P.T.C. thresholds, blood factors, colour vision and fingerprints of Jivaro Indians in Eastern Ecuador.

Abstract

AbstractAmong the Jivaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador, very low non‐taster frequencies were found, a situation in accord with most of the other, through few sets of P. T. C. data available for South American Indians. The Jivaro have maximal frequencies (1.000) of the alleles I° and D, typical of most South American Indian groups. The colour blindness frequency of males (7.1%) is seemingly higher than North American Indian figures and is similar to European frequencies. Jivaro dermatoglyphic data are in broad general agreement with data available for Amerindian groups generally, and for many Asian mongoloids, with high pattern intensity indices for males and females, mainly the result of a very high whorl incidence. The digital distribution of the pattern types for the greater part accords with the generalisations of Cummins and Midlo ('61). There are marked sex differences in the data, females having a lower mean pattern intensity index, a higher value for Dankmeijer's Index and a lower value for Furuhata's Index. Unfortunately there are few other sets of South American Indian data available for comparative purposes.