Jew is generally a brunette. All scientific observers corroborate this
impression, agreeing in that the dark hair and eyes of this people
really constitute a distinct racial trait. About two thirds of the
Ashkenazim branch in Galicia and Russia, where the general population
is relatively quite blond, is of the brunette type, this being
especially marked in the darker color of the hair. For example, Majer
and Kopernicki,[20] in Galicia, found dark hair to be about twice as
frequent as the light. Elkind,[21] in Warsaw, finds about three fifths
of the men dark. In Bosnia, Glück's observations on the Sephardim type
gave him only two light-haired men out of fifty-five. In Germany and
Austria[22] this brunette tendency is likewise strongly emphasized.
Pure brunette types are twice as frequent in the latter country, and
three times as frequent in Germany, among Jewish as among Christian
school children. Facts also seem to bear out the theory, to which we
have already alluded, that the Oriental Jews betray a slightly greater
blond tendency, thus inclining to rufous. In Germany also the blond
tendency becomes appreciably more frequent in Alsace-Lorraine, a
former center of gravity of the nation, as the map in our previous
article has shown. This comparative blondness of the Alsatian Jew is
not new, for in 1861 the origin of these same blondes was matter of
controversy. Broca believed them to be of northern derivation, while
Pruner Bey traced them from a blondish Eastern source. The English
Jews seem also to be slightly lighter than their continental brethren,
even despite their presumably greater proportion of Sephardim, who are
supposed to be peculiarly dark. As to the relative red blondness of
the Oriental Jew, the early observations of Dr. Beddoe, and those of
Langerhans (1873) as to the blue eyes and red-brown hair of the Druses
of Lebanon, do not seem to be borne out; or, as Jacobs puts it, the
"argument may be dismissed with costs." Certainly the living Semites
are dark enough in type, and the evidence of the sacred books bears
out the same theory of an original dark type. Thus "black" and "hair"
are commonly synonymous in the early Semitic languages. In any case,
whatever the color in the past, we have seen that science corroborates
the popular impression that the Jews as a people are distinctively of
a brunette type. This constitutes one of the principal traits by which
they may be almost invariably identified. It is not without interest
to notice that this brunetteness is more accentuated, oftentimes,
among the women, who are, the world over, persistent conservators of
the primitive physical characteristics of a people.[23]
Secondly, as to the nose. Popularly the humped or hook nose
constitutes the most distinctive feature of the Jewish face.
Observations among the Jews, in their most populous centers, do not,
however, bear out the theory. Thus Majer and Kopernicki (1885), in
their extended series, found only nine per cent of the hooked type--no
greater frequency than among the Poles; a fact which Weissenberg
confirms as to the relative scarcity of the convex nose in profile
among his South Russian Jews. He agrees, however, that the nose is
often large, thick, and prominent. Weisbach (1877) measured the facial
features of nineteen Jews, and found the largest noses in a long
series of people from all over the earth; exceeded in length, in fact,
by the Patagonians alone. The hooked nose is, indeed, sometimes
frequent outside the Jewish people. Olechnowicz found, for example,
over a third of the noses of the gentry in southeast Poland to be of
this hooked variety. Running the eye over our carefully chosen series
of portraits, selected for us as typical from four quarters
of Europe--Algeria, Russia, Bosnia, and the confines of
Asia--representing the African, Balkan Spagnuoli, and Russian
Ashkenazim varieties, visual impression will also confirm our
deduction. The Jewish nose is not so often truly convex in profile.
Nevertheless, it must be confessed that it gives a hooked impression.
This seems to be due to a peculiar "tucking up of the wings," as Dr.
Beddoe expresses it. Herein lies the real distinctive quality about
it, rather than in any convexity of outline. In fact, it often
renders a nose concave in profile, immediately recognizable as Jewish.
Jacobs[24] has ingeniously described this "nostrility," as he calls
it, by the following diagrams: Write, he says, a figure 6 with a long
tail (Fig. 1); now remove the turn of the twist, and much of the
Jewishness disappears; and it vanishes entirely when we draw the lower
continuation horizontally, as in Fig. 3. Behold the transformation!
The Jew has turned Roman beyond a doubt. What have we proved, then?
That there is in reality such a phenomenon as a Jewish nose, even
though it be differently constituted from our first assumption. A
moment's inspection of our series of portraits will convince the
skeptic that this trait, next to the prevalent dark hair and eyes and
the swarthy skin, is the most distinctive among the chosen people.
[Illustration: _Fig. 1._]
[Illustration: _Fig. 2._]
[Illustration: _Fig. 3._]
Another characteristic of the Jewish physiognomy is the eyes. The
eyebrows, seemingly thick because of their darkness, appear to be
nearer together than usual, arching smoothly into the lines of the
nose. The lids are rather full, the eyes large, dark, and brilliant. A
general impression of heaviness is apt to be given. In favorable cases
this imparts a dreamy, melancholy, or thoughtful expression to the
countenance; in others it degenerates into a blinking, drowsy type;
or, again, with eyes half closed, it may suggest suppressed cunning.
The particular adjective to be applied to this expression varies
greatly according to the personal equation of the observer. Quite
persistent also is a fullness of the lips, often amounting in the
lower one almost to a pout. The chin in many cases is certainly rather
pointed and receding, Jacobs to the contrary notwithstanding. A
feature of my own observation, perhaps not fully justified, is a
peculiar separation of the teeth, which seem to stand well apart from
one another. But a truce to speculations. Entering into greater
detail, the flat contradictions of different observers show that they
are vainly generalizing from an all too narrow base of observations.
Even the fancied differences in feature between the two great branches
of the Hebrew people seem to us to be of doubtful existence. Our
portraits do not bear it out. It seems rather that the two
descriptions of the Ashkenazim and Sephardim types which we have
quoted denote rather the distinction between the faces of those of the
upper and the lower classes. Enough for us to know that there is a
something Jewish in these faces which we instantly detect. We
recognize it in Rembrandt's Hermitage, or in Munkaczy's Christ before
Pilate. Not invariable are these traits. Not even to the Jew himself
are they always a sure criterion. Weissenberg gives an interesting
example of this.[25] To a friend, a Jew in Elizabethgrad, he submitted
two hundred and fifty photographs of Russian Jews and Christians in
undistinctive costume. Seventy per cent of the Jews were rightly
chosen, while but ten per cent of the Russians were wrongly classed as
Jews. Of what concern is it whether this characterization be entirely
featural, or in part a matter of expression? The first would be a
matter of direct heredity, the second hypothesis partakes more of the
nature of a characteristic acquired from the social environment. Some
one--Jacobs, I think--speaks of it as the "expression of the Ghetto."
It certainly appears in the remarkable series of composite Jewish
portraits published in his monograph. It would not be surprising to
find this true. Continued hardship, persecution, a desperate struggle
against an inexorable human environment as well as natural one, could
not but write its lines upon the face. The impression of a dreary past
is deep sunk in the bodily proportions, as we have seen. Why not in
the face as well?
We are now prepared, in conclusion, to deal with what is perhaps the
most interesting phase of our discussion. It is certainly, if true, of
profound sociological importance. We have in these pages spoken at
length of the head form--primary index of race; we have shown that
there are Jews and Jews in this respect. Yet which was the real Jew it
was not for us to decide, for the ninety-and-nine were broad-headed,
while the Semite in the East is still, as ever, a long-headed member
of the Africanoid races. This discouraged our hopes of proving the
existence of a Jewish cephalic type as the result of purity of
descent. It may indeed be affirmed with certainty that the Jews are by
hereditary descent from early times no purer than most of their
European neighbors. Then we discovered evidence that in this head form
the Jews were often closely akin to the people among whom they lived.
In long-headed Africa they were dolichocephalic. In brachycephalic
Piedmont, though supposedly of Sephardim descent, they were quite like
the Italians of Turin. And all over Slavic Europe no distinction in
head form between Jew and Christian existed. In the Caucasus also they
approximate closely the cranial characteristics of their neighbors.
Hypnotic suggestion was not needed to find a connection here,
especially since all history bore us out in our assumption of a large
degree of intermixture of Gentile blood. Close upon this disproval of
purity of type by descent came evidence of a distinct uniformity of
facial type. Even so impartial an observer as Weissenberg--certainly
not prejudiced in favor of cephalic invariability--confesses this
featural unity.
How shall we solve this enigma of ethnic purity, and yet impurity, of
type? In this very apparent contradiction lies the grain of comfort
for our sociological hypothesis. The Jew is radically mixed in the
line of _racial descent_; he is, on the other hand, the legitimate
heir to all Judaism as a matter of _choice_. It is for us a case of
purely artificial selection, operative as ever only in those physical
traits which appeal to the senses. It is precisely analogous to our
example of the Basques in France and Spain. What we have said of them
will apply with equal force here. Both Jews and Basques possessed in a
high degree a "consciousness of kind"; they were keenly sensible of
their social individuality. The Basques primarily owed theirs to
geographical isolation and a peculiar language; that of the Jews was
derived from the circumstances of social isolation, dependent upon the
dictates of religion. Another case in point occurs to us in this
connection. Chantre,[26] in a recent notable work, has shown the
remarkable uniformity in physical type among the Armenians. They are
so peculiar in head form that we in America recognize them at once by
their foreshortened and sugar-loaf skulls, almost devoid of occiput.
They too, like the Jews, have long been socially isolated in their
religion. Thus in all these cases, Basques, Armenians, and Jews, we
have a potent selective force at work. So far as in their power lay,
the individuality of all these people was encouraged and perpetuated
as one of their dearest possessions. It affected every detail of their
lives. Why should it not also react upon their ideal of physical
beauty? and why not influence their sexual preferences, as well as to
determine their choice in marriage? Its results became thus
accentuated through heredity. But all this would be accomplished, be
it especially noted, only in so far as the physical traits were
consciously or unconsciously impressed upon them by the facts of
observation. There arises at once the difference between artificial
selection in the matter of the head form and that concerning the
facial features. One is an unsuspected possession of individuality,
the other is matter of common notice and, it may be, of report. What
Jew or Christian, till he became anthropologist, ever stopped to
consider the shape of his head, any more than the addition of a number
of cubits to his stature? Who has not, on the other hand, early
acquired a distinct concept of a Jewish face and of a distinctly
Jewish type? Could such a potent fact escape observation for a moment?
We are confirmed in our belief in the potency of an artificial
selection, such as we have described, to perpetuate or to evolve a
Jewish facial type by reason of another observation. The women among
the Jews, as Jacobs[27] notes, in confirmation of our own belief,
betray far more constantly than the men the outward characteristics
peculiar to the people. We have already cited Weissenberg's testimony
that brunetteness is twice as prevalent among Russian Jewesses as
among the men. Of course this may be a matter of anabolism, pure and
simple. This would be perhaps a competent explanation of the
phenomenon for physiologists like Geddes and Thompson. For us this
other cause may be more directly responsible. Artificial selection in
a social group, wherein the active choice of mates falls to the share
of the male, would seem to tend in the direction of an accentuated
type in that more passive sex on which the selective influence
directly plays. At all events, observations from widely scattered
sources verify the law that the facial individuality of a people is
more often than otherwise expressed most clearly in the women. Thus,
for example, the women betray the Mongol type more constantly than the
men among the Asiatic tribes of eastern Russia.[28] On the other hand,
Mainof, best of authority, confirms the same tendency among those of
Finnic descent.[29] The _Setti Communi_ in northern Italy still
preserve their German language as evidence of a historic Teutonic
descent. They seem to have lost their identity entirely in respect of
the head form,[30] but Ranke[31] states that among the women the
German facial type constantly reappears. This, I confess, is not
altogether easy to understand, unless the Lombards, of whom these
colonies are supposedly the remnants, brought their native women with
them across the Alps. Perhaps, however, not bringing their women, a
new Teutonic resemblance has been evolved out of whole cloth. A better
example than this is offered among the Hamitic peoples of Africa north
of the Sahara. These peoples, from Abyssinia to Morocco, really belong
to the white races of Europe. Among nearly all their tribes the
negroid traits are far more accentuated among the women, according to
Sergi.[32] It is not necessary to cite more specific testimony. The
law occupies a respected place among anthropologists. That the Jews
confirm it, would seem to strengthen our hypothesis at every point.
Our final conclusion, then, is this: It is paradoxical, yet true, we
affirm. The Jews are not a race, but only a people, after all. In
their faces we read its confirmation, while in respect of their other
traits we are convinced that such individuality as they possess--by no
means inconsiderable--is of their own making from one generation to
the next, rather than as a product of an unprecedented purity of
physical descent.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] 1877, p. 214.
[12] 1861 b, pp. 227 and 331.
[13] Glück, 1896 a. Jacobs, 1890, p. 82, did not find a trace of it in
the Sephardim congregation in London. See Andree, 1878, in this
connection.
[14] The cephalic index by which we measure the head-form is merely
the breadth of the head in percentage of its length from front to
back. The index rises as the head becomes relatively more broad.
[15] Verneau, 1881 a, p. 500.
[16] Pruner Bey, 65 b; Gillebert d'Hercourt, 1868, p. 9; and
especially Collignon, 1887 a, pp. 326-339; Bertholon, 1892, p. 41;
also Collignon, 1896 b.
[17] Eliséev, 1883.
[18] Bertholon, 1892, p. 43; Sergi, 1897 a, chapter i, and even more
recently Fouquet, 1896 and 1897, on the basis of De Morgan's
discoveries.
[19] Compare Brinton, 1890 a, p. 132, and 1890 b, for interesting
linguistic data on the Semites.
[20] 1877, pp. 88-90; 1885, p. 84.
[21] Centralblatt für Anthropologie, vol. iii, p. 66.
[22] Virchow, 1886 b, p. 364; Schimmer, 1884, p. xxiii.
[23] Weissenberg, 1895, p. 567, finds brunettes twice as frequent
among the south Russian Jewesses as among the men.
[24] 1886 a, p. xxxii.
[25] 1895, p. 563.
[26] Recherches anthropologiques dans l'Asie Occidentale (Archives du
Museum d'histoire naturelle, Lyons, vol. vi, 1895).
[27] 1886 a, p. xxviii.
[28] Sommier, 1887, reprint, p. 116. Cf. Zograf, 1896, p. 50, on
crania from the sixteenth century in Moscow.
[29] Congrès int. des sciences géographiques, Paris, 1875, p. 268.
[30] Livi, 1896 a, pp. 137 and 146.
[31] Beiträge zur Anth. Bayerns, vol. ii, 1879, p. 75.
[32] Africa, Antropologia della stirpe Camitica, Torino, 1897, p. 263.
TRUE TALES OF BIRDS AND BEASTS.
BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.
I.--SEÑOR ALCATRAZ.
He was just a bird when he was born, and a very ugly bird at that. For
he had big splay feet, with all the toes turned forward and joined
together in one broad web, and his wings were thick and clumsy, and
underneath his long bill there was a big red sack that he could fill
with fishes, and when it was full he could hardly walk or fly, so
large the sack was and so great was his appetite.
But he kept the sack well filled and he emptied it out every day into
his stomach, and so he grew very soon to be a large bird, as big as a
turkey, though not as fat, and each day uglier than ever.
But one morning, when he was walking out on the sand flat of the
Astillero at Mazatlan, Mexico, where he lived, he saw a big fish which
had been left by the falling tide in a little pool of water. It was a
blue-colored fish with a big bony head, and no scales, and a sleek,
slippery skin. He did not know that it was a _bagre_, but he thought
that all fishes were good to eat, so he opened his mouth and slipped
the fish, tail first, down into his pouch. It went all right for a
while, but when the fish woke up and knew he was being swallowed, he
straightened out both of his arms, and there he was. For the bagre is
a kind of catfish, and each arm is a long, stiff, sharp bone, or
spine, with a saw edge the whole length of it. And all the bagre has
to do is just to put this arm out straight and twist it at the
shoulder and then it is set, and no animal can bend or break it. And
it pierced right through the skin of the bird's sack, and the bird
could not swallow it, nor make it go up nor down, and the bagre held
on tight, for he knew that if he let go once he would be swallowed,
and that would be the last of him.
So the bird tried everything he could think of, and the fish held on,
and they kept it up all day. In the afternoon a little boy came out on
the sands. His name was Inocente, and he was the son of Ygnacio, the
fisherman of Mazatlan. And Inocente took a club of mangrove and ran up
to the struggling bird and struck it on the wing with the club. The
blow broke the wing, and the bird lay down to die, for with a broken
wing and a fish that would not go up nor down, there was no hope for
him.
When Inocente saw what kind of a fish it was, he knew just what to do.
He reached down into the bird's sack and took hold of the fish's
spines. He gave each one a twist so that it rolled over in its socket,
the upper part toward the fish's head, and then they were not stiff
any more, but lay flat against the side of the fish, just as they
ought to lie. Then the fish knew that it had found a master, and lay
perfectly still. So the bird gave a great gulp, and out the bagre went
on the sand, and when the tide came up it swam away, and took care
never to go again where a bird could get hold of it. And the bird with
the broken wing had learned something about fishes, too. But he could
not fly away, so he waited to see what the boy was going to do.
The boy took the bird into his boat and brought him home. And old
Ygnacio put a splint on his wing and covered it with salve, and by and
by it healed. But the bone was set crooked, and the bird could not fly
very well. So the boys called the bird Señor Alcatraz, which is the
Spanish for Mr. Pelican, and Señor Alcatraz and all the boys and dogs
and goats became good friends, and all ran about on the streets
together. And when the boys would shout and the dogs bark, all Señor
Alcatraz could do was to squawk and hiss and open his big mouth and
show the inside of his red fish sack.
And when the boys would go fishing on the wharf, Alcatraz would go,
too, and he would stow away the fishes in his pouch as fast as the
boys could catch them. But if they caught a bagre fish, he would turn
his head the other way and then run away home just as fast as his
splay feet would take him.
And when the men drew the net on the beach Alcatraz would splash
around inside the net, catching whatever he could, and having a great
deal of fun in his clumsy pelican fashion. Then he would run along the
street with the boys, squawking and flapping his wings and thinking
that he was just like the rest of them. And if you ever go to
Mazatlan, ask for Dr. Rogers, and he will show you the way to
Ygnacio's cabin on the street they call Libertad. And there in the
front yard, in a general scramble of dogs, goats, and little Indian
boys, you will see Señor Alcatraz romping and squabbling like the best
of them. And you will know which he is by the broken wing and the red
sack under his throat. But if you say "Bagre" to him, he will run
under the doorstep and hide his face till you go away.
II.--THE LITTLE BLUE FOX.
Once there was a little blue fox, and his name was Eichkao, and he was
a thief. So he built his house down deep among the rocks under the
moss on the Mist Island, and his little fox children used to stay down
among the rocks. There they would gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, whenever
they heard anybody walking over their heads. Eichkao and his fox wife
used to run all round over the rocks to find something for them to
eat, and whenever Eichkao saw anybody coming he would go clin-n-n-g,
cling-g-g, and his voice was high and sharp, just like the voice of a
buzz saw.
One day he walked out on the rocks over the water and began to talk to
the black sea parrot, whose name is Epatka, and who sits erect on his
carelessly built nest with one egg in it, and wears a great big bill
made of red sealing wax. He has a long white quill pen stuck over each
ear, and over his face is a white mask, so that nobody can know what
kind of a face he has, and all you can see behind the mask is a pair
of little foolish twinkling white glass eyes. What the two said to
each other I don't know, but they did not talk very long, for in a few
minutes when I came back to his house among the rocks Eichkao was
gone, and there lay out on the bank a bill made of red sealing wax, a
white mask, and two little white quill pens. There were a few bones
and claws and some feathers, but they did not seem to belong to
anything in particular, and the little foxes in the rocks went gurgle,
gurgle, gurgle.
One day I lay down on the moss out by the old fox walk on the Mist
Island, and Eichkao saw me there and thought I was some new kind of
walrus which might be good to eat, and would feed all the little foxes
for a month. So he ran around me in a circle, and then he ran around
again, then again and again, always making the circle smaller, until
finally the circle was so narrow that I could reach him with my hand.
As he went around and around, all the time he looked at me with his
cold, gray, selfish eye, and not one of all the beasts has an eye as
cruel-cold as his. When he thought that he was near enough, he gave a
snap with his jaws, and tried to bite out a morsel to take home to the
little foxes; but all I offered him was a piece of rubber boot. And
when I turned around to look at him he was running away as fast as he
could, calling klin-n-g-g, klin-n-g, klin-n-g, like a scared buzz saw
all the time as he went out of sight. And I think that he is running
yet, while the little foxes still go gurgle, gurgle under the rocks.
III.-HOW THE RED FOX WENT HUNTING.
(_With acknowledgment to Mr. A. C. Bassett, of Menlo Park,
California._)
Once on a time there was a great tall rabbit, the kind the miners call
a "narrow-gauge mule"; but he was not a mule at all, and his real name
was "Jack Rabbit." His home was in Montana, and he lived by the river
they call the Silver Bow. He could run faster than any of the other
beasts, and he went lickety-clip, lickety-clip, bounding over the tops
of the sagebrush, for he had no brush of his own to carry.
And there was a red fox who lived on the Silver Bow, too, and he went
hunting because he wanted rabbit for dinner. But while he could run
very fast he could not bound over the tops of the sagebrush, for his
own brush, which he always carried with him because he was so proud of
it, would catch on the thorns of the other kinds of brush and so would
keep him back.
So he sent for his cousin, the coyote, to come and help him. Now, the
coyote lived out in the country by Emigrant Mountain. He was not proud
at all, for he hadn't much of a brush, and nobody flattered him for
his beauty. But for all that the coyote could run very fast, as he had
Indian blood in him. The only trouble was that his hind feet ran
faster than his fore feet. So he had to stop every little while and
run sidewise to unkink himself and give his fore feet a chance to
catch up.
When the coyote came up the rabbit was bounding along through the
bushes, going around in a great circle so that he always came back to
the same place, for that is the way of the rabbit-folk. So the fox lay
low and hid his brush in the sage, and the coyote followed the rabbit
around the circle. And he just kept up with the rabbit all the way,
for the rabbit wasn't scared, and didn't run very fast. And when they
had gone once around the circle the rabbit passed the hidden fox. Then
the fox got up and chased him, and was only a few feet behind. And the
coyote stopped and ran sidewise for a while to unkink himself, and
then he lay down in the bushes and waited for the rabbit to come back.
The rabbit was much scared when he saw the fox close behind him, so he
ran and bounded very fast, and the fox kept falling behind because he
had his long brush to carry. But he kept at it just the same, and when
the rabbit came around the circle to where he started there was the
coyote waiting for him. The rabbit had to make a great jump to get
over the coyote's head. Then they went around again and the coyote
kept close behind all the way, and the rabbit began to get tired. When
the coyote's hind legs got tangled up then the fox was rested, and he
took up the chase; and so they kept on, each one taking his turn,
except the rabbit, who had to keep his own turn all the time.