The mind of primitive man : $b A course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., and the National University of Mexico, 1910-1911Boas, Franz
Science
The mind of primitive man : $b A course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., and the National University of Mexico, 1910-1911
Boas, Franz
Ethnopsychology; Race
similarity or uniformity of type; in other cases the diversity of types
occurring in the same community is quite remarkable. We call a series
the more variable, the more frequently deviating types occur in it; so
that the average amount of differences between the individuals
constituting the series and the most common type may be used as a
measure of the variability of the series.
These considerations are of prime importance in all attempts to compare
different races. In some cases differences are found which are
sufficiently fundamental to distinguish easily and definitely one from
another. Thus the color of the skin, color and form of the hair, and
configuration of lips and nose, distinguish the African negro definitely
from the North European. When, however, we compare all the races and
types of man, we find that innumerable transitions exist, which would
make it difficult to state that any one particular feature belongs to
all the individuals of one type, to the exclusion of all others. Thus it
would not be difficult to find among members of the American race, for
instance, lips and nose which approach in form those of the negro. The
same may be said of color. This indefiniteness of distinctions between
different types is due to the variability of the types, which has been
described before, and to the comparatively small differences between the
types.
To give an instance. Negroes have thick lips. Nevertheless the thickness
is not the same among all of them. In some cases it is quite small, in
others very large. Europeans have thin lips, but we can find individuals
whose lips have very considerable thickness. Thus it happens that there
are some negroes whose lips deviate from the normal type in being
unusually thin, and whose lips are therefore similar to those of
Europeans whose lips are unusually thick. The less distinct two types
are, the greater will be the number of individuals in both groups that
are alike. It follows also, from what has been said, that the greater
the variability of each type, the greater will be the probability that
some individuals of the two types compared will be alike. We may perhaps
best express this by saying that the varieties constituting each race
overlap. In many cases, and in some of those that are most important for
our inquiry, this overlapping is extended. Thus I have pointed out the
differences in average brain-weight between different races.
Brain-weights are, however, so variable, that a considerable overlapping
occurs, and that even the average sizes of the brains of the white race
are numerously represented among other races. Medium-sized brains of
whites may be represented by the group of individuals having skull
capacities of from 1450 cc. to 1650 cc. This group embraces 55 per cent
of the Europeans, 58 per cent of the African negroes, and 58 per cent of
the Melanesians. The same result appears when we compare the number of
individuals having great cranial capacities. We find that 50 per cent of
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