Robert W. Shufeldt

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”