HIS PHYSICAL MIEN AND CHARACTERISTICS.


It will be interesting, perhaps, to notice the particulars, as to physical
conformation, in which the Indian differs from his white brother.

He maintains a higher average as to height, to fix which at five feet
ten would, I think, be a just estimate. It is rare, however, to find
him attain the exceptional stature, quite commonly observed with the
white, though, where he yields to the latter in this respect, there is
compensation for it in the way of greater breadth and compactness. There
are, of course, isolated cases, in which he is distinguished by as great
height as has ever been reached by ordinary man, and, in these instances,
I have never failed to notice that his form discloses almost faultless
proportions, the Indian being never ungainly or gaunt. I think, on the
whole, that I do no injustice to the white man, when I credit the Indian
with a better-knit frame than himself.

I am disposed to ascribe, in great measure, the evolving of the erect
form that the Indian, as a rule, possesses, to the custom in vogue of
the mother carrying her child strapped across the back, as well as to
the fact of her discouraging and interdicting any attempts at walking
on the part of the child, until the muscles shall have been so developed
as to justify such being made. To this practice, at least, I am safe in
attributing the rarity, if not the positive absence, with the Indian, of
that unhappy condition of bow-leggedness, of not too slight prevalence
with us, and which renders its victim often a butt for not very charitable
or approving comment.