50. Kingsmill Islander. (Tylor.) 179
[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD SHOWING LOCATION OF THE STRANGE PEOPLES
DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK]
STRANGE PEOPLES.
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
We are to read about some of the _Strange Peoples_ of the world. We
shall find many curious customs. There is an old saying,—
“Many men of many minds;
Many birds of many kinds;
Many fishes in the sea;
Many men who don’t agree.”
Peoples differ in so many ways. There are tall Patagonians and short
Bushmen. There are white peoples, and black, yellow, and brown peoples.
There are peoples whose bodies are so covered with hair as almost to be
called furry, and there are peoples whose faces even are hairless except
for eyebrows and eyelashes. There are lively peoples and there are
sluggish peoples; gay peoples and sad ones. Negroes do not think and
feel like white men, and the Chinaman thinks and feels differently from
either. All peoples have their own customs. When we speak of other
peoples as _Strange Peoples_, we must never forget that we are as
_strange_ to them as they are to us. We think it curious that the
Chinese dwarf, by bandaging, the feet of their women; they think it
strange that we do _not_. To us the Chinese face seems much too flat;
the Chinese think ours are like the face of an eagle and that they are
harsh and cruel. We think the flat, wide nose of the negro is ugly;
negroes think it far handsomer than ours. So we will remember that all
these peoples are “strange” only because they are _unlike_ us: that we
ourselves are just as strange as they are. They have as much right to
their ideas and customs as we have to ours: often indeed we might find
theirs better than our own.
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