Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 58

In addition to physical characteristics which indicate distinctions of race among the inhabitants of Japan, there are peculiarities common to a majority of the nation at large. One of these is an abnormally large head. In the typical European the height of the head is less than one-seventh of the stature and in Englishmen it is often one-eighth. In the Japanese is it appreciably more than one-seventh. Something of this may be attributed to smallness of stature, but such an explanation is only partial.

Shortness of legs in relation to the trunk is another marked feature. "Long or short legs are mainly racial in origin. Thus, in Europe, the northern, or Teutonic race—namely Anglo-Saxons, North Germans, Swedes, and Danes—are tail; long-legged, and small-headed, while the Alpine, or central European race are short of stature, have short legs and large heads with short necks, thus resembling the Mongolian race in general, with which it was probably originally connected." [Baelz.]

In the Japanese face, too, there are some striking points. The first is in the osseous cavity of the eyeball and in the skin round the eye. "The socket of the Japanese eye is comparatively small and shallow, and the osseous ridges at the brows being little marked, the eye is less deeply set than in the European. Seen in profile, forehead and upper lid often form one unbroken line." Then "the shape of the eye proper, as modelled by the lids, shows a most striking difference between the European and the Mongolian races; the open eye being almost invariably horizontal in the former but very often oblique in the latter on account of the higher level of the outer corner. But even apart from obliqueness the shape of the corner is peculiar in the Mongolian eye. The inner corner is partly or entirely covered by a fold of the upper lid continuing more or less into the lower lid. This fold, which has been called the Mongolian fold, often also covers the whole free rim of the upper lid, so that the insertion of the eyelashes is hidden. When the fold takes an upward direction towards the outer corner, the latter is a good deal higher than the inner corner, and the result is the obliqueness mentioned above. The eyelashes are shorter and sparser than in the European, and whereas in the European the lashes of the upper and the lower lid diverge, so that their free ends are farther distant than their roots, in the Japanese eye they converge, the free ends being nearer together than the insertions. Then again in the lower class the cheek-bones are large and prominent, making the face look flat and broad, while in the higher classes narrow and elongated faces are quite common. Finally, the Japanese is less hairy than the European, and the hair of the beard is usually straight." [Baelz.]