BERTILLONAGE

Instruments used in anthropobiological missions of Mozambique, Angola and East Timor

Based on genealogies of family heredity, physical measurements and intelligence tests, racial hygiene studies carried out by physicians and anthropologists classified individuals according to “superior” and “inferior” races. Advocates of eugenics - often referred to as racial hygiene - believed that "race mixing" and the effectiveness of modern medicine kept the “unfit” animals to reproduce, hindering natural selection, which would lead to the biological “degeneration” of society. These ideas and practices influenced German government policy and were absorbed into the ideology of the newly formed Nazi Party during the 1920s.

Some of these instruments were developed between the late 19th century and the 2nd half of the 20th century and supported the measurement and classification of people.

Rud scale. Martin und K. Saller

The Martin-Saller scale is a colour standard used in physical anthropology to establish an individual's eye colour. The Swiss anthropologist Rudolf Martin designed the original ca. of 1910 to classify the whiteness of “mestizo” people according to the colour of their iris. To improve its functionality, the tool has been redesigned twice: by the German anthropologist Karl Saller at the beginning of the 1920s and by the Austrian anthropologist and racial hygienist German Bruno K. Schultz in 1930.

These scales were used in experiments and racial studies to promote Nazi ideology, racial distinctions and Aryan classification. Martin's original scale consisted of 16 colours (from light blue to dark brown-black), the scale Martin-Schultz had 20, while only eight are observed in the scale Martin-Saller.

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Felix von Luschan scale
End of the 19th century
For identifying skin tones.

Felix Von Luschan, a professor of Physical Anthropology at the University of Berlin, created it. They are 36 shades on opaque glass plates compared to a person's skin, ideally in a location without exposure to the sun (such as under the arm). The scale von Luschan was widely used throughout the first half of the 20th century in race studies and anthropometry to establish classifications of racial characteristics of populations according to skin colour.

However, the results could have been more consistent: in many cases, different investigators gave different readings of the same person. The scale von Luschan was largely abandoned in the 1950s and replaced by reflectance spectrophotometry methods. In 1975 the Fitzpatrick scale was created, with only seven tones, used to estimate the response of different skin types to ultraviolet radiation.

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Fisher-Saller scale
Circa 1928

For identification of hair tones. Letters A (blonde light), B to E (blonde), F to L (blonde), M to O (dark blonde), P to T (brown), U to Z (dark brown/black) and Roman numerals I to IV (red) and V to VI (red) blonde). The original was designed around 1905 by German eugenic anthropologist Eugen Fischer, who saw his career supported by the Nazi regime. The scale was reorganised and redesigned by the anthropologist Karl Saller and renamed Fischer-Saller. It was used in physical anthropology and medicine to determine hair colour shades.

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STRUCTURAL RACISM

The idea of “race”, in which colonial science invested, had and still has effects on all levels of society. One such effect was the normalisation of a light skin tone, leading to the false designation but very common of products that adopt a tone beige or pink as being “colour skin". The most obvious case is that of coloured pencils. Aimed at a children's audience, these pencils contribute to the early children naturalising that this light skin tone is the “norm”. It is a manifestation of structural racism that works subtly and profoundly. A bias that spreads across a whole set of daily consumption products, cosmetics, clothing and medical items.

The recent claims of anti-racist movements have led to brands reviewing their communication, production and marketing strategies.

STILNOVO SKIN TONES pencil
The GIOTTO brand, like a large part of brands that produce coloured pencils, has launched a range of skin tones.

Hansaplast Sensitive plasters
Adhesive plasters, whose typical colouring has been beige or pink over the last 100 years, started to diversify their ranges to adapt to different skin tones.

HAIR
Like skin tone, the “type” of hair was the target of racist cataloguing, leading to lighter hair, smooth or wavy, which was considered more desirable than curly hair or heavily curly. The movement in favour of curly hair, a political statement, led to the creation of a classification table. Despite the similarity with the tables produced by colonial science, it serves a distinct purpose: to identify for better care.

Hair types table:
Scale from 1-smooth to 4-curly.

Envelopes that carried hair samples of the head, pubis and beard of children, women and African men were collected during the Anthropological Mission of Angola (1966 campaign).
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António Mendes Corrêa (1888-1960), physician and founder of the Porto Anthropological School, published this book as a work of scientific dissemination for the general public in collectable fascicles. The work presents the peoples of Mozambique, Angola and Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and the “Portuguese East”. It also includes Portugal, Madeira and the Azores. The “parade" of peoples is presented as revealing differentiated evolutionary stadiums, which shows the evolutionary biologist that he was. Certain peoples would have “stopped in time” while others (those to whom the scientists belonged) progressed. The book, profusely illustrated with photographs and drawings, constituted a high investment, justified by corresponding to the interest of the Estado Novo in propaganda concerning the Empire and the construction of its mythology, which still reverberates today.

Book “Les Races et les Peuples de la Terre” by Joseph Deniker
Paris: Schleicher Freres. 1900.
col. particular

Joseph Deniker (1852-1918] was a French naturalist who proposed a classification system for human “races” published in this book, which would become a reference in his time in the bibliography of Portuguese authors.

Book “Tables of appreciation of some characters
Descriptors in Anthropology” by J.R. Santos Junior
Porto: s.n. 1948, 43 p., [17]f.
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