RECORD: Darwin, C. R. n.d. Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru. CUL-DAR80.B114-B115. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 10.2021. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volumes CUL-DAR80-86 contain material for Darwin's book Descent of man (1871).

Darwin cited this in Decent 1: 119-120. n32: "'Mr. Forbes' valuable paper is now published in the 'Journal of the Ethnological Soc. of London,' new series, vol. ii. 1870, p. 193."

David Forbes. 1870. On the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru. Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, vol. 2, no. 3: 193-305.


[B114]

Mar 10. 1870 p 21. of my M.S.

The Aymaras live between 10,000 & 15,000 feet height. The length & size of the trunk of the body conspicuously different from the same parts in other races. But Mr. F. made numerous accurate measurements which tho' not yet published he shewed me. From these measurements it is clear that the length of the trunk relatively to the stature is considerably greater than in other races & the circumference of the thorax very much greater. With the Aymaras the length of the extended arms is less than in Europeans & very much

[114v]

less than in Negros. (The legs are likewise shorter; & they present this remarkable peculiarity that in every aymara whom he measured the femora are actually shorter than the tibiæ.

Thus in a well characterized man the length of the femur so that the tibia was as 210 to 230; whilst in some Europeans measured at the same time the femora to the tibiæ were as 277 to 240. Mr. F. is inclined to allow that the shortening of the legs & especially of the femora to the law of the compensation of growth, owing

[B115]

the increased length of the trunk), rather than to

These men when formerly carried by the Spaniards to the low Eastern plains, & when now tempted by high wages to work there on the gold washing suffer the most frightful mortality. Yet F. found a few pure families which for 2 & 3 generations had survived; & they still inherited their characteristic peculiarities; But (It was manifest without measurement that these peculiarities had all decreased; & on measurement their trunks were found not to be so much elongated; whilst their femora had increased in length, as had their tibiæ

[B115v]

but in a less degree). For instance in one man in the 3d gen. the femora to the tibiæ were as 219 to 234, instead of as on the high plains 210 to 2 [illeg]

With respect to the trunk its length relatively to the stature in 3 men on the high plateau was 226, 226, & 234 now in the low country in a man of the 2nd gen. it was only 219; & in a man of the 3rd gen. only 211; the stature in all cases being called 1000.


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Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

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