The Human Race Part 43

In the first case the complexion is fairer; in the second, darker than that of a mulatto. 3. A white man and a fair quadroon, or a Negro and a dark quadroon produce an _octoroon_, seven-eighths white and one-eighth black, or seven-eighths black and one-eighth white. 4. The child of a White and an octoroon, or of a Negro and a dark octoroon, is in the one case almost entirely white, in the other, nearly quite black.

Valmont de Bomaire adds, that in succeeding mixed generations (the union with the white man taking place in Europe, and that with the black man, in Senegal) the complexion would grow lighter or darker, until at last a white or a black being was brought into the world. Such is the course of physical influences and the causes of deterioration or relapse in the colour of the human species. Only four or five generations of mixed blood are required in order to render the Negro stock white, and no more are wanted to make the white black. The union of a mulatto with a quadroon or octoroon woman will produce, as may be understood, other hues approaching to white or black in proportion to the progression described above. The progeny of a black and a quadroon is termed "saltatras" in the colonies; the word signifies "a leap-backwards" or a return towards the black race.

Crossings of the Negro with individuals of the Yellow or Red Races, with Asiatic Indians or American red-skins, beget offspring of varied shades of colour, bearing different designations according to the countries. These men of colour are seen in many islands of Polynesia.

Possessing neither the intelligence of whites nor the submissiveness of blacks, despised by the former and hated by the latter, they const.i.tute an equivocal caste, with no settled position, and less disposed to labour than revolt.

The colour of his skin takes away all charm from the Negro's countenance. What renders the European's face pleasing is that each of its features exhibits a particular shade. The cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin of the White have each a different tinge. On the contrary all is black on an African visage, even the eyebrows, as inky as the rest, are merged in the general colour; scarcely another shade is perceptible, except at the line where the lips join each other.

The skin of Negroes is very porous, so much so that the pores show visibly; but it is far from hard in all cases, being in some instances quite the reverse, smooth, satiny, and extremely soft to the touch.

The most unpleasant thing about a Negro's skin is the nauseous odour it emits when the individual is heated by perspiration or exercise; these emanations are as hard to endure as those which some animals exhale.

A Negro's hair is quite peculiar. Whilst that of a White is cylindrical, the Black man's is flat. It is also short and crisp, like the wool of a sheep, and in contradistinction to the abundant supply of Europeans, the women among whom can even trail their locks on the ground, it only attains the length of a few inches. The beard, also, is very scanty and scarcely covers the upper lip.

The eye of the Negro differs also from that of the white; the iris is so dark as almost to be confounded with the black of the pupil. In the European, the colour of the iris is so strongly marked as to render at once perceptible whether the person has black, blue, or grey eyes.

Nothing similar in the case of the Negro, where all parts of the eye are blended in the same hue. Add to this that the white of the eye is always suffused with yellow in the Negro, and you will understand how this organ, which contributes so powerfully to give life to the countenance of the White, is invariably dull and expressionless in the Black Race.

Nature adapts the Negro to the torrid countries he inhabits. His const.i.tution is in general lymphatic and lethargic. His slow, sluggish gait and invincible laziness provoke Europeans, who cannot understand so much indolence. The relaxation of the limbs of the Negro betrays itself by his inertia and drowsiness, as well as by the flabby flesh of the women (Fig. 230).

Negroes are much less subject than Europeans to the influence of stimulants. The strongest spirit, rum, pepper, the most irritant spices, only feebly rouse their inert palate. Their soft, thick, oily skin, smooth and hairless, is encrusted beneath the epidermis, as we have said, with a black mucous deposit which gives it its colour. This viscid film envelopes the nervous ramifications beneath the cuticle, thus blunting the sensibility. The fine and delicate skin of the European experiences horrible torture under the lash; but even when he is torn by leathern thongs, the bleeding weals of which are sometimes, in an excess of barbarity, rubbed with pepper and vinegar, the Negro supports this cruel usage with indifference. Some blacks are seen joining the dance after this punishment, as if nothing had happened.

Before speaking of the brain and understanding of the Negro, we should make some remarks on the facial angle observed in this race. We have said that a relatively exact judgment may be formed from the size of this angle as to the value of a race of mankind, from the intellectual point of view.[10] The more obtuse the angle, the greater indication does it afford of n.o.ble and lofty sentiments; the smaller it is, the nearer the head approaches to that of animals. A prominent forehead is the sign of a developed intellect, whilst protruding jaws reveal brute instincts. Consequently, the facial angle increases or diminishes according as the forehead or the jaws project forward. The facial angle of Europeans is about 76 degrees, sometimes reaching 81. An angle of 90 degrees, that is to say a right angle, is found in the ancient statues of Greece. But by reason of his retreating forehead and prominent jaws the Negro only exhibits a facial angle of from 61 to 63 degrees, approaching that of the monkey, which in those of the species to which the orang-outang and gorilla belong, is of 45 degrees.

[10] See Introduction, p. 26.

This proportionate weakness of intelligence, revealed to us by the smallness of the facial angle in the Negro, is confirmed by an examination of his brain. The labours of anatomists of our own day have established that not only is it the bulk of the brain which corresponds relatively with intellectual activity, but that the genuine indication revealing the superiority of mind in man consists in the number and depth of the furrows or circ.u.mvolutions of the brain. Now the outlines and windings of the cerebral ma.s.s in the European are so numerous and deep that they can scarcely be measured, whilst the complications in the head of the black are, as regards the same qualities, less by one half.

The brain of a Negro is also perceptibly smaller than that of a White.

It is the front part especially, that is to say the cerebral lobes, which is so much larger in the European, and hence the fine arch of the forehead peculiar to the White or Caucasian race.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 230.--ZANZIBAR NEGRESSES.]

The intellectual inferiority of the Negro is readable in his countenance, devoid of expression and mobility. The black man is a child, and like a child he is impressionable, fickle, easily affected by good treatment, and capable of self-devotion, but capable also of hatred in some cases, as well as of working out his revenge. The people of the Black Race living in a free condition in the interior of Africa, demonstrate by their habits and the state of their mind that they can hardly get beyond the level of tribe life; and on the other hand such difficulty is experienced in many colonies, in endeavouring to induce the Negroes (so indispensable has the guardianship of Europeans become to them) to maintain among themselves the benefits of civilization, that the inferiority of their intelligence, compared with that of the rest of mankind, is a fact not to be disputed.

Several instances might doubtless be adduced of Negroes who have surpa.s.sed Europeans by their capacity of mind. Generals Toussaint Louverture, Christofle, and Dessalines were no ordinary men, and Blumenbach has preserved to us the names of many ill.u.s.trious blacks, among whom he mentions Jacob Captain, whose sermons, and theological writings, in Latin and Dutch, are truly remarkable. It is not from individual cases, however, but from the whole, that a judgment must be arrived at, and experience has proved that the Negroes are inferior in intelligence to all known races, not even excepting the savage people of America and the Oceanian islands.

The Negro tribes would be excessively numerous if their children lived, but negligence and laziness cause a notable proportion of their offspring to perish. The continual wars, too, in which they indulge against each other, equally impede the spread of their species, and notwithstanding the fertility of the soil in a great part of Africa, the improvidence and carelessness of the natives bring on real famines which decimate their numbers.

Another cause of depopulation that happily becomes less important every day is the trade which the blacks themselves are most eager to keep up.

They sell their children for a packet of beads or for a few flasks of "fire-water."

Thought grows sad as it carries itself back to the time, not yet very remote, when Negro traffic and slavery, which to-day form the exception, were the universal rule along the whole coast of Western Africa. Negroes then were torn ruthlessly from their country and transported to other climes to be reduced to bondage, or in other words to sacrifice life and strength for their master, and in serving him, to exhaust themselves by toil without gaining as much pity as is extended to beasts of burden.

With our animals, in fact, repose succeeds fatigue and food restores vigour; whilst, in colonies subject to Europeans, dread of punishment, the lash, and the most shocking usage, subdued the Negro to forced labour.

This horrible traffic having excited universal indignation for half a century, most States decreed its abolition. France by laws pa.s.sed between the years 1814 and 1848, definitively emanc.i.p.ated the slaves in all her possessions, and since 1860 or so, almost the whole of America has followed this example. Cruisers are now kept permanently on the coasts of Africa both by England and France, which renders the slave trade, if not impossible, at least difficult and dangerous for the grasping, barbarous men who are not afraid to devote themselves to it still.

This commerce, against which European nations have effected so much, nevertheless, reckons as its partizans the Negroes themselves. The tribes are, in fact, incessantly waging war on each other in order to take prisoners and sell them to the traders who pay prohibited visits to their sh.o.r.es. Even now, convoys of captives, chained together by means of forked sticks, are too often to be seen traversing the forests on their way to a slave-ship moored in some unfrequented creek.

Since the almost general abolition of slavery, many Negro tribes have been remarked to live in better accord among themselves. Fathers have some little love for their children, as they no longer entertain the hope of selling them for a bottle of rum or a gla.s.s necklace!

This bondage of the Negroes is not, we may add, a social inst.i.tution of recent date. The Romans possessed black slaves, and had been preceded by the Egyptians in a custom which, at a period yet more remote, prevailed among the a.s.syrians and Babylonians. Three thousand years ago the Arabians and Turks carried off Negroes. They ascended the Nile in large vessels, collecting, as they went, the blacks that were delivered up to them in Nubia and Abyssinia, and returning to Lower Egypt with this cargo of human cattle, sold it for slaves.

A cruelty which occasionally approaches ferocity is the sad attribute of some African tribes. Molien said of the inhabitants of Fouta-Toro, that those Negroes had derived nothing from civilization but its vices, and the same reproach is applicable to some of the modern tribes. The natives of Dahomey, a Negro kingdom extending along the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Guinea, distinguish themselves among all other blacks by their callous and revolting inhumanity. To kill and slay is to them a pleasure, which anyone who can indulge in it rarely denies himself, and the post of executioner is sought for by the richest and most powerful in the land as affording an opportunity for the most coveted enjoyments.

To form an idea of a similar excess of savagery and depravity, the shocking account should be read in the "Tour du Monde," narrated from personal experience by Doctor Repin, who pa.s.sed through Dahomey in 1856.

We cannot attempt to reproduce here the picture of such cold-blooded barbarity.

The Negroes impose heavy labours on their women. Among them the wife is merely a helper in toil, a servant the more. Making flour and bread, tilling the ground, and the most fatiguing occupations, are the Negress's lot in her own country; and it has been said, perhaps rightly, that the former slavery was possibly a benefit to her, as she at any rate changed tyrants. The Negress grinds the corn by placing it in a hollow stone and crushing it with a round flint, the flour falling through a hole in the stone and being received in a mat laid on the floor.

The religious notions possessed by the Negroes are very dim; they doubtless believe in a supreme G.o.d, in a creator; but addict themselves in excess to the practices of fetishism. Their fetishes are a kind of secondary divinities, subordinate to the great G.o.d, master of nature.

Each person chooses for fetish whatever he likes--fire, a tree, a serpent, a jackal, water, a hog, down to a piece of wood shaped by the hand of man. The worship of the serpent is in much favour among the inhabitants of Dahomey. They construct tents and dwellings for these reptiles, rear them in great numbers, and allow them to rove about wherever they please. Immediate death would follow any attempt to kill or pursue the fetish serpents.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 231.--A NEGRO VILLAGE.]

Belief in the power of chance or destiny predominates among these rude men. They feel that events do not depend on their own will, but upon some hidden influence which directs everything, and which it is necessary to render favourable to them. Hence the magicians and soothsayers whose duty it is to avert evil fate or hurtful destinies, and hence also the incalculable quant.i.ty of fetishes. Each Negro has his own, to which he offers sacrifice so long as he obtains something from it, and which he abandons the moment he recognizes its uselessness.

Lamentable effect of the natural degradation of these races!

The sad defects of the Negro in his savage state should not cause his apt.i.tudes to be forgotten. When he has been s.n.a.t.c.hed from tribe life, or freed from the chains that weighed him down, the black manifests qualities which deserve to be brought into relief.

Let us remark firstly, that the Negroes, or the mulattoes resulting from their union with the whites, are often gifted with an extraordinary memory which gives them a great facility for acquiring languages. They are not slow to appropriate the language of the people amidst whom they are placed. They speak English in North America, Spanish in the Central and Southern parts of the New World, and Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope.

They can even change their tongue with their masters. If a Dutch Negro enters the service of an Englishman, he will abandon his former idiom for that of the latter, and will forget his old mode of speech. Nay more, their memory sometimes retains widely diverse languages at the same time. Travellers have met negro traders in the centre of Africa, having connections with different nations, who expressed themselves in several tongues, and understood both Arabic and Koptic as well as Turkish.

The towns inhabited by the Negroes resemble European cities sometimes so much as to be mistaken for them; there is only a difference of degree in their civilization and knowledge when compared with those of Europe.

Towns, properly so called, in the interior of Africa are however very much scattered, but travellers bring to light fresh information concerning the country every day, and the future will perhaps reveal to us particulars about the civilization of Central Africa, of which we have as yet hardly a suspicion.

Negroes are not bad accountants; they calculate mentally with great rapidity, far surpa.s.sing Europeans in this respect.

The industrial arts are pursued with some success by many black tribes.

Iron can be extracted from its ores easily enough to admit of the trades of founders and blacksmiths being carried on in every Negro village, and some excellent handicraftsmen in both these callings are to be found in Senegambia and several of the interior regions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 232.--FISHING ON THE UPPER SENEGAL.]

Fermented drinks, such as beer, sorgho wine, &c., are also manufactured with considerable skill.

Negroes possess the talent of imitation to a very remarkable extent.

They seize hold of and are able faithfully to mimic a person's particular characteristics or behaviour if they show any ludicrous peculiarities. Negro humour is also generally gay and pleasant. They like to laugh at their masters and overseers, the children of the house, &c., and delight in making themselves merry at their expense.

Yet this imitative faculty inherent to blacks, does not go so far as to endow them with any artistic talents. Drawing, painting, and sculpture are unknown to Negroes, and it is impossible to infuse into them the smallest capacity for such subjects, either by lesson or advice. Their temples and dwellings are, in fact, only decorated with shapeless scratches; Africans of the present day are utterly unskilled in drawing and sculpture.

Negroes, if thus obtuse to the plastic arts, are on the contrary very easily affected by music and poetry. They sing odd and expressive recitatives at their festivals and sports, and in some Negro kingdoms a caste of singers is even to be met with, which is alleged to be hereditary, and whose members are also at the same time the chroniclers of the tribe.

Musical instruments are rather plentiful among the Africans. In addition to the drum, which holds so prominent a place in the music of the Arabs, they use flutes, triangles, bells, and even stringed instruments, with from eight to seventeen strings, the latter being supplied from the tail of the elephant. They also possess instruments fashioned from the rind of cuc.u.mbers, forming a sort of rude harp. The Mandigoes who live on the banks of the Senegal, about the middle of its course, have a species of clarionet, from four to five yards long.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 233.--A ZAMBESI NEGRESS.]

"The Negroes," says Livingstone, in his "Expedition to the Zambesi,"

"have had their minstrels; they have them still, but tradition does not preserve their effusions. One of these, apparently a genuine poet, attached himself to our party for several days, and, whenever we halted, sang our praises to the villagers in smooth and harmonious numbers. His chant was a sort of blank verse, and each line consisted of five syllables. The song was short when it first began, but each day he picked up more information about us, and added to the poem, until our praises grew into an ode of respectable length. When distance from home compelled him to return, he expressed his regret at leaving us, and was, of course, paid for his useful and pleasant flatteries. Another, though less gifted son of Apollo, belonged to our own party. Every evening, while the others were cooking, talking, or sleeping, he rehea.r.s.ed his songs, which contained a history of everything he had noticed among the white men, and on the journey. In composing, extempore, any new piece, he was never at a loss; for, if the right word did not come, he didn't hesitate, but eked out the measure with a peculiar musical sound, meaning nothing at all. He accompanied his recitations on the _sausa_, an instrument held in the fingers, whilst its nine iron keys are pressed with the thumbs. Persons of a musical turn, too poor to buy a _sausa_, may be seen playing vigorously on a subst.i.tute made of a number of thick sorgho-stalks sewn together, and with keys of split bamboo. This makeshift emits but little sound, but seems to charm the player himself.

When the _sausa_ is played with a calabash as a sounding board, it produces a greater volume of sound. Pieces of sh.e.l.l and tin are added to make a jingling accompaniment, and the calabash is profusely ornamented."

The music of the Negroes is not confined, it may be remarked, to simple melody. They are not satisfied with merely playing the notes sung by the voice, but have some principles of harmony. They perform accompaniments in fourths, sixths, and octaves, the other musical intervals being less familiar to them, except when sometimes employed to express irony or censure. The advanced state of music amidst the Negro tribes is all the more noticeable from the fact that among ancient European races, among the ancient Greeks, at the most brilliant epoch of their history, for instance, no idea whatever prevailed of harmony in music.