The International Association of Amateur Heralds

I am not sure that I would want to use a flayed human body as a supporter.

A naked woman on the other hand . . . . .

Regards,

Iain Boyd

Arthur Radburn wrote:
- the Anatomical Society's new arms (click on the link) featuring "a male ecorché" and "a naked Caucasian woman" as supporters
.

Does the blazon use the term "Caucasian" I hope not, I don't think it a very good term, although I see why there might be some desire to move away from the assumption that people are white unless stated.

Ryan Shuflin wrote:

Arthur Radburn wrote:
- the Anatomical Society's new arms (click on the link) featuring "a male ecorché" and "a naked Caucasian woman" as supporters
.

Does the blazon use the term "Caucasian" I hope not, I don't think it a very good term, although I see why there might be some desire to move away from the assumption that people are white unless stated.

We used to have "blackamoors", "Turks", "Negroes" and "musselmen" often in blazons. If the herald wants a white woman depicted, how else should they blazon it?

Does the blazon use the term "Caucasian"? I hope not, I don't think it a very good term, although I see why there might be some desire to move away from the assumption that people are white unless stated.

It isn't simply a question of skin colour. The "Caucasian/Caucasoid" race is anthropologically distinguished from the Mongoloid and Negroid races by several readily distinguishing features such as bone structure, hair, eyes. Asian Indians fall into the category of Caucasian anthropologically (though dark skinned) but were long categorised separately from Caucasians for the purposes of immigration into the US, apparently because the term "Caucasian" was both informally and legally taken to mean "white European". The Anatomical Society clearly means "anthropologically Caucasian", not "white European".

The male "écorché" is of course not identifiably white, pink, or brown, since the skin has been removed to reveal the muscular structure.

They did indeed use the word "Caucasian". Here's the full blazon :

Arms : Sable fretty Argent and bezanty on each bezant a Roundel Gules over all a Chevron Argent.

Crest : A demi Lion Or holding with the dexter paw a Rod of Aesculapius Sable the serpent Gules and resting the sinister paw on a Human Skull Argent.

Supporters : On the dexter a male Ecorché and on the sinister a naked Caucasian Woman proper crined Or.

There is a story that three brothers from Georgia (the former Soviet republic, not the American state), surprised to find that one couldn't get a decent khachapuri in Manhattan, decided they'd open a restaurant serving the various delicacies from their homeland. Opening day arrived and they were appalled to see an angry crowd picketing their new establishment. They asked what they'd done to deserve this and the leader of the picketers merely pointed at the sign over the door: "Caucasian Restaurant."

Chas Charles-Dunne wrote:

Ryan Shuflin wrote:

Arthur Radburn wrote:
- the Anatomical Society's new arms (click on the link) featuring "a male ecorché" and "a naked Caucasian woman" as supporters
.

Does the blazon use the term "Caucasian" I hope not, I don't think it a very good term, although I see why there might be some desire to move away from the assumption that people are white unless stated.

We used to have "blackamoors", "Turks", "Negroes" and "musselmen" often in blazons. If the herald wants a white woman depicted, how else should they blazon it?

White strikes me as less ambiguous, as Caucasian can refer to peoples such as Georgians and Armenians, as well as used in a now considered outdated, racist and pseudo-scientific classifications systems. In my mind, it is similar to using the word Aryan, which is both ambiguous and politically incorrect.

I think humans are the most difficult to blazon, for example the arms of the Bank of Montreal has for supporters

"Upon a grassy mound on either side a North American Indian to the dexter in full dress holding in the exterior hand a calumet and raising the other hand to the forehead the sinister in hunting dress holding in the exterior hand a bow all proper;"

Presumably full dress is means the traditional costume, but North American Indian can refer to so many tribes, with various modes of dress.

I can only deplore the use of the word Caucasian (or, for that matter, Caucasoid) to describe a person of European appearance and, presumably, ancestry, since both terms apply specifically from people native to the mountains between the Black and Caspian seas — despite the all too familiar usage of the United States.
Clearly it is necessary, from time to time, to indicate ethnic origin, but there are less indelicate ways of doing this.

The term North American Indian is, as Ryan Shuflin indicates, dangerously vague. Ideally, since a particular tribe’s clothing is intended, such a person should be identified by his tribe.
Regards,
Mike

I think that we might be a bit over-sensitive here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

Chas, the article is quite sweeping in its statement: “Caucasoid as a biological classification remains in use, particularly within the field of forensic anthropology.”
This is the case purely because forensic anthropology established itself firmly in North America, and took its use of the term over from the judiciary and the police. Britain, Europe and other parts of the world have been browbeaten into accepting it purely by the preponderance of US-written articles in scientific publications.
The American usage arose originally out of a desire not to label Americans (although of European descent) as being European.
(In the early years of apartheid, “European” was in fact used of South African whites, which led to an interesting development when a US Navy vessel was in Cape Town. A group of sailors went up to a bar bearing a sign saying Europeans Only and wanted to know: “Where do us Americans go?”)
The map accompanying the article is misleading too, because it annexes Africa north of the Sahara, the Horn of Africa and Arabia to the Caucasian region, whereas I believe the inhabitants of these regions are not so regarded in forensic anthropology.
It also draws a neat line down the centre of the Indian subcontinent, allocating the west to Caucasians, the east to Mongoloids, and a patch in the far north to Australoids. My understanding of Indian ethnology is that an Australoid-type people are found chiefly in the south, while the northern limits of the subcontinent’s eastern half can perhaps be defined as Mongoloid.
A further spot of Australoid colouring in the Malay peninsula also fails to ring true.
It is also vague regarding the Polynesian peoples, represented mostly by a purple colour (not defined in the key) but also using blue (Mongoloid) for New Zealand, which was also Polynesian before the arrival of Europeans — although the earliest Polynesians appear to have settled there at some time since the 15th century.
Its allocation of a region of Africa inland of the Horn to “Capoid” people also does not ring true, although it must be admitted that it was only recently (thanks to DNA evidence) that it was established that the two peoples of Tanzania who speak with clicks (as the Bushmen and Khoikhoi of Southern Africa also did historically) are by no means closely related either to the southerners or to each other.
The article also includes a map from Meyers Konversations-Lexikon which uses the term Kaukasisch in its legend, but chiefly uses Indo-Arier as a label for peoples of Europe (with exceptions including Magyars, Finns, Lapps and Balts), of the Persian/Afghan region and of India, while using a green colouring labelled “Drawider und Singhalen” for much of India and for Sri Lanka.
I would still contend that to label Europeans and people of European origin (apart from those actually connected with the Caucasus region) is misleading.
Regards,
Mike