60 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

CHAPTER IV.

Physical characteristics of the Dénés.

Features common to the whole Nation.

One of the chief aims of the late Dr. D. G. Brinton’s book “The Ameri-
can Race” would almost seem to be a preoccupation to justify its title, which
implies a physiological homogeneity for the various nations that people the
western hemisphere. With that end in view an effort is made to reconcile anta-
gonistic traits, linguistic as well as physical or cultural, and the most essential
differences are cleverly minimized. Thus, for instance, the recognized superio-
rity of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of Peru and Mexico is artfully depre-
ciated and, under the pen of the learned author, the aboriginal empires of
central America, with their palaces, their temples and monumental! edifices,
as well as their elaborate social and political organizations, become little more
than hordes of Indians but slightly above the menital level of the wild tribes
of the north. The physiological points of contrast are similarly softened down,
and even the Eskimos, for instance, are in his estimation nothing else than
a division of the red race, just as the Sioux, the Aztecs, or the Patagonians.

I have more than once put on record my own protest against granting
too great an importance to physical features, or even anthropometric pecu-
liarities in our ethnic classifications of mankind. Yet, one cannot help remark-
ing that, within the fold of what Dr. Brinton called the American Race, very
striking diversities of type do certainly exist which, in many cases, correspond
to linguistic, and therefore genuinely racial, particularities. Even a limited
acquaintance with the original inhabitants of our continent will reveal a notable
difference between, for instance, the delicate and narrow facies of the Iroquois
and the broad and flattish features of the Plains Indians.

Owing to the wide diffusion of the aboriginal family it represents, the
Déné facial type cannot pretend to perfect uniformity. Commerce with adjoining
allophylic stocks and consequent commingling of blood have in many cases
considerably altered it. But numerous are still the tribal divisions of the race
which have remained typically aboriginal, and a person, however little con-
versant he may be with anthropometry, will, with time and reasonable obser-