"There can be no doubt that the tall stature of the Gallas, Somalis, and Agaus is an old Hamitic trait, since both the negroid Sidamos and the Semites of Hadhramauti origin are much shorter. The tallness of this East African Mediterranean strain stands in contrast to the moderate stature of the Mediterranean Arabs across the Red Sea, and constitutes a characteristic difference between them. The bodily build of the African Hamites is typically Mediterranean in the ratio of arms, legs, and trunk, but the special attenuation of the extremities among the Somalis is a strong local feature, which finds its closest parallels outside the white racial group, in southern India and in Australia."
"The total face heights of the four groups under consideration range from 122 mm. to 124 mm.; the upper face heights from 71 mm. to 74mm. It is interesting to note that the Sidamos, who are the most negroid, have the broadest foreheads, bizygomatics, and bigonials, the longest menton-nasion heights, and by far the longest upper face heights, of the entire group. It is the Somalis whose upper face height is shortest. All four are leptoprosopic and leptene, the Somalis hyperleptoprosopic."
"The noses of Somalis, Amharas, and Gallas are leptorrhine, with nasal indices of 66, 68, and 69, respectively. This regression indicates with some accuracy the relative amounts of negro blood. The Sidamos, with an index of 71, are mesorrhine and the most negroid. In accordance with the principle that the most negroid have the longest as well as the broadest faces, the Sidamos have the longest and broadest noses, with a mean height of 55 mm., and breadth of 39 mm. The Somalis, whose noses are narrowest, also have the smallest, 52 mm. by 34 mm."
"In the measurements of the external eye the Somalis differ again from the highlanders; their mean interorbital diameter of 31 mm. is narrow, while that of the highianders, 34—35 mm., approximates a negroid condition. In the biorbital, the distance between the outer eye corners, the Somalis are narrowest, with 91 mm.; the Sidamos the broadest with 96 mm."
"Among the Somalis, however, an entirely different situation is found, for the majority are lumped around the von Luschan #29. Numbers 27 and 30 account for most of the others; hence there is a single and characteristic Somali color, which is a rich, glossy, chocolate-brown, which accounts for seven-eights of the entire Somali group. A very few are darker, and individuals are as light as light brown, in a very few cases as light as Arabs. The contrast between highland Ethiopians and Somalis in skin color is so great that one must postulate that the original non-negroid narrow-bodied and narrow-faced strain which the living Somalis represent was not white skinned in any sense of the word, for the Somalis are the least negroid people in East Africa."
"Considerable differences are seen in nose form between the different peoples; the most European forms are found among the Somalis and Amhara, while the Sidamo nose is for the most part negroid in morphology. The Somali noses, although they vary between an extremely leptorrhine and a negroid extreme, assume a normal distribution when tabulated by individual criteria. The mean is a moderate root height, narrow to medium root breadth, moderate bridge height, narrow to moderate bridge breadth, a straight profile a thin tip, which is inclined slightly upward, medium wings, with thin to medium, slightly oblique nostrils. Although individual Somalis are beaky in nasal appearance, the impression of the group as a whole, and especially of the least negroid element, is that of a straight profile and moderate bridge height; in other words, of a classic Mediterranean nose form."
"In all groups, including the Somalis, thick lips are more numerous than thin ones, both integumentally and membranously; lip eversion is also characteristically great in all of them, as is a prominent lip seam. Really thin lips exceed 10 per cent only among the Amharas. All of the groups show some degree of prognathism; facial prognathism is approximately 10 per cent in all but the Sidamos, among whom it is greater; alveolar prognathism is present among all but Sidamos, to the extent of 25 per cent; among the Sidamos almost half are prognathous. The chin is as prominent as among most white men in over 60 per cent of all but Somalis, among whom it is characteristically receding."
The European colonialists did their studies before they arrivedOn the basis of these correlations, it is evident that the partly negroid appearance of Ethiopians and of Somalis is due to a mixture between whites and negroes, and that the Ethiopian cannot be considered the representative of an undifferentiated stage in the development of both whites and blacks, as some anthropologists would have us believe. On the whole, the white strain is much more numerous and much more important metrically, while in pigmentation and in hair form the negroid influence has made itself clearly seen. This study of Ethiopians and Somalis has served to bring out the principle that metrical similarities of a racial order have little reference to the soft parts, since Somalis, Gallas Arabs, Berbers, Norwegians, and Englishmen may all be closely related in measurements, and at the same time fall at world extremes in pigmentation and in hair form. Within the Mediterranean racial family there is every variation in these external features between a Nordic and a Somali.
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