Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 241, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1917 — May Account for Colors. [ARTICLE]

May Account for Colors.

What was the color of the original man? There is an old legend that Adam was red, based on the assumption that it was red earth (triturated “old red sandstone,” perhaps) from which the Almighty molded him; but Tabari, the Arabian theological historian, asserts that, when God wished to make Adam he instructed Gabriel to bring him a handful of every sort of clay—black, white, red, yellow, blue and every other kind. This, perhaps, was intended to explain how Adam’s descendants became so many-colored. DeQuatrefages, who championed the monogenist idea, found reasons for thinking that the first human species had a yellowish complexion and red hair.