The Races of Mankind: being a Popular Description of the Characteristics, Manners, and Customs of the Principal Varieties of the Human Family

Abstract

The rapid growth of interest in Anthropology is proved by the appearance, one after another, of popular illustrated works: Mr. J. G. Wood's “Natural History of Man” in 1868–70, an English translation of M. Louis Figuier's “Human Race” in 1872, and just now (though without the date it ought to have on the title-page) this first volume of a work on “The Races of Mankind.” Of these, the productive M. Figuier's book is too worthless to say much of, and the comparison lies between the first and last. Both are valuable, and the ground they cover is so far different, that they may be usefully placed side by side in the ethnologist's library. It will be remembered that Mr. Wood's account of Africa occupied the first of his two volumes, so that his account of the races of Asia, America, Polynesia, &c., had to be disproportionately condensed into the second. Dr. Brown, we trust, will be able to keep his scale more uniform. His first volume treats entirely of American races, and he speaks with personal knowledge of the Esquimaux and North-west tribes, compiling as to other tribes with discretion, and generally from not too hackneyed authorities. Such of Dr. Brown's illustrations as are taken from photographs and real drawings are good, and preferable to the too picturesque and imaginative cuts of Mr. Wood's artists. But Dr. Brown inserts some drawings which he had better for truth and good taste have left out. Thus, the Indian scalping his victim at page 68, though no doubt more like the reality than the engraving in vol. ii. of “Schoolcraft,” from which it is a kind ot rationalised copy, is a piece of sensational make-up; while on the next page a scene of Indians torturing a captive by a slow fire on his stomach, is still more objectionable. At page 284 is a representation of Conibos shooting turtle; this is evidently a fancy picture, and arrows shot at such an angle would glance of the animal's carapace; the arrows should have been shown of heavier make, and so sent up as to fall almost perpendicularly.

The Races of Mankind; being a Popular Description of the Characteristics, Manners, and Customs of the Principal Varieties of the Human Family.

By Robert Brown, &c. (Cassell, Petter, and Galpin).