Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Coming to the diversities of the stock among the pure Africans, we may
first note the type which, in the rough judgment of the public, is the
real or Guinea negro. That he is so taken is doubtless because he is
the most distinctly characterized of all black people. The men of this
well-known group are generally burly fellows, attaining at a relatively
early age a massive trunk and strong thighs; they have thick necks and
small though variedly shaped heads. The bridge of the nose is low, and
the jaws protruding. The face, though distinctly of a low type, very
often has a very charming expression--one in which the human look is
blended with a remnant of the ancient animal who had not yet come to
the careful stage of life. The women of this group are well made, but
commonly less so than the men. In general form the two sexes of the
group are much alike, a feature which also indicates an essentially low
station. These people of the Guinea type form perhaps one half of the
Southern negroes.
Along with the Guinea type goes another much rarer, which at first
sight might by the careless observer be confounded with the lower
group. The only common features are the burly form of both, the
deep-black hue, and the general form of the features. The men we are
now considering have a higher and in every way better head. Their
foreheads are fuller, and the expression of the face, to my view,
quite other than that of the Guinea men. In place of the sly, evasive
child-animal look of the lower creature, this fellow has rather a
lordly port, the expression of a vigorous, brave, alert man. This,
which I am disposed to term the Zulu type, from the resemblance to that
people, is on many accounts the most interesting of all the groups we
have to consider. My idea that it may have come from the above-named
tribe is based on an acquaintance with a party of southern Africans
who some forty years ago were brought to this country by a showman.
I came to know them well. They were attractive fellows, of the same
quality as certain blacks I had known in Kentucky. When I saw these
strangers I perceived their likeness to certain able blacks whose
features and quality had made impressions on my mind that remain clear
to the present day. It is likely that this element of the negro people
I have termed Zulu is not of any one tribe; it may be of several
diverse stocks with no other common quality than that which vigor
gives. They may, in part, be from Bangora tribes of the Congo Valley,
or even Soudanese. The proportion of this group to the whole is small;
because it merges into the other it can not well be estimated. I find
that I have reckoned it in my notes as one twentieth of the whole black
population.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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