shall find that they
coincide with those which prevail in the level or low parts of more
northern tracts.
The Swiss, in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy, have
sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself to the traveller
who descends into the Milanese territory, where the peasants have
black hair and eyes, with strongly-marked Italian, and almost Oriental
features.
In the higher part of the Biscayan country, instead of the swarthy
complexion and black hair of the Castilians, the natives have a fair
complexion, with light blue eyes, and flaxen, or auburn hair.[22]
In the intertropical region, high elevations of surface, as they
produce a cooler climate, occasion the appearance of light complexions.
In the higher parts of Senegambia, which front the Atlantic, and
are cooled by winds from the Western Ocean, where, in fact, the
temperature is known to be moderate, and even cool at times, the light
copper-colored Fulahs are found surrounded on every side by black Negro
nations inhabiting lower districts; and nearly in the same parallel,
but on the opposite coast of Africa, are the high plains of Enared and
Kaffa, where the inhabitants are said to be fairer than the inhabitants
of Southern Europe.[23]
Do we need any better evidence of the influence of climate on man, than
to witness its effect on beasts and birds? Æolian informs us that the
Eubaea was famous for producing white oxen.[24] Blumenbach remarks,
that “all the swine of Piedmont are black, those of Normandy white, and
those of Bavaria are of a reddish brown. The turkeys of Normandy,”
he states, “are all black; those of Hanover almost all white. In
Guinea, the dogs and the gallinaceous fowls are as black as the human
inhabitants of the same country.”[25]
The lack of color, in the northern regions, of many animals which
possess color in more temperate latitudes,--as the bear, the
fox, the hare, beasts of burden, the falcon, crow, jackdaw, and
chaffinch,--seems to arise entirely from climate. The common bear
is differently colored in different regions. The dog loses its coat
entirely in Africa, and has a smooth skin.
We all see and admit the change which a few years produces in the
complexion of a Caucasian going from our northern latitude into the
tropics.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Smith on “The Complexion of the Human Species.”
[15] Pritchard.
[16] “Tribute for the Negro,” p. 59.
[17] Pennington’s Text Book, p. 96.
[18] “Livingstone’s Travels,” p. 296.
[19] Ibid, p. 364.
[20] Heeren, Vol. I., p. 297.
[21] Murray’s “North America.”
[22] Pritchard.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Æolian, lib. xii, cap. 36.
[25] Pritchard.