Paul Broca - On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo

Quoy et Gaimard, Observat. sur la constitution physique des Papous , reproduit dans Lesson. Complement des Œuvres de Buffon , t. iii., Paris, 1829.

Domeny de Rienzi, l’Oceanie , t. iii, p. 303. Paris, 1837.

Maury, La terre et l’homme , p. 365. Paris, 1847.

Latham, The Natural History of the Varieties of Man , p. 213. London, 1850. Dr. Latham designates the Malays by the somewhat fantastic name, of Protonesians. There are a great number of neologisms of this kind in his work.

Some geographers say that Waigiou is a large Island; but they give no dimensions. It is, however, scarcely as large as the Island of Majorca. It is of an irregular form, long and narrow; it is about 80 leagues in circumference (Dumont d’Urville in Rienzi, l’Oceanie ). It is only 25 leagues long and 10 leagues broad, says Henricy ( Histoire de l’Oceanie. Paris, 1845.) The Island of Majorca is only 22 leagues in length by 16 leagues in breadth. Three races united in such a small territory, cannot long remain strangers to each other.

Lesson, loc. cit. t. ii. p. 19.

Davis, Crania Britannica . Introduction, p. 8, note.

These geographical denominations are certainly not irreproachable; they have even the inconvenience of giving rise to the false idea, that all races of the same type originated in the same region; that all the Whites came from the Caucasus, all the Mongolians from Mongolia, the Blacks from Nigritia, even the Van-Diemen islanders. I have, however, thought proper to retain these denominations, as they are generally in use, and have no zoological signification. Such is not the case with the denominations adopted by certain authors derived from the colour of the skin. Thus the Caucasians were termed the white , the Mongolians the yellow , the Ethiopian the black , the Malayo-Polynesian the brown , and finally, the American the red race. It has been shown that the American type alone includes red, brown, black, white and yellow races. There are brown races in the American, and even in the Caucasian type. All the black races do not belong to the Ethiopian type; and finally, the Malayo-Polynesian type comprises races of colours as various as those belonging to the American type. A classification founded on differences of colour would lead to numerous and serious errors.

It is undoubted that several American races have been destroyed within 300 years; others having been reduced to a few families, will soon disappear. The Charruas were exterminated in 1831 by the Spaniards of South America: root and branch, as Dr. Latham says. In 1835, four years later, the English of Van Diemen’s Land, after a horrible massacre, transported 210 Tasmanians, men, women, and children, to a small island (Flinders), in Bass’ Straits. In 1842, after seven years of exile, the number of these unfortunates amounted to 54! This was all that remained of a race which, 40 years previously, occupied the whole of Van Diemen’s Land, as large as Ireland, and we may soon learn that none of them are in existence. The Malays have entirely destroyed the black races who preceded them in certain isles of the great Indian Archipelago. The Guanches now only exit in a mummified state. The black and prognathous race which occupied the isles of Japan before the arrival of the Mongolians, have left no other traces behind than their crania imbedded in the soil; and it is easy to foresee that within one or two centuries all the black races will have disappeared from these parts, and have been succeeded by Malayans and Europeans.

Gerdy, Physiologie Médicale , t. i, p. 290. Paris, 1832.

Berard, Cours de Physiologie , t. i, p. 465. Paris, 1845.

Journal de Physiologie , t. i, p. 120. 1858.

Macedones qui Alexandriam in Ægypto, qui Seleuciam ac Babyloniam, quique alias sparsas per orbem colonias habent in Syros, Parthos, Ægyptos degenerarunt. Tit. L. , lib. xxxviii., § 217.

All the Gauls were not light haired; but those who, three centuries before our era, invaded Greece and Asia Minor, were fair haired, according to all testimony; they consequently belonged to the Kimri race.

Gliddon, The Monogenists and the Polygenists . Philadelphia, 1857. George Pouchet, De la Pluralité des races humaines , p. 136. Paris, 1858.