On Anthropological Colour Phenomena in and Elsewhere. Author(s): John Beddoe Source: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 10 (1881), pp. 374-380 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2841539 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 10:12

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This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:12:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 374 J. BEDDOE.-On AnthropologicalColoutr Phenomena.

From the SOCIETY.-Transactionsof the Royal Dublin Society, Vol. I, Vol. II, Parts 1, 2. -Journal of the Asiatic Societyof Bengal,Nos. 230-232,and extranumber to Part 1, 1878. Annual Report of the Leeds Philosophicaland Literary Society,1879-80. NeunzehnterBericht der OberhessischenGesellschaft fur Natur-undHeilkunde. - Schriftender Physikalisch-ikonomischenGesellschaft zu Kdnigsberg,1880-81. Fromthe EDITOR.-Revue Internationale des Sciences,Nos. 7,9,10. `- Nature,"Nos. 559-575. " Athenoeum,"Parts 631-634. RevueScientifique, Tom. XIX, Nos.1-19. --The AmericanAntiquarian, Vol. II, No. 4. Correspondenz-Blatt,August, 1880. --Revue d'Anthropologie,Nos. 3, 4. --Materiaux pourl'histoire de l'homme. Tom.Xl, liv. 6e, 7e. -- GeneralCatalogue of Books. Editedby BernardQuaritch. The AmericanNatuiralist, Vol XIV, No. 10. RockyMountain Medical Review, Vol. I, No. 1.

The election of CHARLLESCOOMBE TENNANT, Esq., was announced.

The followingpaper was read-

On ANTHROPOLOGICALCOLouR PHENOMENAXXi BELGIUMand ELSEWHERE. By Dr. JOHNBEDDoE, F.R.S.

WITHIN the last few years the numerical method has been applied pretty extensivelyto the determinationof ethnolo- gical colourtypes in severalcountries of WesternEurope. In Britain the AnthropometricCommittee is continuingits labours,and has alreadyacquired a considerablemnass of facts respectingcolours, from a numberof private anid some official observers. But in this special departuientcontinental Anth7ro- pologists,though theystarted behind us, have been enabled by their school organisationsto outstripus completely. In Ger- many, Virchow has been able to get counted and tabulated, quioad their hair and eyes, the whole school population of suitableage. The onlylocal exceptioniis the cityof Harnburgh,

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:12:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in Belgiumand Elsewhere. 375 which has always borne a Philistine reputationas regards mattersof science. In Switzerland,Dr. Guillaume,of Neu- chatel,and others,have successfullystirred up the cantonal authoritiesand schoolmasters;and I believe the entireschool population has been reportedon exceptin Geneva and Tessin, whence returnshave not come in. In Belgium, Professor Vanderkindere moved the Geographical Society, at whose instigationthe Ministerof the lnteriorenabled him to obtain fromthe schoolmastersof the whole countrythe particulars required. And I believe that a similarenquiry has been pro- jected,or actuallyundeTtaken, in Holland and in Bohemia. The drawbacks for the value of informationthus obtained are, of course,numerous. They are due partlyto faultsin the methodand the observers,partly to the nature of the material. The classificationof the coloursis verydifficult. Broca's plan is the best,but is too complicatedfor large numbersand un- scientificobservers. Moreover,it does not strictlyapply to the mixedvarieties of eye-colour, which are pretty frequent. Still, this is a small defect,and the illustriousauthor of the arrangement had foreseenit, and in some degreeprovided for it. The deter- minationof c9lourof hair is moredifficult. They run into each other by infinitegradation, they vary with the changes of illumination,and finallythey are not flattints, and the colour- standardsof Broca and GeneralPitt-Rivers, excellent for the skin, are by theirflatness incapable of beingidentified with the hues of hair. It is my opinion,and I think that Mr. Brabrookand GeneralPitt-Rivers agree with me, thatflat tints, striped with miniutedark lines, mightbe adopted as standards,but hitherto I have not succeededin bringingthis plan to bear. The personal equation of the observerhas also to be con- sidered. It varies exceediingly,and can, to some extent,be predicted. Thus a personwho has been broughtup amonga xanthous population,is apt to be inclined to apply the name black to dark shades of brown,and one belongingto a melaino- chroicdistrict will call the chestnuts" blonde" and the yellows "red." In this way local differencesare likely to be under- estimated,and I am disposedto thinkthat theyhave been so in Belgiumand in Germany. The materialutilised consistsof school children. Undoubt- edly the hair graduallydarkens frominfancy up to adult age in the immensemajority af persons; but it does so with such uniformitythat provided we always compare chi]dren with children and adults with adults,there is littlefear of serious error. Dr. Guillaume has givenus a valuable comparisonof the coloursin the schoolchildren and in the conscriptsof Neu- chatel. Hair called " black" is several timesmore frequlent in

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:12:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 376 J. BEDDOE.-On AnthropologicalColour Phenomena the latter than in the former. Sexual differencesexist; thus brown eyes are more commonamong women and grey eyes amongmen; at least this is the case in England,and, I think, everywhereelse; but if all the children of both sexes are examined,this becomes quite immaterial. It is a questionwhether it is betterto combinethe eyes and lhairin a single observation,making, such categories-as, e.g., lighteyes withdark hair, dark eyes withred hair,and so forth, or to observe and tabulate the eyes and the hair separately. The latterplan is much mioresimple and easy,and likelyto be moreaccurately worked, and some have accordinglyadopted it. I myselfhave always adoptedthe formerplan, because it yields some informationwhich in the simplerone slips throughone's fingers. Virchow and the Swiss hlave also adhered to it (the former),but Virchowhas, I think,needlessly complicated it by askingin some cases for the colourof the skin also. Thus he has a categoryof " brown eyes, brown hair, fair skin," and anotherof " brown eyes,brown hair, dark skin or complexion." I confessthat I think the determin-ationof the colourof the child's skin, washed or unwashed, is a matterof which the difficultyexceeds the importance. I have always miadefive colours of hair-red, fair, brown,dark, and black-and three colours,or, as my lamentedfriend, Broca correctedme, shades of eyes; and thusI gotfifteen categories, and providefor every pos- sible combination.Virchow's plan has but twelvecategories, but leaves a number of combinationsunprovided for. He miakes but fourcolours of hair-red, fair,brown, and black-anid Vander- kinderefollows him, with the result,I am sure,that the number of black-hairedis enormouslyexaggerated. With thisexception the plan of the latteris perfect;he rightlyneglects the skin,and gets the particularsseparately for each child, so as to be able to formtwelve categories if he pleases. Thoughhe has not pub- lished thefigures for all of these,he has madea mostuseful selec- tion,and based thereupona series of irnstructivemaps, showilng the distributionof the blonde and brunettetypes in theseveral arrondissernentsand cantonsof Belgium. Virchowand his coad- jutorshave also producedan excellelntmap, but I do not thinkthe ligureson whichit is basedhave beenpublished so fullyand acces- sibly as by Vanderkindere. I do not thinkthe Swiss statistics have been puiblishedat all; at least I have beenunable to pro- cure any of themnexcept those of IDr.Guillaume for Neufchatel. I will now state brieflythe results of these enquiries,so far as I am acquaintewdwith them. In Germany,speaking roughly,I may say that the blonde type prevails most decidedly in Schleswig-Holstein,and not muclhless so in the north-westernand nortlh-easternprovinces;

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:12:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in Belgiutmand Elsewhere. 377 and that it graduallyyields to the brunetteas one proceeds southwardsand south-westwards,the brown maxinlumbeing attained in parts of Alsace-Lorrainieand Bavaria. The most considerableanomaly is the comparativeprevalence of the browntype in the Thuringianregion. I confessto havingbeen somewhatsurprised at the little differencethat existsbetween the partlyFrisian or Danish provincesabout the Lower Elbe, and the semi-Slavonicregions of Prussia and Saxony. I should have thoughtthe latterless blonde than theyappear to be; and my own impressionis a littlestrengthened by anothervaluable series of observations,to which I have not hithertoalluded, because they werenot conductedon the same large officialscale and by the same machinery. I mean those of Professors Joseph Majer and Kopernicki,of Cracow,on the populationof Gallicia,whose admirablework is not so much known as it deservesto be, because writtenin Polish. It is, of course, however,likely enough that the Wends of the north-west,the Obotrites,Lusatians, &c., may have been, and may remain,a fairerrace than their neighboursand kindred the Poles and Ruthenians. The dark complexionand un-Germanicaspect of manyof the inhabitantsof ThuringiaI have myselfobserved and commentedon long ago; thus Riilhla is notedfor a dark type offemale beauty. Of the Swiss results I have, as alreadysaid, seen verylittle. Those forthe northernborder appear to be unconformablewith the German ones forthe same frontier,but this I am disposed to attributeto differentideas of the nomenclatureof colours. It would seenmthat here, too, the blond typeis strongestin the north,as in Aargau,and that the brown one acquires strength as one proceeds southwards,south-westwards, and south-east- wards,into Glarus,Graubundten, the Valais, and Vaud. The facts yielded by the Belgian returnsare, as I have said, particularlyinteresting, and are very clearly set forthin a monographby ProfessorVanderkindere. Belgium,we know, is pretty equally divided as to language by a line running nearlydue east and west,into the Walloon and the Flemishor Brabanto-Flemishreoions. The formerincludes the whole,or nearlyso, of Hainault,, Belgium, , and Liege, the latter East and ,, , and the greater part of Brabant. The Walloon, or French-speaking division,contains twelve arrondissements. the Flemish-speaking one, fourteen. If now we divide the whole number of the observedinto threetypes. the blonde,the brown, and t-heneutral, or intermediateor mrixed,we findthat the fourteenarrondisse- mentshaving the largestproportion of blondes correspondwithi the fourteenFlemish ones; and the twelve havingmost browns

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:12:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 378 J. BEDDOE.--On AnthropologicalColour Phenomnena, &c. with the twelve Walloon arrondissements;while , whichis the onlyone of thetwelve which includes a considerable minorityof Teutonic speech,stands, as it oughtto do, fifteenth on the blondeand twelfthon the brownlist. When we come to the minutersubdivisions called cantons,the contrastcontinues almostas striking. Thereare 203 cantons,of whichmore than halfare whollyFlemish, a few are of mixed language,and the remainderWalloon. Excluding the mixed cantons and those which actuallytouch the linguisticfrontier, I find thatwhen theyare all arranged(which Vanderkindere has done) numeri- cally in the orderof prevalenceof the blondetype, only ten of the Flemishcantons go beyondthe hundredthplace, and only threeof the Walloon ones fall below the hundredth. Vander- kindere remarks the ratherlarge proportionof dark hair in Ostendand the neighbouringmaritime cantons of West Flanders, and thinksit may be due to the aboriginalpiscivorous popula- tion havingsettled there and neverbeen extirpated. The figuresdo not help us much towards considerilngthe questionwhether city life has any influencein alteringphysical characteristics.Most of the urban cantonshave a large rural element. Those mostavailable are ,Mechlin, Verviers, ,and, less certainly,, the two of Antwerp,the two of Liege, and the two of . Of these, Ghent and Ostend are decidedly,and Antwerpand Verviersless decidedly, darker than theyshould be-darker, thatis, than the average of the surroundingcantons, while Brussels, Mechlin,and less distinctlyLiege and Lessines,are fairerthan mightbe expected. The westerncanton of Ghentis remarkablydark, but this may be due to the influxof foreignartizans into this great manu- facturingtown. The Flemish countryis flat or gentlyundulating, sandy or loamy; the Walloon country,for the most part, rough,hilly, and well-wooded,the soil restingon carboniferouslimestone, coal measures,&c. But that thesefacts have littleor nothing to do withthe colourof the hair and eyes of the populationis shown by the position of Hainault, which,resembling Bra- bant in surface and soil but inhabitedby Walloons,shows a largerproportion of dark-hairedchildren than any otherprovince. On the whole, this work of ProfessorVanderkindere's supplies some of the most powerfulevidence we have for the permanenceor, to speak morecautiously and accurately,for the longevity of even such apparentlytrivial and variable physicalclharacters as the colour of the hair and eyes. By its publicationthe argumentsfor undertakinga similar investiga- tion in the primaryschools of the British Isles have been greatlystrengthened. I have kept in view the desirabilityof

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:12:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Disctussion. 379 procuringsuch a series of facts for the last five-anid-twenty years; but the task transcendsthe powers and leisure of a singleindividual, or even of such a body as the Anthropometric Committee. If the thing is to be done on a scale, and with a completenesscomparable with that obtained in Belgium,it inust be with a certain amount of officialhelp and countenance. These are much more difficultto obta.in in Britain than in Belgiunm;but withthe assistanceof the BritishAssociation we need not despair of securingthem before the landmarks of British ethnologynave been utterlyblurred by migrationand counter-migration.

DiSCUSSION. Mr. C. ROBERTS: As the rateof pigmentationis more rapid in the eyesthan in thehair, I thinkit is desirablethat the observa- tionsmade on each organshould be madeseparately, and afterwards combinied,or rathercompared together. The darkeningof the hair goes on slowlyfrom birth to age of puberty,when it oftentakes a .raddenleap correspondingwith the othermarked physiological changes which occur at that period. With the eyes it is quite otherwise. At birththe iris is quitecolourless, the dark blue,and, indeed,all the shadesof blue at a laterperiod of life,being due to the black inner pigmentshowing through the semi-transparent iris; but the dark outerpigment which distinguishesthe brown and black eye is depositedon the surfaceof the iris duringthe course of the firsttwo or threeyears, and it changes littleafter- wards. The consequenceis thatwe oftensee youngchildren with darkeyes and fairhair, which are difficultto classify.-Judging by the hairthey are blondes,by the eyesbrunettes, and theywill most developlater in lifeall the charactersof thedarker element of our population. For the same reasonI think littleuseful anthropo- logicalknowledge will be gainedby making observations on a large numberof childrenof differentages, as theresult will depend on the colourof thehair and eyesof thepredominant age, and thisin its turnwill deDendon thekind of schoolsand othercircumstances underwhich the observationsare made.* If the childrenwere arrangedin groupsof two,or at mostof threeyears, they could be comparedtogether, and the orderof pigmentationcould be deter- mined. Unless analysedin thismanner, I shouldhave littleconfi- dence in the statisticswhich are reportedfrom the Continent,and referredto by Dr. Beddoe,in determiiiingthe racial elementsof thepeople. Mr. LEWIS agreedwith the previousspeaker in hoping that statisticsof hair and eyes would be so drawnup as to shownot merelythe total qiiantityof darkor lighthair and eyes amonga

* N OTE byDr. BEDDOE.-The limitsof age, and thepredominant ages, would be the same throughoutthe kingdom in the primaryschools. This objectionis therefore,I think,invalid.

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.242 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:12:06 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 380 J. F. ROWBOTHAM.-Asr1 of ilusic numberof persons,but to distinguishbetween those who had dark hair and eyes, light hair and eyes. light hair and dark eyes, and dark hair and lighteyes. He had no doubt that therewas a distinct type the representativeof a race of people in this country having dark hair and light eyes; some ethnologistsbelieved in two races onlv,one light haired and light eyed,aiid the other dark haired and dark eyed, of which all other varieties were mere mixtures,but he was satisfiedthat, if a sufficientnumber of statistics distinguishing those varieties could be collected throughout the country,the existence of a thirdtype would be clearly demonstrated. The PRESIDENT, Major-General PITT-RIVERS, Mr. BOUVERIE PUSEY, and Mr. BRABROOK also took part in the discussion.

The followingpaper was read by the author -

CERTAINREASONS for believingthat the ART of MIUSICin PRE- HISTORICTIMES passed throughTHREE DISTINCT STAGES of DEVELOPMENT,each characteri-edby the inventionof a NEW FORM of INSTRUMENT,and that these stages invariably succeededone anotherin the same order in variousparts of theworld. By Mr. ROWBOTHAM.

MUSICALinstruments, though their varieties may be counted by hundreds,are yet really reducible under three distinct types:-1, the,dru-m type; 2, the pipe type; 3, the lyre type. Under the firsthead fall drums,rattles, tambourines, gongs,triangles, castanets-in a word,all instrumentsof per- cussion. Under the second head fall flutes,horns, trumpets, fifes,hautboys, bugles-all wind instruments.And underthe third head fall all stringedinstruments, comprising the harp, lyre, lute, violin, dulcimer,piano, &c., &c. Now these three typesare representativeof threedistinct stages of development throughwhich prehistoricmusic has passed-and the stages occurin the ordernamed. That is to say,the firststage in the developmentof instrumentalmusic was the drum stage, in whichdrums anid drumis alone wereused by inan.' The second stage was the pipe stage,in whichpipes as well as drumswere used. The third stage was the lyrestage, in whichlyres were added to the stock. And as in the geological historyof the globe,the chalk is neverfound below the oolite nor the oolite

1 Understandby " druim,"ilnstruments of percussion,from the rudestpossible formof two pieces of stick beatentogether, for instance, to the developeddr um or rattleas we have it to-day.

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