The World's Peoples: A Popular Account of Their Bodily & Mental Characters, Beliefs, Traditions, Political and Social Institutions |
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Common terms and phrases
aborigines Algonquian America Amerinds amongst ancestor-worship animals Arab Aryan Asia Asiatic Aztec Bantu belief Berber blood branch British Bushmen Calchaqui called cannibals Caucasic Central cephalic index chief Chinese Christian civilised coast colour culture dead death demons districts domain early East English Europe European feet formerly gods groups hair Hamites Harry Johnston Hausas head Hence Hottentots human Indian inhabitants island killed land living Malay Malay Peninsula Malayan Malaysia Maya Melanesians Mongol Moslem natives Negritos Negro Negroid neighbours nomads northern nose numerous Oceanic origin pagan Papuans Peninsula perhaps Peruvian Photo per Dr Polynesian populations present primitive R. W. Shufeldt race region religion religious rites round Semitic Shaman Siberia Siouan Slavs social soul South southern speech spirits steppe stock language Stone Ages Sudan tongue trees tribal tribes Tuaregs Tunguses uplands West western whole WOMAN women worship Yahgans Zapotecs
Popular passages
Page 72 - We must necessarily suppose that the development of the negro and white proceeds on different lines. While with the latter the volume of the brain grows with the expansion of the brainpan, in the former the growth of the brain is on the contrary arrested by the premature closing of the cranial sutures and lateral pressure of the frontal bone.
Page 417 - There are no people in the world who strike one at first so much as these Friendly Islanders. Their clear, light, copper-brown coloured skins, yellow and curly hair, goodhumoured, handsome faces, their tout ensemble, formed a novel and splendid picture of the genus homo ; and, as far as physique and appearance go, they gave one certainly an impression of being a superior race to ours.
Page 382 - Teutonic: the latter of which is the language of those who occupy the seaboard and plains, while the race of Scottish speech inhabits the highlands and outlying islands. The people of the coast are of domestic and civilised habits, trusty, patient and urbane, decent in their attire, affable and peaceful, devout in Divine worship yet always prone to resist a wrong at the hand of their enemies.
Page 36 - The Malay is of short stature, brown-skinned, straight-haired, beardless, and smooth-bodied. The Papuan is taller, is black-skinned, frizzly-haired, bearded, and hairy-bodied. The former is broad-faced, has a small nose, and flat eyebrows ; the latter is long-faced, has a large and prominent nose, and projecting eyebrows. The Malay is bashful, cold, undemonstrative, and quiet ; the Papuan is bold, impetuous, excitable, and noisy. The former is grave and seldom laughs ; the latter is joyous and laughter-loving...
Page 110 - ... with great success. The form and ornamental designs of their utensils display real artistic taste, while the temper of their iron implements is often superior to that of the imported European hardware. Here again the observation has been made that the tribes most addicted to cannibalism also excel in mental qualities and physical energy. Nor are they strangers to the finer feelings of human nature...
Page 259 - These miserable wretches are strangely infatuated with illusions of the devil: it caused no small horrour in me, to see one of them wrythe his neck all on one side, foam at the mouth, stand bare-foot upon burning coals for near an hour, and then recovering his senses, leap out of the fire without hurt or signe of any. This I was an eyewitness of.
Page 382 - The nighlanders and people of the islands, on the other hand, are a savage and untamed nation, rude and independent, given to rapine, ease-loving, of a docile and warm disposition, comely in person, but unsightly in dress, hostile to the English people and language, and, owing to diversity of speech, even to their own nation, and exceedingly cruel.
Page 73 - Negro for several centuries past has been an actual retrograde one. As we come to read the unwritten history of Africa by researches into languages, manners, customs, traditions, we seem to see a backward rather than a forward movement going on for some thousand years past — a return towards the savage and even the brute. I can believe it possible that, had Africa been more isolated from contact with the rest of the world, and cut off from the immigration of the Arab and the European, the purely...
Page 149 - with the four eyes ' (spectacles). His imitation of Hawash Effendi in a towering rage, storming and abusing everybody, was a great success ; and now he took me off to the life, rehearsing after four years, down to the minutest details, and with surprising accuracy, my anthropometric performance when measuring his body at Rumbek2.
Page 73 - Johnston, who knows him well, goes much further, and speaks of him as a fine animal, who, "in his wild state, exhibits a stunted mind and a dull content with his surroundings, which induces mental stagnation, cessation of all upward progress, and even retrogression towards the brute. In some respects I think the tendency of the Negro for several centuries past has been an actual retrograde one. As we come to read the unwritten history of Africa by researches into languages, manners, customs, traditions,...