The Negritos have no religion, and adore no star. It appears, however, that they have transmitted to the Sanguianes (a brown race inhabiting the neighborhood), or have learned from the latter, the practice of worship- ping for a day a rock or the trunk of a tree in which they tind a resemblance to some animal or other. Then they leave it, and think no more about idols nntil they meet with some other fantastical form, which becomes a new object of an equally frivolous worship. Living in a state altogether primitive, these savages possess no instruments of music; and their language, which re- sembles the chirruping of birds, contains only a few words incredibly difficult of acquisition by the stranger who tries to learn them. They are faithful in marriage, and have only one wife. When a young man has made his choice, liis friends or parents ask the consent of the girl. It is never refused. Tiie day is chosen, and in the morning, before sunrise, the girl is sent into the forest, where she hides herself, or not, according to her inclination towards her suitor. An hour afterwards the j'oung man is sent to seek her; and if he has the good luck to tind her, and bring her back to her friends before sunset, the marriage is consummated, and she is his wife forever. But if, on the contrary, he returns without her, he must give np all further claim. Old age is very much respected among the Negritos, and it is always one of the eldest who governs tiieir assem- blies. All the savages of this race live in great families of sixty or eighty, and stray in the forests without any fixed residence. They hoUrthe dead in great venera- tion. For several years they resort to their graves for the purpose of depositing a little tobacco and betel upon them. The bow and arrows of the deceased are suspend- ed over his grave on the day of interment, and. accord- ing to their belief, he emerges every night from the grave to go hnnting. They do not always wait for the death of the afHictod before burying them. Immediate- ly after the body has been deposited in the grave it be- comes necessary, according to tlieir usages, that the death should be avenged. The himters of tiie tribe go out with their lances and arrows to kill the first living creature they meet with, whether a man, a stag, a wild hog, or a buffalo. When on a journey in search of a victim, they take the precaution of breaking off the young shoots of the shrubs they pass by, leaving the ends hanging in the direction of their route, in order to warn neighbors and travellers to avoid the path they are taking in search of a man or a lieast to be offered up ; for if one of their own people fall into their hands, even he is sacrificed as the expiatory victim. See Mallat, Les Philippines, etc. (Paris, 184t), 2 vols. 8vo), ii, 94 sq.; De la Gironiere, Vinyt Annivs <iux I'liUippinm (Paris, 1853), p. 294 sq. ; Earl, Natire Riices of Iht Iiididii A r- r/iipeliif/o (Lond. 1853), ch. vii, viii ; Semper, y>/V I'hi- lippinen ii. Hire Beico/iner (Wilrzbiirg, 18ti9). (.1, H. W.) Negro (from Latin nif/er, " black") is the name gen- erally applied to the African natives. This is, how- ever, an incorrect use of the word, for Negro races in- habit only portions of the African continent, princijially between lat. 10^ N. and 20- S. The Negro lias no con- nection, at least not intimately, with the races inhab- iting Northern Africa, such as the Egyptians, Ber- bers. Assyrians, Nubians, etc. Tlie southern extremi- ties of Africa, too, are comiiaratively free from Negmes; they are inhabited by the Hottentots (i). v.). The Kaffres (q. v.) arc sometimes classed with the Negroes.
NEGRO
921
NEGRO
In some of the border countries a strict classification of their inhabitants is difficult, as they have considerably intermixed. The Negro, too, is not at all confined to the African continent, but is found in various parts of Asia and its islands, and throughout America and the West Indies, whither he was originally carried for bond- age servitude. See Slavery. In Blumenbach's fivefold division of mankind the Negroes occupy the first place under the variety Ethiopian, which lilcewise embraces the Kaffres, Hottentots, Australians, Alforians, and Oceanic Negroes. In Latham's threefold division they are placed among the A flun/idce, and form the primary subdivision of Ker/ro A tlantidce in that author's classi- fication; while in Pickering's elevenfold division they occupy the last place in his enumeration of the races of mankind. Physically the Negro is distinguished by a soft and silky skin, dull cherry-red in the infant, and growing black very soon; it differs from that of the whites principally in the greater amount of pigment cells in the Rete 3Iafj)i///iii (the epidermis being uncolored), and in the greater number of cutaneous glands. His hair is generally called woolly, though improperly, for it differs but little from that of the other races except in color, and in its curled and twisted form, and is rather harsh and wir\% His lips are thick, the lower part of his face prognathic, or projecting like a muzzle. His skull, which is ver^- thick and solid, is long and narrow, with a depressed forehead, prominent occiput and jaws, a facial angle of 70° to G5°. According to Camper's lateral admeasurement, the head of the Negro shows an angle of 70° while that of the European shows one of 80°, on which difference of 10°, as he considered, de- pends the superior beauty of the latter. There is not much dependence, however, to be placed on such a mode of admeasurement ; and the same maj' be said of Blu- menbach's vertical method. According to this, a con- siderable difference ^vould appear to exist between the skull of the Megro and that of the European. "But," says Dr. Priehard, " I have carefully examined the sit- uation of the foramen magnum in many Negro skulls; in all of tliem its position may be accurately described as being exactly behind the transverse line bisecting the antero-posterior diameter of the basis cranii. This is precisely the place which Owen has pointed out as the general position of the occipital hole in the human skull. In those Negro skulls which have the alveolar process very protuberant, the anterior half of the line above de- scribed is lengthened in a slight degree by this circum- stance. If allowance is made for it, no difference is per- ceptible. The difference is in all instances extremely slight ; and it is equally perceptible in heads belonging to otlier races of men, if we examine crania wliich have prominent upper jaivs. If a line is let fall from the summit of the head at right angles with the plane of the basis, the occipital foramen will be found to be sit- uated immediately behind it; and this is precisely the case in Negro and in European heads." There is, in fact, neither in this respect — the conformation of the Negro skull — nor in any other, solid ground for the opinion hazarded by some writers, and supported either through ignorance or from interested motives by many persons — that the Negro forms a connecting link between the higher order of apes and mankind. The skin, hair, skull, lips, maxillary profile, and general facial appear- ance of the Negro, are not, however, the only features that distinguish him in a great degree from the Euro- pean, and seem to stamp him as a distinct variety of the human race. " In the Negro," says Priehard, "the bones of the leg are bent outwards. Soem- mering and Lawrence have observed that the tibias and fibulae in the Negro are more convex in front than in Europeans; the calves are very high, so as to encroach upon the upper part of the legs; the feet and hands, but particularly the former, are fiat ; and the os calcis, in- stead of being arched, is continued nearly in a straight line with the other bones of the foot, which is remark- ably broad." As to the supposed excessive length of