Title: Indian types of beauty
Author: Shufeldt, Robert W. (Robert Wilson)
Language: English
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  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.



INDIAN TYPES OF BEAUTY.


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.

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 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
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 of a tawny chocolate
color, and her head well-poised upon her rounded shoulders.

[Illustration: FIG. 1. A NAVAJO MAN AND HIS WIFE.]

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 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 2. A BELLE OF THE LAGUNA PUEBLA.]

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 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 3. THE DAUGHTER OF PALIWAHTIWA, GOVERNOR OF ZUNI.]

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 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 4. A ZUNIAN WOMAN OF ADVANCED AGE.]

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
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).

[Illustration: FIG. 5. A GIRL OF MOQUI.]

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 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 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 6. AN APACHE MAIDEN.]

The men among the Mojaves, too, are generally splendid 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 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.

[Illustration: FIG. 7. MOJAVE WOMEN.]

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).

[Illustration: FIG. 8. A YUMA SQUAW.]

The Yumas never have as good looking women among them as there are to
be found among the Mojaves, and in 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.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] _American Antiquarian_, September, 1886.

[2] Article “Indians,” _Encyclo. Brit._, 9th edition, vol. XII, p.
832.



  Transcriber’s Notes

  pg 12 Changed: Passing from Laguna to Zuni, a Peublo
             to: Passing from Laguna to Zuni, a Pueblo

  pg 20 Changed: cheek-bones, and her regular sub-oval
             to: cheek-bones, and her regular suboval

  pg 22 Changed: Such an one is shown
             to: Such a one is shown



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