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

1
Spencer Fullerton Baird was the assistant secretary and curator of the Smithsonian Institution (ANB); since the early 1860’s, Gibbs had been organising manuscripts for publication under the auspices of the Smithsonian (see ANB, Stevens 1873). Asa Gray may have sent a printed copy of CD’s queries about expression to Baird (see letter from Asa Gray, 26 March 1867 and n. 2). For a later, printed, version of the questionnaire, see Correspondence vol. 15, Appendix IV. A version of CD’s list of queries was published in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the year 1867, p. 324 (see Collected papers 2: 136–7).
2
Gibbs lived in Oregon, and in Washington Territory, from 1848 to 1860; during much of that time he studied languages of north-western native Americans (Stevens 1873).
3
For one version of CD’s query on blushing, see the second question in the printed questionnaire, Appendix IV; for CD’s variations of this query, see Freeman and Gautrey 1972. In ‘Tribes of western Washington and northwestern Oregon’, Gibbs wrote that the people of Puget Sound were a western branch of the ‘Selish or Flatheads’, and were usually mentioned as ‘the Niskwalli nation’ (now Nisqually; see Gibbs 1877, p. 169; see also pp. 178–9).
4
CD did not cite Gibbs or record his observations in Expression.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5479,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5479