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
Set over against these robust blacks, but also of high quality, is a
group less distinctly limited, which has for its characteristics a
rather tall, lean form, a slender neck, a high head, and a thin face,
usually with a nose of better form than is commonly found, sometimes
approaching the aquiline. The skin of these people is often as black
as that of the Guinea folk, yet it is of another hue--a deader black,
perhaps due to some difference in the skin glands. Usually, however,
there is a trace of brown in the complexion. Now and then the relative
straightness of the hair and their facial profiles suggest that the
peculiarity of this people is due to an admixture of Semitic (probably
Arabian) blood. Negroes of this type are most abundant in the northern
part of the South, particularly in Virginia. They are rare in the
plantation States. This is mayhap due to the fact that in the selection
of people to be sold to the traders such delicate folk were retained
where they belonged--as house servants. These rare negroes, which for
lack of a better name will be termed Arabs, are few in number. They can
not be reckoned at more than one per cent of the whole.
Besides the comparatively recognizable types above reckoned, there
is another which puzzles the observer. They are of varied shapes,
generally, however, rather smaller than the average. Their peculiarity
consists in the reddish-brown hue of their skins, which at first
suggests that they are mulattoes. Their faces and hands are often
distinctly blotched with darker patches, in the manner of freckles. At
times I have been inclined to regard their features as indicating a
tendency to albinism, or that change of pigment such as now and then
gives silver foxes or white blackbirds. All things considered, it seems
more likely that we have in these red negroes the remnant of a people
once distinctly separated from the other black Africans. In favor of
this view is the fact that the members of the group are very evenly
distributed, as they would be if they were a distinct race, and not as
we should expect to find them if they were the result of albinism or of
a mixture of white blood. The number of this variety of folk is small;
it probably does not exceed one per cent of the population.
When the observer has made the divisions above noted he has set apart
a little more than one half of the blacks he has tried to classify.
Among the remainder he will have remarked other but indistinct types in
a way that appears to indicate that several other fairly characterized
groups might by close scrutiny be established. The greater part of this
remainder, however, evidently consists of mixed people, who have come
from a mingling of the original diverse stocks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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