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Footnotes 1213
Todd and Lindala, of. cit.\ HrdliSka, “The Full-Blood American Negro,” of. eU.,
PP- 1 5-34 > C. B. Davenport and M. Steggerda <f/., Rac^ Crossing in Jamaica (1929) ;
M. J. Herskovits, The Anthrofometry of the American Negro (1930); M. J. Hersko-
vits, V. K. Cameron, and H. Smith, “The Physical Form of Mississippi Negroes,”
The American Journal of Physical Anthrofology (October-December, 1931), pp. 193-
201 ; C. B. Day, A Study of Some Negro’-White Families in the United States (1932).
Our list is aimed to include only those traits which have been most frequently
measured by anthropologists.
After this chapter was written, two other summary sources on the physical anthro-
pology of the Negro became available and we were able to check our statements by
them also: (i) Julian Herman Lewis, The Biology of the Negro (1942); (2) W.
Montague Cobb, “Physical Anthropology of the American Negro: Status and Desid-
erata,” unpublished manuscript (1942).
In addition a number of investigators have reported minor skeletal differences
between Negroes and whites. See Lewis, of, cit,^ pp. 68-73.
® Ashley-Montagu, from his experiences in anatomical laboratories, testifies that he
“has never had any occasion to remark any appreciable difference of the Negro genitalia
as compared with those of whites.” {Of. cit,, p. 62.) In regard to body odor it should
be pointed out that Negroes do have a larger number of sweat glands than do whites.
But this does not prove that their body odor is different. Many white authors refer,
however^ to such a difference as an established fact. (E.g., Donald R. Young, American
Minority Peofles [1932], p. 406; E. B. Reuter, The American Race Problem [1938;
first edition, 1927J, p. 6ij Robert E. Park, “The Bases of Race Prejudice,” The
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science [November, 1928],
p. 17.) Some few authors are careful to advance the hypothesis that, if the Negro has a
peculiar odor, it might be explained as due to diet and lack of cleanliness (Otto Kline-
berg. Race Differences [1935], p. 131O William Archer writes (in Through Afro^
America [1910], p. 144): “Let me take this opportunity of saying that to the best of
my belief the ‘body odour’ of which we hear so much is mainly a superstition. The fact
probably is that the negro ought to be at least ’as scrupulous in his ablutions as the white
man—^but often is not.” Ashley-Montagu {of. cit.y pp. 58-59) records “the fact that
in his own experience of African and American Negroes he has never observed any
particular or general difference in body odor between Negroes and whites.” During the
course of this study, I have not been able to find that Negro Americans have a different
odor than white Americans of similar social and economic status.
Klineberg refers to a suggestive experiment made by Lawrence “who collected in
test tubes a little of the perspiration of White and Colored students who had just been
exercising violently in the gymnasium. These test tubes were then given to a number
of White subjects with instructions to rank them in order of pleasantness. The results
showed no consistent preference for the White samples; the test tube considered the
most pleasant and the one considered the most unpleasant were both taken from Whites.”
(Klineberg, Race Differences^ pp. 1 30-1 31.) Such experiments should be repeated on
larger and more representative groups of whites, and the question should be asked
whether the Negro sweat is identifiable, rather than whether it is pleasant.
Even if it were established that Negroes had a different odor, it would not explain
why this odor is considered offensive. Likes and dislikes in smells of this sort are a
matter of personal taste and cultural conditioning.
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