When Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in 1492 he was welcomed by a brown-skinned people whose physical appearance confirmed him in his opinion that he had at last reached India, and whom, therefore, he called Indios, Indians, a name which, however mistaken in its first application continued to hold its own, and has long since won general acceptance, except in strictly scientific writing, where the more exact term Native American is commonly used. As exploration was extended north and south it was found that the same race was spread over the whole continent, from the Arctic shores to Cape Horn, everywhere alike in the main physical characteristics, with the exception of the Eskimo in the extreme North, whose features suggest the Mongolian.
The most marked physical characteristics of the Indian race type are brown skin, dark brown eyes, prominent cheek bones, straight black hair, and scantiness of beard. The color is not red, as is popularly supposed, but varies from very light in some tribes, as the Cheyenne, to almost black in others, as the Caddo and Tarimari. In a few tribes, as the Flatheads, the skin has a distinct yellowish cast. The hair is brown in childhood, but always black in the adult until it turns grey with age. Baldness is almost unknown. The eye is not held so open as in the Caucasian and seems better adapted to distance than to close work. The nose is usually straight and well shaped, and in some tribes strongly aquiline. Their hands and feet are comparatively small. Height and weight vary as among Europeans, the Pueblos averaging but little more than five feet, while the Cheyenne and Arapaho are exceptionally tall, and the Tehuelche of Patagonia almost massive in build. As a rule, the desert Indians, as the Apache, are spare and muscular in build, while those of the timbered regions are heavier, although not proportionately stronger.
The beard is always scanty, but increases with the admixture of white blood. The mistaken idea that the Indian has naturally no beard is due to the fact that in most tribes it is plucked out as fast as it grows, the eyebrows being treated in the same way. There is no tribe of "white Indians", but albinos with blond skin, weak pink eyes and almost white hair are occasionally found, especially among the Pueblos.
Various origins have been assigned to the Indian racefrom Europe and the East, by way of Greenland or the mythic land of Atlantis; from Asia, by way of the Bering Straits and the Polynesian Islands, has more advocates, and also more reasons in its favour. The fact that Japanese and other Asiatic adventurers have frequently landed upon the North Pacific coast of America is a matter of history, and tribal tradition and other evidence indicate that such contact was as frequent in prehistoric times, but whether all this has been sufficient to make permanent impression upon the physique and culture, let alone to account for a race, is an open question. For some years this problem has been under systematic investigation by the American Museum of New York City, with promise of important results. Presently, the only known permanent migration has been in the opposite direction, an Eskimo tribe in Alaska having taken up permanent residence in Siberia within the historic period.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours.
-Chief Tecumseh-
Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission.
This is the Indian theory of existence.
-Mourning Dove-
