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Page 73 sion: (a) Monkey, (b) Orang Outang, (c) Negro, (d) American Savage, (e) Asiatic, (f) European, (g) Beau Ideal of the Roman painters, and (h) Grecian Antique. The following note appeared with the diagram in the Calcutta Journal: According to Professor Camper, the facial line of the monkey makes an angle of 42 degrees with the horizontal line; that of the Orang-outang [sic], 58; the Negro, 70; the Chinese, 75; European, 80, or 90; the Grecian Antique, 100. If above 100 it begins to grow monstrous. (1821:272) The degree ascribed to the Asiatic places him sufficiently far away from the Negro, the American Savage, and the monkey. At the same time, he is at a safe neighboring distance from the European, allowing the latter a superior remove. The European’s 10–15 degree remove from the classical Greco-Roman “perfection’’ also makes the European category “safe.” While the European is some distance away from the “perfection” of the Greco-Roman, the same distance also grants him acceptable “normalcy.” While these typologies do not collapse the African and Asiatic as racial categories, this overanxious surveillance of racial distinctions offers telling insights into the colonial production of the Native/Other within the power hierarchy of imperialism and on the colonial stage. It would be wrong to assume that this theory was accepted monolithically by all Englishmen in India. Even the suggestion, however cautious and double-edged, that the Asiatic was actually not too far in “facial lines” from the English was absurd and abhorrent to many Englishmen in India. A letter written to the Calcutta Journal on February 16, 1822, presumably by an Englishman, insists that it would be wrong to conclude from craniological evidence that the English and “Hindoo” are racial relatives: I have been much amused and edified by that part of the Asiatic Society lucubrations which regards Hindoo craniology. We shall get on now: Happy Hindoo! No more shall thy skull bleach useless on the banks of thy Ganges, a play thing for Jackalls and Tiger cubs. (1822:416) The epistler, furthermore, could not accept the notion that the “Hindoos” who are now servants of the Englishmen could ever have been industrious “castle-builders”: |
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