Page:Atlantis - The Antediluvian World (1882).djvu/207

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THE QUESTION OF COMPLEXION.
189

1862, says (MS. "Hist. of Dakotas," Library, Historical Society, Minnesota, p. 47), after calling attention to the fact that the different tribes of the Sioux nation represent several different degrees of darkness of color:

"The Dakota child is of lighter complexion than the young brave; this one lighter than the middle-aged man, and the middle-aged man lighter than the superannuated homo, who, by smoke, paint, dirt, and a drying up of the vital juices, appears to be the true copper-colored Dakota. The color of the Dakotas varies with the nation, and also with the age and condition of the individual. It may be set down, however, as a shade lighter than olive; yet it becomes still lighter by change of condition or mode of life, and nearly vanishes, even in the child, under constant ablutions and avoiding of exposure. Those children in the Mission at Hazlewood, who are taken very young, and not allowed to expose themselves, lose almost entirely the olive shade, and become quite as white as the American child. The Mandans are as light as the peasants of Spain, while their brothers, the Crows, are as dark as the Arabs. Dr. Goodrich, in the 'Universal Traveller,' p. 154, says that the modern Peruvians, in the warmer regions of Peru, are as fair as the people of the south of Europe."

The Aymaras, the ancient inhabitants of the mountains of Peru and Bolivia, are described as having an olive-brown complexion, with regular features, large heads, and a thoughtful and melancholy cast of countenance. They practised in early times the deformation of the skull.

Professor Wilson describes the hair of the ancient Peruvians, as found upon their mummies, as "a lightish brown, and of a fineness of texture which equals that of the Anglo-Saxon race." "The ancient Peruvians," says Short ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 187), "appear, from numerous examples of hair found in their tombs, to have been an auburn-haired race." Garcilasso, who had an opportunity of seeing the body of the king, Viracocha, describes the hair of that monarch as snow-white. Haywood tells us of the discovery, at the beginning of this century, of three mummies in a cave on the south side of the