The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-02-07
THE SPAN|SH-AMERICAN FACE.
The Striking Persistence of
Castilian Traits.
Comparisons With Admixtures of
Other Races.
From Siskiyou to Patagonia the Span
lard Has Lift Hts Impress Upon
the People.


that che has ever touched. To tn,
thoughtful student few side-lights il
history are more striking than this vita
individuality of the Spaniard. What.
ever page he opsned in the new world
he wrote scrossit his racial autograph ii
hand 30 virile and characteristic tina
neither time nor chance can efface it
Three centuries and q half OF continuou
evolution have not awaited to make tina
illeglble or mistaksble. He maeteret
every oluntry between here aud Pata-
gonna; and there is no land in W hich he
ever sat down that does not to this las
day bear in it's very marrow the heri.
sags OF his religion, his language and his
social creed. His mark 10 upon the
faces, the laws. the very landscape.
How significant this is we msy bette 1
Judge when we remember that the
Saxon, though masterful ne is, has never
anywhere achieved like results. He
has filled new lands with his speech and
his faith Cor his lack of it, but only by
filling them with his own blood. never
BY changing the native. The United
States, for instance, is OF his apeeob
but what Indian tribe ever spoke Eng
lish? In the vastly greater area oil
Spanish America every Indian tribe
speaks Spanish, aud has done so for
centuries. The Saxon has never i'm
pressed his language or his religion upon
the peoples he has overruu. Somethin
of his face goes to the hslf-bresds he
begcts but will not father; bat even
this physical impress is much less
marked than in the case OF his Latin
predecessor.
It Ia curious fact that no other nation
in history has ever legitimately pro-
duced Crosses with 90 many aboriginal
bloods As has Spain. Tho oonauistsdor
was human; but the hand OF the church
was always upon his shoulder. Indi-
vidually and casually he might eluds it,
but broadly he could not.
He intermarried with a Thousand dis
tinct types OF toe original American;
and all the way from the Colorado to
Valparaiso you can tally tbs varying
fruits of these first wedlocks of the frat
frontier. You are often in doubt as to
the mother, distinct as tribe originally
is from tribe; but she father-you need
no directory to find him.
Among these mestizos srs some OF the
finest types. physically, of Spanish
America. The theme of the mestizo is
go interesting, and ethnolosicaly go sig-
nifcant, that hope some day to pursue
it farther.
But Just now We are to consider the
undiluted Spsniard, and the effect that
two or three centuries In the new world
have had upon his appearance. The
came astonishing individuality which
has stamped itself forever upon the Off
spring of his union with inDumerable
other bloods, has, when he STAYED un-
mixed, as remarkably preserved his own
family likeness.
Compare the Yankee with the Bfiton,
then the lineal Spanish-Am with
the Spaniurd-and you will marvel to
SEQ how much more strongly the latter
10 marked" across 10 generations, than
the former across two or three. Among
civilized nations only the Jew hands
down the ancestral face 40 persistsntly
through the ages.
The Spanish American face il always
Spanish, yet not OF Spain. As much to
the artist az to the anthropologist it is q
fascinating study-the differentiation of
this unmistakable and attractive type
by conditions operating for centuries.
that 10 what evolution means; and here
10 the very poetry of evolution, as true
and instructive a. the prose. It is lucid
| verse, too.
One may grow 90 proficient % to guess
very shrewdly, from an unmarked pho.
togrsph, from what section OF Spanish
America the sitter comes, particularly if
il be q woman's face, which is more
plastic to the hand Of circu instance. Yet
there 10 NO sameness. A thousand local.
tiles have their local variants, each, %
q rule, always . reconized type, each
one face has its individuality as clear
as with us; and, though all, individual
or local, runs the inevitable dominant
OF Spain.
We often talk of the Spanish type az
| exclusively dark-a notion which argues
no great knowledge of either history OF
geography.
All Spaniards are not Morefios. The
suart Moorish tide that ebbed and
flowed across Spain for seven centuries,
did indeed leave its mark upon the
Gothic Roman: but all Spain was not
drowned. As you 20 uorthward from
the Elbro-that is, up where the Mo-
rescue wave rather splashed than mum
dated-you find the nut-brown OF Valen-
oia and CASTLE shading off into lighter
hues. Not unknown in other provinces,
in Galicia, Arragon and Asturias, the
golden haired, hesven-eyed' type Ia
familiar. And if there is anywhere q
more perfect beauty than that OF the
true Spanish blonde, would fain treat
my eyes to sight of it.
Oddly enough this survival of Spain's
first days is practically without repre-
sentation in SpanishsAmerica. In the
new world the type is not only great
rarity. but q disprizsd one. The cpl
grammatic wit of the paisano shows it
no mercy.
To US who are fair.skinned (if not
thin-skinned) the epigram is a rank
heresy; but art. unlike providence, 10
not always on the side of the heaviest
battslions. A man may take his choice
as to falling in love with one type or the
other, but painter and poet, dealing
with abstract and ideal beauty alone and
Tor its own sake, are not 80 free.
Not that brown faces are otherwise
handsomer, but the perfect Moreno ia
the most perfect skin in the world. We
talk of olive giibly-and most of u,
never saw one true olive type. Now
and then you find it in Spain, and it is
as exquisite as it is rare. But it is not
the "browny" and sl6eh Moreno which
10 the hue OF the ''nut-brown maidu of
old English balladry. Our forefathers
knew good thing when they saw it.
That perfect brown is 80 transparent.
30 fine. SO soft. 30 richly warmed wit a
the very dawn of finish, as no other