From George Gibbs 31 March 1867
Smithsonian Institution | Washington.
Mch 31. 1867
Charles Darwin, Esq.
Dear Sir,
Professor Baird has shown me your circular, “Queries about expression”.1 After twelve years residence among the Indians of the North West Coast of America, I find to my surprise, that I can only answer one of them positively—2 The Indians of Puget’s Sound, a branch of the Sélish family, whose color is of a rather light shade of sienna (even where of unmixed blood,) certainly do blush from shame or anger, and the darkening of the skin is palpable.3 As to the other points I will not pretend to answer until I can observe with the certainty you desire.
One point however, not touched upon you, I will mention, and that is that they frequently, if not always, indicate direction by throwing the head back and protruding the chin, instead of with the finger.
A peculiarity which, though hardly coming under your apparent limits, is noticeable, that in designating the height of a human being, as a child, the hand is held edgewise; in the case of an animal, flatwise as we hold it.4
Very respectfully | Your obt servt | George Gibbs
Footnotes
Bibliography
ANB: American national biography. Edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. 24 vols. and supplement. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1999–2002.
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Gibbs, George. 1877. Tribes of western Washington and northwestern Oregon, part 2. In vol. 1 of Contributions to North American ethnology. Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office.
Stevens, John Austin, Jr. 1873. A memorial of George Gibbs. [Read 7 October 1873 to the New York Historical Society.] Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1873, pp. 219–25.
Summary
Finds that after 12 years among north-western Indians he can answer positively only one of CD’s queries about expression. They do blush from shame or anger.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5479
- From
- George Gibbs
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Smithsonian Institution
- Source of text
- DAR 165: 37
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5479,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5479.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15
