INDIAN TYPES OF BEAUTY

—BY—

R. W. SHUFELDT,

Captain Medical Department, U.S. Army.

Member of the Philosophical, the Anthropological, the Biological, and the Entomological
Societies of Washington, D.C.; Member of the Cosmos, of Washington; Member of
the American Society, and Honorable Associate of the British Society for Psychical
Research; Member of the American Ornithologists’ Union; Member of the
American Society of Naturalists; Cor. Member Soc. Ital. Anthrop.
Ethnol. and Psicol. Comp. of Florence, Italy; Cor. Member of the
Zool. Soc. of London; Cor. Member Biol. Association of Colorado;
the Academy of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia: of the Academy
of Sciences, Chicago; of the Linnæan Soc. of New
York; Member of the International Copyright League;
Member of the Anthropometrical Soc.; Member
of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science; Member American Society
of Anatomists, etc., etc.

One of the most interesting studies in the entire range of the science of ethnology is the estimate of beauty arrived at by various peoples. It really seems that the lower the race in the scale of civilization the more fixed and restricted are their ideas in this direction; that is to say, the men among the lower races can see beauty in the women of their own tribe presenting certain characteristics, as the women of the same tribe see comeliness in certain of the men, but neither of them recognize any beauty in those considered beautiful or handsome by the members of other tribes. On the other hand, the majority of the men, at least among the Indo-Europeans, can often see beauty in women of the greatest variety of other countries than their own. Perhaps one of the best proofs of this is the fact that they sometimes marry them. Even here in the United States it is not difficult to find instances, and these, too, in any plane of society we may select, where men have married women of other races and nationalities. And as a wise philosopher and observer has said, “In civilized life man is largely, but by no means exclusively, influenced in the choice of his wife by external appearance,” it is fair to presume that the man in any case was attracted by what he considered to be the woman’s beauty. In my own personal experience, cases have been met with where those among us have married negro women, and negro women as black as ever graced the banks of the Congo of the West Coast. Others have married Chinese women, and a friend of mine has a very talented little Japanese wife. Nor is the Englishman Rolfe the only white man that ever married an Indian woman; one of the generals in our own army married such, and there is every reason to believe that he was influenced by her beauty alone.

[Pg 4]

With respect to the lower races, Mr. Darwin has said, quoting Mr. Winwood Reade’s observations upon the native Africans, that these “negroes do not like the color of our skin; they look on blue eyes with aversion, and they think our noses too long and our lips too thin.” He does not think it probable that negroes would ever prefer the most beautiful European woman, on the mere grounds of physical admiration, to a good-looking negress. And again, “A man of Cochin China spoke with contempt of the wife of the English ambassador, that she had white teeth like “a dog, and a rosy color like that of potato-flowers.”

We have seen that the Chinese dislike our white skin, and that the North Americans admire “a tawny hide.” In South America the Yuracaras, who inhabit the wooded, damp slopes of the Eastern Cordilleras, are remarkably pale-colored, as their name in their own language expresses; nevertheless they consider European women as inferior to their own.”

Who but a Hottentot man, may we ask, can admire one of their ridiculous-appearing steatopygous women? Yet the men of that race can see beauty in no other form, and the idea of a woman lacking any development in the gluteal region is, to them, absolutely loathsome. Thus we might proceed and furnish almost innumerable cases illustrating this interesting study, and comparing the various standards of taste in this particular among the many races of the world, but enough has been said to serve our purpose here. In general terms it may be stated, then, confining ourselves to the ideas of the men, that it will be found in some races that a woman with a black skin, black eyes, a broad face and flattened nose, and a head of coarse kinky hair, is admired; others see beauty in a thickset figure, a lighter skin and an enormous development of fat over the gluteals. Some admire the body rendered entirely devoid of hair; some a lithe form, others a ponderous one; while every variety of taste exists in reference to the color of the skin, the set of the eyes, and the form of every individual feature of the face. Nor do such other structures as the ears, the neck, the shoulders and the mammæ escape attention or consideration—for all of them and all of the forms they may assume, have not escaped the critical eye of men, and they have each contributed their share in forming his estimate of beauty. No doubt[Pg 5] among the higher races intellectuality and the impress it makes upon the features has also had its weight. Indeed, whatever type of beauty may be chosen among women, that has its host of admirers among the men, we are pretty sure to find among the latter in some other quarter of the world, those that consider the same type as almost hideous; and these again have a very different standard of female beauty for their ideal, and see only ugliness in its opposite, the various shades of opinion among men as a whole wearing every degree of diversity, and being almost limitless in their expression.

Closely associated with this phase of our subject and quite inseparable from it, is the question of the ornamentation of the person, which is indulged in, the world over, as much by the men as it is by the women; and, we may add, the various kinds of adornment practiced by the women of all races is everywhere to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex. Among the higher races, such as for example among the Indo-Europeans, there are a great many individual cases where women habitually delight in adorning their persons, where the just mentioned object has, of course, been entirely lost sight of; but this is by no means the case among savages low in the scale of civilization. As numerous as are the various tastes with respect to the appreciation of the beauty of women, among the races of the world, the means resorted to, to enhance that beauty, are none the less so. These means resolve themselves principally into moderate exaggerations of personal charms already possessed; into a tattooing and coloring of the face and other parts of the body; into the wearing of trinkets, jewelry, and adopting peculiar styles of dress; into removing the hair from the body entirely, or else encouraging its growth, and wearing it dressed in extravagant modes; and finally, in the production of physical deformities, and these sometimes coupled with the wearing of some mechanical contrivances associated with it.

Every traveler of any distinction, who has published an account of his explorations, whatsoever part of the world he has examined, mentions more or fewer cases under either one or several of these various heads, and so familiar to us all have the more conspicuous of them become that to repeat them here would be quite superfluous. My own studies have been limited to the Africans, far less so to the[Pg 6] Chinese and Japanese, while to many tribes of our North American Indians I have devoted no little attention, the opportunities having been afforded by a life among them extending over a period of more than ten years.

Now as interesting and important as such a study is among our northern tribes of Indians, it can hardly be compared in either of these particulars, with similar investigations undertaken among those races of Indians found south of the 37th parallel, and west of the Rocky Mountains. Here we meet with the Navajos, the Apaches, the Mojaves, as representative field Indians; and the Zunians, the Lagunas, the Moquis, and various other remnants of nations, as the most interesting examples of the sedentary or Pueblo tribes. Among all or any of these we find much applying to which your attention has been invited in the foregoing paragraphs. In some directions they have been slightly influenced by the steady advance of our civilization, but this applies, in so far as it concerns us here, more especially to the opportunities it has offered for the there-considered beautiful women to adorn themselves in the matter of dress and trinkets. As a study, let us select as our first example a woman from among the Navajos, and one considered by them to be a type of beauty, in their estimation. I have chosen Anserino, the wife of Pedro, the ironsmith, who, by the way, is deemed a handsome man by those people (see Fig. 1.) Both these Indians the writer knew personally for several years, and judging from what other men of the tribe have said, Anserino has the reputation of being a pretty woman among them.

It will be observed from the accompanying picture I am enabled to present of her, that she is of but medium height, of a good figure, and well developed. As among most Indian women her hands and wrists are very large, and this also applies to her feet, which cannot be seen in the illustration. She shows no tattoo-marks or mutilations anywhere upon her face or body, though in this statement must not be included the fact of the removal of all hair except that which grows so abundantly upon the head and the brows. This latter is black, rather long, and frequently dressed. It is worn parted for a short distance in the middle in front; drawn off the face, and braided up and tied behind. She wears no ornaments in her hair beyond the wrappings of her braid. Her skin is smooth and [Pg 8]of a tawny chocolate color, and her head well-poised upon her rounded shoulders.

The face is oval, with the forehead of medium height and rather broad; the jet black eyes are well-set and she has a fine aquiline nose—the latter not exhibiting much spread to the nostrils. A rounded chin, and her weakest feature, her mouth, finish her face.

Were it not for the slight cynical expression this face wears, when its features are at rest, there is much in it we could see to admire, for it is thoroughly expressive of the Indian mother, and its various parts are by no means homely. Anserino is a much better looking woman, when engaged in an animated conversation, but we cannot get that in her picture. It will be seen that she is very fond of ornamental trinkets, and a massive chain of beads are hung about her neck, while large silver ornaments and beads are attached to the loopings at her shoulder, and to her waist-sash. Often these beads are of native turquoise, purchased from the Zunians, or obtained in exchange for Navajo blankets, from the same tribe. Now Anserino belongs to a race, wherein the women work as hard as the men; they live much out of doors, and in a climate where the summers are hot, but a few severe months of cold weather occur every winter. At night they may sleep in one of their conical “hogans” or lodges, which, as a rule, are badly ventilated and not one of the most favorable factors that in historic time has assisted to produce a race, where we may often find beautiful Indian women. They are the greatest and best of all the blanket weavers among our indigenous tribes; and some of the men work in silver and iron. The ornaments worn by Anserino, in the cut, are of Navajo manufacture. The Navajos also have their peculiar form of government; their priesthood and religious rites; their songs and their simple arts, and are wealthy in many instances in the possession of great herds of sheep. I simply mention these matters briefly in order to show the native phase of civilization to which this woman belongs. Both this civilization and tribe are old, very old, and it is interesting to see the kind of men and women it has produced. A very different and far more attractive style of beauty is seen in one of the daughters of Puebla of Laguna (Fig. 2). Tzashima, of whom we present an illustration, is an Indian beauty in every sense of the word. She has a fine, rather tall figure, and her carriage [Pg 10]is good; as with all Indians, however, almost without exception her feet and hands are rather large, though this, not a defect in the eyes of many, in no way detracts from the peculiar beauty of her face. Her hair is as black and as glossy as a raven’s wing, and at the dances she wears it in a rich, unbridled downfall, as far as the waist behind, while in front it is cut off at the sides, so as to be on the level of the neck; it is parted in the middle in front, as seen in the illustration. The forehead is rather contracted but not too low, and surmounts a face smooth and oval to a fault. Her brows are very broad, and support fine eyebrows of a jetty blackness. A very slight obliquity, far less than we see in the Mongolian, characterizes her eyelids, and these shield a gorgeous pair of Indian eyes that, Tzashima very well knows, are the rivals of her hair in their inky tints. For an Indian, her nose is exquisite in its proportions, and might stand almost for a perfect model of this defining feature of the face. Her lips are finely arched, though the mouth is rather large, while the elegantly rounded chin, moderately prominent in its contour, fades gently away at the lower sides of the face, and as we mount upward we are struck with the high cheek bones, which, in due keeping, mar not the just balancing of the features of the face of this Pueblan beauty. In tint, her skin is of a pale mahogany, much lighter than that of the Navajo women already described. Her jacket and sash become her well, as does the barbaric silver necklace, and mass of beads she wears about her neck. Heavy silver bracelets surround her wrists, and nearly every finger has its one or more great silver rings.

The nature of the civilization that has produced this woman is quite different from that of which the Navajo, Anserino, was the outcome. Pueblo Indians in their civilization possess much in common; they are sedentary types, and their history extends far, far back into time. They occupy in Arizona and New Mexico, in our day, not far isolated groups, of what may be called agglomerations of rubble sandstone houses laid in mud and piled one upon another, with narrow streets among them. These remnants of a departing nation are in some instances found huddled together upon some plain, near a river’s bank, as in the case of Zuni and others; or they may cap some rocky crag, a young rugged mountain, with sides precipitous, as in the case of Wolapi. Much in the crude [Pg 12]philosophy, the mythology, and opinions of these people is wise and beautiful; and much there is, too, that is low and debasing and richly tinctured with the more degraded myths of savagery. These several Pueblan groups have their governments most peculiar, and they, too, as a people have produced their agriculturists, their warriors, their workers in silver and iron, their manufacturers of clay pottery, and weavers of blankets; and those that have followed the simpler industrial arts.

Many of their religious rites have descended through generations from ages quite remote, ages wherein the rootlets of this civilization were nurtured in rank paganism. Some of their ideas partake strongly of the poetic, while others pass into lascivious channels. Their many and varied songs are stamped alike with both these characters.

As for the status of the women in one of these Pueblos, nowadays, suffice it to say that they grow up in the traditions of their people; are dealt with on a basis of crude justice by the men; marry and rear their children; and are the workers in the household; have little or nothing to do with the government of the tribe, but engage in some of the dances. They are the adepts at blanket weaving, and the manufacture of pottery. Briefly stated then, it is out of a civilization of this kind, that a woman, the type of which is seen in Tzashima, has been evolved.

Passing from Laguna to Zuni, a Pueblo that I have personally visited and studied, the style of women seems to change very materially, for it is difficult there to find a woman that can lay any claim to being beautiful—that is in my eyes.

To present an illustration of the style of their young women, I here offer a portrait of the daughter of Paliwahtiwa, the Governor of Zuni, several years ago (Fig. 3). This girl is just approaching womanhood, and is a very good type of what a Zunian would consider to be a young belle. It will be seen that she has a good figure, and is of a very much darker skin than Tzashima of Laguna. Her heavy head of hair is, as usual, jetty black, and she parts it upon the left side, cutting it off lateralwise on the level with the lips. It almost gives the upper part of the face the appearance of being set in a massive frame, thus adding materially to the stolid and oldish cast of her countenance. The deep black eyes, entirely devoid of any obliquity, are placed wide apart, and their lids are inclined to be thick [Pg 14]and heavy. They are surrounded by broad eyebrows having the same glossy shades as her hair. Suboval in outline, this girl’s face is completed by moderately high cheekbones only; a nose that suggests a lack of fine chiseling; and a mouth devoid of very much character.

She wears but little jewelry, such ornament being confined to a chain of large silver beads, bearing the usual double crescent below, and worn about her neck; on the last three fingers of her left hand are some heavy silver rings. A blanket skirt coming down to the knees, and girded at the waist by a sash, with a blanket thrown over her shoulders, constitutes her principal attire. A pair of plain moccasins cover her feet, and a buckskin bandage, wrapped round and round, in spiral turns, either leg below the knee.

After the bearing of one child, Zunian women seem to part forever with all the beauty they ever possessed, and in old age they become very ugly and exceedingly masculine in their cast of countenances. They still continue at that age to wear their hair as they did in their girlhood, and even their costume is quite similar, as may be seen in the portrait I am here enabled to give of a Zunian woman that has passed the sixties.

I have never met this Indian, but I believe I am correct in stating that she is the wife of the governor, and so, mother of the Zunian girl whose description we have just given (Fig. 4).

As rich and as romantic a field as is the study of the Pueblo of Zuni for the ethnologist, the group of Moquian Pueblos are, in many particulars, even still more so. Their system of agriculture is exceedingly interesting, as are their peculiar notions of architecture, and all the habits of these remarkable people. Moreover, their strange history, as a nation, reaches far back into time, and their knowledge of it is largely traditional, all of which adds to the zest of investigation. The very country they inhabit, Arizona, is filled with romance for the student, and overflows with material for the archæologist.

Moquis have strange religious rites and ceremonies; unique dances, such as their snake dance; a curious government, and social definitions. They also stand among the most skillful of blanket weavers and pottery manufacturers; and a great many of their household utensils are made by them, as are all varieties of savage [Pg 16]jewelry, trinkets, toys, and other objects. Comparatively little of their inner home life is as yet known to science, and in some particulars they are slowly changing before the advance guard of our own civilization. But let us turn our attention to one of the young maidens of this tribe, and the one shown in the figure has been chosen for her savage beauty (Fig. 5).

Prior to marriage, one of these girls, as may be seen, does up her hair in the most extraordinary manner; it is parted in the middle, combed out at the sides, and then done up over slender twigs carefully wrapped with woolen yarn, into two great whorls, one standing out upon either side of the head immediately above the ears. In front of this a lock hangs down over the temple and side of the face. This latter is a true oval, and its various features combine to make it bright and intelligent. The brows are arched, the nose well shapen, the cheekbones by no means prominent; and, indeed, upon the whole the face may be said to be quite a pretty one. They do not wear near as much jewelry as do the Navajos, while in most respects their costume agrees with the Zuni girls; but our Moqui maiden is more prone to go about barefooted, and often neglects to wear the leggins of buckskin, so characteristic of both Navajos and Zunians alike. These Moqui girls marry young, often at ten years of age, and they are monogamists. Bourke, in his wonderfully interesting work upon these people, says: “Boys and girls of advanced age roam unconcernedly through the streets of the different towns, especially of those farthest to the west, in a condition repugnant to our notions of modesty and delicacy. The traveler among the Moquis learns as much of the customs of the Garden of Eden, in respect to dress, as he is ever likely to in any other part of the world.”

“The women, according to all accounts, have a powerful voice in determining their own future.” And, after marriage this author has said of the Moqui matron, that “she has her faults—the faults of her sex, of our common human nature; but she makes a dutiful wife, and a fond, affectionate mother.”

Passing on through Arizona to the southward and westward, from the Pueblos to the Moquis, we meet first with that fierce and brave race of field Indians, the Apaches, as they are popularly known; and afterward as we[Pg 17] near the Californian line, the Apache-Yumas and the Apache-Mojaves, still very different kinds of Indians.

Of these three groups of Indians it has been said by Dr. W. H. Corbusier of the Army that “The Apache-Yumas, Tulkepaias or Natchons, belong to the Yuma, or Katchan family of Indians. The name Apache-Yuma was given to them by the whites, but they are known to the Indians of the Yuma family as Tulkepaia, or in full, Tulkepaiá (sparrow?) venùna (belly) tchehwàle (spotted), and to those of the Tennai family—the so-called Apaches—as Natchon (lizards). Their country is in Arizona, north of the Gila River, between the Verde and the Colorado.”

“The Apache-Mojaves, Yavapaias, or Kohenins, also belong to the Yuma family. The whites call them Apache-Mojaves, but the Indians related to them call them Yavape, Yavapaia, or Nyavapai, and the Tennai call them Kohenin. They claim as their country the whole of the valley of the Verde River and the Black Mesa, as far north as Bill Williams’ Mountain.”[1]

Of the others of these groups, Mr. Henry Gannet has said in the Encyclopædia Britannica, in 1881, that “The Apaches are a branch of the Athabasca family which has wandered far from the parent region, and now range over large parts of New Mexico and Arizona. It is a powerful, warlike tribe, at war with the whites almost continually since the latter entered the country. A large part of the tribe is on the Fort Stanton reservation in Eastern New Mexico, while another portion, under the Chief Victoria, has for a long time been devastating the border settlements of New Mexico. The Tonto-Apaches collected in large numbers on the San Carlos reservation in Arizona, where they are doing something at farming, are of Yuma stock. Besides these there are several bands of Apaches scattered about on other reservations, or roaming without a fixed habitat, swelling the total to about 10,600.”[2]

For brevity’s sake, in the present connection, I shall designate these three groups of Indians, simply as the Apaches, the Mojaves and the Yumas. It will be remembered that several years ago we whipped the Apaches in[Pg 18] Arizona into submission, and numbers of them were gathered together and transported on the railroad out of their country to reservations at different points in Florida and again in Alabama. These were of Geronimo’s band, spoken collectively, and it is from this ungovernable tribe that I choose one of their comeliest maidens to represent the style of beauty found among their women. The last the writer saw of this girl she was peering from the car window, as the train which rapidly conveyed those captive people to the far Eastward, momentarily stopped at Wingate, New Mexico.

The Apaches, as a general rule, both men and women, possess splendidly proportioned figures, and in the case of the type I have selected for illustration no exception is found, although, as will be seen in her portrait, her costume precludes the possibility of our judging upon this point. This girl bears the name of Natuende in her tribe, and her garb indicates that she has not yet married—the buckskin over-jacket with its peculiar trimmings, and even the mode of doing up her not very abundant black hair, all having its meaning—a meaning which I am not as yet fully informed upon—that is, sufficiently to render an account of here. She has a smooth dark skin, which is of a deeper or darker tint in winter than it is in summer, and it is prone to change as Natuende happens to be influenced by any of the emotions common to all humanity. Her face has almost the cast of some of the prettier Chinese women, and for this the slight obliquity of her eyes are chiefly responsible. These black orbs can snap out their anger when occasion offers, or tell the tale of the opposite passion, as they no doubt have done long since, to that successful warrior who first inclosed her in his serape. Her narrow, black eyebrows are finely arched, and other features of her face inclined to be clean cut, and their expression upon the whole by no means entirely devoid of intelligence, or even attractiveness (Fig. 6).

But these Apaches, as I have already said, both men and women, are as a rule principally distinguished for their almost faultless figures, their graceful movements, and a certain elasticity of step so characteristic of the typical field Indians, so that when we do find an individual among their young women having any claim to beauty at all, it cannot fail to be enhanced by these facts.

The men among the Mojaves, too, are generally splendid [Pg 20]examples of muscular development, and have finely proportioned figures, whereas it is the exception to find, in this interesting tribe, any women that we would even consider to be at all good-looking. My figure presents two Mojave women; the one sitting down is Sowatcha, and the other standing at her side is Luli-pah. They are both married, as is indicated by the vertical tattoo lines upon their chins, and a glance is sufficient to satisfy us that they are very different appearing from any of the Indian women we have thus far examined. Sowatcha typifies her sex as we find them among this tribe. Her costume consists solely of a half dozen coils of beads worn as a necklace about her neck, and a calico skirt made fast at the waist by a string, and falling as far as the feet. Luli-pah, her companion, even lacks the necklace, otherwise her dress is the same (Fig. 7).

These women have heavy heads of black hair, which they bang square across just above the eyes, to points immediately in front of the temples; here it falls again down the sides of the face and head, being cut squarely off below at a level with the shoulders. Sowatcha has a broad, homely face, with very high cheek-bones, made the more conspicuous by the horizontally disposed figures she has painted upon them. The redeeming feature is the nose, which is straight and aquiline, and of just proportions; and the eyes beam with good nature and merriment, and these Mojave women are noted for dispositions that fully respond to both these characteristics.

Younger than Sowatcha, Luli-pah is far better looking, a fact that is principally due to a lack of prominence of her cheek-bones, and her regular suboval face. She has also a better mouth and nose, and is decidedly more shapely in other particulars.

Unconfined by any of the contrivances for the distortion of the figure in use by the sex of our own people, the forms of these Mojave women are from Nature’s own mold, and in contour correspond to all that Nature has designed. Take Luli-pah as an example, and it will be seen that she has a fine chest and shoulders, and what is still more remarkable, her waist has a natural girth about equaling in circumference that of her chest. Judged in the light of what critical anthropometric law often demands, such a figure must be considered quite symmetrical, and in some respects should delight the eye of the [Pg 22]anthropologist. Her arms are decidedly well formed, the wrists and hands small, and the fingers tapering, and, as we might naturally expect, these native gifts are sustained by a harmony in outline for the remainder of her figure.

Mojavian history, both past and present, is replete with interest; their traditional myths; their religious practices and dances; the very meaning of all their various corporeal tattooings; their medical arts, manufactures, pictographs, and notions of the universe being by no means behind in this particular those of the other tribes of Indians herein enumerated. I cannot, however, dwell upon them in this place; but must pass to the consideration of those differences seen in the appearances of a woman coming from the tribe of the Yumas. Such a one is shown in an accompanying illustration, and, whatever the male representatives of these remarkable Indians may think of her claims to beauty, I am constrained to believe, that we must draw the line here. Indeed, as we gaze upon the features and costume of this Yuma squaw, it must seem strange to many of us that she is in reality an inhabitant, with many of her kind, of the same country as ourselves. Her hair is worn much in the same style as we found it among the Mojave women, but has been allowed to grow longer at the sides. She has painted it across in four horizontal bands—one near the top of the head, one an inch or more above her bangs, another on the line of the mouth, and the last one on the ends. The two latter, of course, are interrupted by the face and neck. This paint is usually made of ochre, clay, charcoal and oil, but the various paints they use, their methods of preparing them, and their reasons for using them, would form quite a long chapter of itself. This woman has also painted certain significant lines upon her chin, and cross-marks upon her cheeks. Her face seems to wear an expression of sadness, and to me has nothing attractive in it, although some of the individual features are not bad. She wears a calico dress—waist and skirt, and is ornamented by a mass of beads around her neck, a bracelet of the same surrounding the left wrist. Silver rings are upon the middle finger of either hand, one on each, and a large silver ornament is suspended from her neck by a bead chain, which allows it to hang down as far as the waist in front (Fig. 8).

The Yumas never have as good looking women among them as there are to be found among the Mojaves, and in [Pg 24]my opinion, the prettiest and most intelligent faces of all are possessed by the young unmarried girls of the Pueblos, especially those of Moqui, Laguna and Acoma.