A Preliminary Note on Skin Colour in the Western Highland Natives of New Guinea

A distinctive pigment of the skin in New Guinea indigenes

“…In certain areas of New Guinea many indigenes have been observed with a unique pigmentation of the skin. They are referred to in this paper as red-skins and have been noted in passing by other workers (Macintosh, 1960). The particular pigmentation has not been observed in other ethnic groups.…”

“…On the other hand, the mutation may have been introduced by a founding group which migrated from some part of Asia to New Guinea. This possibility suggests that the movement to the Highlands which was postulated by Macintosh, Walsh & Kooptzoff (1958) may have been especially prominent along the Sepik River.…”

The Histology of Skin Pigmentation

“…After full exposure the aborigines may appear superficially to be practically black, and yet the impression remains that their skin contains less melanin than that of the Negro. On the other hand, studies of unstained sections of skin in collaboration with Professor N. W. G. Macintosh (1960), of the Department of Anatomy, University of Sydney, appear to show as dark pigmentation as similar sections of Negro skin.…”

“…For further information on all these racial crosses the reader is referred to the papers of the author cited above. Macintosh (1960) has made the important discovery that the Papuan natives recognize and have names for the three shades of skin colour present, which we can also see. These represent a single gene difference in heterozygous and homozygous condition and incidently show that observation of the pheno-types of skin colour will give a genetic analysis while the study of reflectance curves will not.…”

“…The six or more children studied from this cross are, like the Australian F,, light in skin colour, and some even have fair hair, though the three Papuan mothers all have black frizzy hair. Thus it is already highly probable that the genetics of skin colour in Papuans is very similar to that of the Australians, though Macintosh (1960) has shown the Papuan skin colour to be a shade lighter. These two races are seen to be nearly related in some other respects.…”