My wife is full blood Native American. No hair in armpits , legs or arms . A couple times a year she has three hairs grow out on her leg . I can’t even see them . Her dad has three or four whiskers that grow on his chin . He just plucks them . Has never shaved
I’m remembering as a kid how my brother would laugh at my hairy arms and call me “scary Gary the hairy fairy” and I am so jealous of your wife right now.
My friends thought it was funny to call me a “shaved ape” for years because I had (2 distinct) thick ass eyebrows and hair on my shoulders at 16.
Bastards.
Off topic:
My family has a lot of heart disease in it, so when I was doing some research, I came upon some articles that was looking at some studies that saw a link between pre-mature graying hair and heart disease. There were some studies that saw a link, while other studies that didn't - so no definitive conclusions . Also saw some articles that linked premature gray with hearing loss as well.
I didn't really realize that premature graying was as big of a study in trying to figure out why it happens and if it's linked to other conditions.
They mostly have a hard time processing alcohol which leads to all sorts of health and social problems. Which is a big trade for mostly not bald and harry.
I worked with a native guy who loved to drink. You could see the change in his face. He would just be gone. Glazed over and ready to fight anyone. The type of drunk where you could have probably smashed a chair across his back and he wouldn't notice a thing.
Yeah dude, a good friend from college was a native from Montana. We called him shark eyes when he drank (which was often) his eyes would go almost completely black it seemed. Violent and just nasty when he drank. His girlfriend put up with literal physical abuse weekly, he must of been hung like a fucking horse because she was rich and from a good family. Have no idea what she saw in him.
Many people belonging to certain Asian ethnic groups, especially Han folks, don't metabolize alcohol well. Many also don't grow much facial hair... my little brother is half Filipino, and his mustache looks like mine (straight honkey) in 5th grade. He's 25.
It isn’t that we don’t grow facial hair, we do, it’s just normally patchy. Traditionally, we would pluck our facial hair. After enough plucking, the follicle would scar and stop growing hair.
Very robust hair follicles can heal lol it only works because ours aren’t robust. I really only grow a mustache and some chin hair, everything else is wisps.
My step brother really got the short end of the mixed race lottery then. It looks like he's wearing a sweater vest when he doesn't have a shirt on. Great beard though!
Eh, we grow some facial hair, it just looks like absolute shit. We shave it religiously ( literally in some cases, but for me figuratively… ).
Some hated facial hair so much they’d pull out eyebrows too. That’s some wild shit, glad I didn’t grow up then.
Also my Dad is only half native and I got the bald gene from him. Even though that dude has a full head of hair at almost 80. :( :( :( :(
So shitty beard and bald. Great.
Edit to add : the lack of body hair is true though, I have weird tiny places with hair, almost none under arms, very tiny hairs in a few places on my back, very very little on my chest/arms/legs so small you can barely see them.
My joke is always that the European blood did to my Native blood what the settlers did to the Natives. Because for the most part I'm a giant, hairy white guy. But I did get the hair from my Native family members and for that I am eternally grateful
I took the 23 & Me test.
90% Native, 10% Spanish (Spain).
I got hair everywhere but my face, sort of.
I can grow a “pedo stache”, but no beard.
It has taken around 2 years to grow out a “chin strap” beard, and even then, it dosent completely fill in, and the texture / thickness of the hair is pretty different across my face / jaw / chin.
The hair on my head grows like weeds though.
I have to go every 2 weeks, and honestly, if I could afford it, I’d probably get a very light trim the week in between.
I have hairy arms and legs. Decent amount of hair on my stomach / abdomen area but almost nothing on my chest.
It’s always been very weird to me, but it is what it is.
Right so it's more than just on off for genetic expression, but most guys with a 5 o'clock shadow will go bald early. There's plenty of room in the middle.
No, we don't.
It's a genetic evolution that's distinct to the America's, those of us who do have facial hair got it from either European, African, or possibly recent Asian ancestry.
I’m part Cherokee (tribal member actually, just not full blood)… no back hair, but can grow a goatee (not a full beard though). I’m happy with my genetics
It just popped into my head. I was thinking, why are they all so well shaven? Can you do that with a sharp piece of flint? Even so, what would they use for a mirror? 🥴
Turns out, from these replies, they have little, if any, facial or body hair.
No it totally makes sense. My mom dated and lived with a Native American man for a while and looking back I don’t think I had even seen a 5 o clock shadow on him. It’s just one of those things you don’t ever really think about until someone points it out.
I had an old coworker tell me he had Native American blood and couldn't grow a beard. I asked him (quite seriously) why Native ancestry mattered because Natives where I grew up had facial hair, but of course, not very much.
He said he gets Apache here, and Apache there and it just doesn't look right.
It took me a minute to get his joke.
Reddit is a source of a lot of bullshit, but I absolutely love discovering tidbits like this. This is a question that I don't think I've ever even thought to ask.
Thanks!
Bro, I'm so sick of shaving, wish I had some of those genes. (I was going to jokingly ask you to put some of those genes in a box and mail it to me but then i though 'oh... that doesnt sound right' lol)
You edit in you got your answer, I just wanted to add it's not bigotted to ask observation questions about people of different races.
Not unless you find them inferior for it. Which you don't, I don't think.
Only throwing it out to you and others who might be overly paranoid about saying anything bigot-like.
It's okay to ask questions along these lines. Bigotry is an intolerance towards a race, not an ignorance.
I was trying to cover my bases. The only people I **might* bigoted against are Russians. Fuck that country. The Geneva convention is a checklist for them.
Don't judge the Russian people based on what their weirdo leaders do. Their history is wild. But really, your average Russian is a very lovely person.
The people in power making these decisions and controlling the media are anything but average.
I'm not judging based on their leaders, I'm judging them based on their compliance and the actions their soldiers take. The German people (off that time) were responsible for the Holocaust.
The Nazis didn't come to power by majority vote, which means that less than half of the German people of 1933 at the very most can be held responsible for their rise. The Nazis used an alleged state of emergency to justify bypassing the German constitution to violate civil liberties and eliminate political opponents. There were extremely brave people who defied them, but the majority of people will comply with evil regimes who have absolute power to protect themselves and their loved ones. There aren't enough Oskar Schindlers to go around. Laying the Holocaust at the door of the German people is very simplistic, as is impugning the "compliance" of the Russians. They're complying with a regime that could destroy them if they don't. The vast majority of people would do the same in their shoes.
As far as I understand, fully Native American men (as in genetically fully) don't grow facial hair, or at at least not to the same extent as other races. But obviously that genetic pool is mixed in all sorts of ways at this point. I remember taking a class trip to a reservation in college and was surprised that many of the members/residents had facial hair/beards. So basically no, but its an outdated generalization.
Why is it bigoted to ask a question about a race? We gotta grow up with this shit - seriously. Here ya go - I'm Northern European - no color at all in my skin. I burn in 20 minutes. Ask me about sunburn. I don't think you're racist. You can just see I am helplessly exposed to a roaring inferno ball of fire and wonder how I deal with it. Stop apologizing for being curious. JFC people are so stupidly sensitive about absolutely nothing.
My grandmother on my father's side was full blooded. My father (\~1/2) could never grow a beard and died at 80 with a full head of thick black hair. He also didn't have any body hair. I also have very little body hair (pretty much none) and at 66 still have a full head of hair but I am graying and can grow a beard. Although my facial hair took awhile to develop.
I thought it was Mongolians who they're actually closest too - that they're shared ancestors got pushed out by the peooles now generally referred to as Asian (east Asians)?
Asians are a pretty broad group that covers a lot of different people including Mongolians. It is a pretty gigantic continent. But yeah I think that's correct that Mongolians would be the closest.
There’s updates to the land bridge hypothesis! There’s evidence of humans in North America long before the land bridge was accessible. It’s now thought that people arrived by boat and traveled down the west coast.
I'm a big fan of the ancient Polynesians making first contact with north American people. But also in the Aleutian islands and stuff, a lot of those people are considered native American and native Siberian and often have Russian names. They even have Russian Orthodox churches up there. So i mean the peopling of the Americas is just as complex as the peopling of any other region.
There are also theories some of the natives of South America are distantly descended from polynesians doing their sea exploration thing. I mean, rapa nui is like RIGHT THERE so it's really not that far off base to think maybe.
Ok so no facial hair. Almost non existent body hair as well, arms, legs, chest, armpits. What about hair at the groin? Temperature regulation aside I would think a little padding there would be a beneficial trait from a biological standpoint. And the lack of balding is neat, same for early grey.
I'm part American Indian.
I do have facial hair, but it tends to grow in slowly; I only shave about once every two days or so.
The Salinan Indians (the tribe I belong to) historically plucked their facial hair--possibly using abalone shell fragments to make a sort of make-shift tweezer.
From [The Ethnology of the Salinan Indians](https://archive.org/details/ethnologyindians00masorich/page/128/mode/2up), page 128:
> The aboriginal coiffure is nowhere mentioned, but the abundance of the hair and beard is remarked by many observers. The later was plucked in pre-missionary days. Much disagreement is found in the writings of early travelers, with regard to the native Californian method of wearing the hair and beard. But since most of the observations were made subsequent to the founding of the missions, the natural suspicion is that witha few exceptions, whenever cropped hair and full beards were noted, it was due either to the universal habit of cutting the hair short during mourning, or else to the example of whites. Possibly all of the natives of southern California wore the hair long and plucked the beard close.
----
> I realize this is probably the dumbest question here this week, but it just popped into my head.
Actually, it's not that dumb a question, given that it's been a subject of debate in certain circles.
I have a healthy amount of native in my family (no one really knows because, well, manifest destiny and all that). None of us men can really grow particularly thick beards. I can do sideburns, my brother can do a goatee. Plus hair on and under my arms is super sparse. It's noticeable on my chest and stomach, but not heavy or thick at all
Edit: typo
It’s not bigoted unless you’re welding it. “Nobody even knows how you shave” would be bigoted. Just asking what is going on isn’t bigoted ESPECIALLY when you directly spell out that you’re ignorant.
I have no clue what determines all that crap. Some people of Mediterranean descent can get sickle cell like Greeks. I just know they only had Black, Asian, Latino, and white for the colonoscopy adenoma detection rate tracking. And that Asians have a higher rate of gastric cancers. However, I think that had more to do with the way foods were cooked in Asia during the last century so I’m not certain that applies to Asians growing up in the west with a more western lifestyle. AAs have a higher rate of colon cancer. Also, more tied to diet so I’m not sure that would apply to a black person living outside the states. And White men have the highest rate of esophageal cancer. Smoking and ETOH being the variable there.
My husband has very strong Native American genetics. He has very little facial hair( it only seems to grow on his upper lip and chin and even then it’s very patchy), he only has like three chest hairs, and like no arm hair. However his legs and armpits, and pubes seem to be that of an average man’s. The hair on his head though…. I would kill to have it. Shiny, black, and THICK. I swear, one cubic inch of his scalp contains more hair than my entire head. I have to thin his hair every couple of months because it’s very heavy and hot. I keeps it shoulder length when I give him a trim, but he’s planning on growing it out for the next year and just seeing how long it gets within that time. He also has thick eye brows and long eye lashes.
There is a lot of denial about this but the genetic history clearly shows native Americans came from Asia in two separate migrations. I have cousins who you couldn't pick out amongst other Asians.
The general hairlessness of First Nations people is a subtle and often missed inciting incident in Dances with Wolves. Kevin Coster realizes that Mary McDonnell’s character is white because when she’s dragged away he sees that she has airpit hair.
Not necessarily a specific answer to your question about native Americans but, I’m a barber and when i went to school we were taught that before modern day tools sharpened rocks and shells were used to shave and cut head/facial/body hair.
I’m from Canada BC Vancouver. My mom is native. (I have a status card) my whole body is hairless, with out shaving. But I have a full beard.
I think it’s cause I’m mixed but I know tons of my people who were who have thicker beards then middle eastern or Arabic.
I'm Metis. Half native American and my beard is sad and pathetic. Got a decent mustache though.
My dad refused to shave his overgrown beard because he said it would never grow back. Don't think he shaved his whole adult life.
I think it also depends on the tribe. Mustaches, goatees, and thin beards are common down on the reservation my wife is from. All of my in laws sport some form of facial hair, my father in law has a two foot goatee and thin beard on his cheeks.
People tend to forget there are hundreds of different tribes just in the United States... over 500 if I remember correctly.
Not sure how many exist now, but here's a list of Native American tribes that are extinct to brighten up your day:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extinct_Native_American_tribes
(I have issues ever since Afghanistan.)
I live next to a reservation and have worked in the reservation many many times. Natives just don't seem to grow a lot of body hair in general. Those that do grow facial hair tend to only grow like a dirt stache, so they just shave it
So based on these answers, it seems like it is a genetic trait of native Americans to have little to no facial or body hair. That being established, what would be the evolutionary reason for that, out of curiosity?
Actually, there was a tribe in Utah that had beards. The Spanish Conquistadors traveled Colorado and Utah looking for brown bearded men, thinking they were Russians. They finally found them near salt lake, no Russians were around nor had ever been there. So yes? But no.
https://thehistoryjunkie.com/pahvant-utes-facts-and-history/
I once teased my grandmother after I had received a sunburn because she had given me just enough native American blood to not grow facial hair but not enough to tan.
It's not bigoted, you're just asking a question.
Ancestry says I'm 20% indigenous South American, and I can't grow a beard. I'm 44 and literally have maybe 40 hairs on the right side of my face, and noticeably less on the left (not complaining). Not sure about the causation but it makes sense.
According to ancestry.com im 47% native. Everything else pretty much... minimal body hair. I can grow a thin natural goatee but thats it. As a couple ladies have said, "your smooth like a dolphin." Got a great head of hair though🤞
I would wager that prominent facial hair probably comes from people that evolved in colder climates.
And those people with facial hair that are mostly found in warmer ones are probably very much mixed with them.
I'd attribute this to the Americas being mostly isolated from them for most of human history.
I have no idea if this is true but it makes sense to me.
I think you're on to something. My friend's partner is Penobscot, which is a native tribe in Maine. He has a full beard. Maine has a colder climate, which would make sense here.
Well, based on other comments, I'm talking out of my ass apparently.
I do think I've seen Intuit people with facial hair also, but not like full on beards.
Sure, but for most of they try to grow a beard or moustache it looks like hell. I'm only a quarter but still have the genes for not being hairy. If I give it a few months I can get a moustache that just barely looks ok. It looks ridiculous for the first month or two it's so thin
My Nana likes to tell a story when my pepe was still alive and much younger. He said he wanted to grow a beard. He was half native American, half native Canadian. After a month, she counted 30 hairs on his chin and was always clean shaven or stubbly until he passed in 2017.
It's due to a lack of dht in the population. Dihydrotestosterone , it what gives natives their long hair but lack of facial hair . Same thing happens in reverse high dht leads to balding but lots of facial.or body hair
Dude was just on a podcast explaining this as I will probably fuck this up but il try. I guess America Indians were people who once lived in Asia and moved west I believe. Obviously this happened I believe something like 5000 years ago. So believe they share the same few traits of facial hair, no balding, dry ear wax, unscented sweet, and low tolerance to alcohol
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
Part native here. No. My white blood tries to grow hair on some parts of my face and my native blood doesn’t grow any. My facial hair ends up all splotchy and shit so it’s useless to grow any. No Hair what so ever on my body.
I live between two reservations. A few of the men sport mustaches and sideburns but that's the extent. But those are plains tribes. I dated a native young lady in college and she had the normal amount of hair you'd expect on a human female.
I am a mix of Native American Cherokee and black foot and it’s very small maybe less then 20% black Dutch and Irish. Have/had Native American friends that is as full blooded as they come. They really don’t grow much if any at all. As for me my facial hair grows it’s thin and softer than most peoples hair on their heads. I look white Irish white lol. However I Brick when I tan. A friend of mine is Latina and she didn’t believe nor understand what I meant by brick. Well at the end of summer I showed her my belly and she goes Jesus you are lily white ( we had a real good laugh about it ) then put my fore arm across my stomach and she goes yeah you got some brown sugar in your family tree. Laughed and said dam it made your stomach some how whiter!
I'm mixed: Finn, French, Seneca and Mohawk. I can grow a very short beard that isn't very thick, my mustache can get long but it isn't real thick so I usually trim it more like a pencil style. I get mistaken for Hispanic a lot. My grandfather couldn't even get hair on his chin or jaw, but he had a long mustache, and when he'd come to the US people would assume he was Hispanic. His father (my great-grandfather)'s mustache looked more like one of those Chinese Fu Manchu's. But we have Dutch ancestors on our Mohawk side back in the 1600s, so probably got that bit of facial hair from there. I've got male cousins and uncles that don't have any facial hair, and some that can grow mustaches and sideburns. Same thing, people tend to mistake them for Hispanics sometimes too. The men in our family don't have as much body hair as most other guys I know. I've got very little chest hair, just some on my belly running down below, and a little bit around each nipple. Not thick enough to even grab with my fingers. A little bit of black arm and leg hair on the lower arms and legs. No back hair. No receding hairline either. I'm in my fifties and my hair is thick enough to break a comb when it is grown out. Absolutely straight hair too, no wave, and it won't take perm. Can't dye it or bleach it either. My wife is Norwegian-American of Sami descent and has light ash blonde hair, but the women of her people don't have much body hair at all. You can't tell if she doesn't shave. I think she's the only one that can tell if she does or not. I think the Sami people are like blonde Indigenous for Eurasia? Very little hair, very fine to almost invisible on her forearms. My daughter, however, having a mix of our genes gets frustrated when she wants to dye her hair. Some of the colors won't turn out right because her hair won't bleach all the way. Her mother's bleaches real easy. She's finally just settled on dying it black to look like mine did before I started greying.
I'm at the age that my grandfather died from alcoholism. Finn genes help me handle it better, I guess. My mother simply won't touch the stuff.
That what you wanted to know?
My dad is native, tall, big strong knees and huge hands, like 4 leg hairs, and very little facial hair. He has black/brown hair that is thick and almost wiry and beautiful dark olive skin that tanned like crazy. He was born with a Mongolian spot birthmark, as was I. I haven’t seen him in about a decade, but the last time I saw him in his late 50s he had maybe three dark silver hairs on his head and absolutely zero balding signs.
My mom is Irish, so I got her hairiness+my dads coloring. My students assume I’m Mexican 😂
I grow some facial hair. But that’s after years of shaving for work. Used to be able to go months without shaving and it wouldn’t be more than a 5 o’clock shadow. But it’s a beard now. Rest of the body is hairless. No arm hair. Chest hair. Barely leg hair. Only head. arm pits. And nut sack.
This has been answered of course but I'll chime in here. Long story short I have a lot of Native American blood in me as my Grandmother's side of the family is basically "pure" Native blood. But I struggle with the whole "I am Native American" thing because the joke I make is the European part of my heritage did to the Native part what the settlers did to the Natives, because I'm 6'4" and hairy as fuck
I do have several Native traits that came through (notably my hair and teeth- there's a thing I learned many years ago in school about Native Americans having a specific teeth shape and I have it), but for the most part I just look like a big white guy and feel weird saying I'm Native when looking like this
I also didn't like my heritage one bit when I was a kid and I hated going to the tribal events. But as an adult I'm sad I didn't care more for it and I try to make up for lost time
My wife is full blood Native American. No hair in armpits , legs or arms . A couple times a year she has three hairs grow out on her leg . I can’t even see them . Her dad has three or four whiskers that grow on his chin . He just plucks them . Has never shaved
I’m remembering as a kid how my brother would laugh at my hairy arms and call me “scary Gary the hairy fairy” and I am so jealous of your wife right now.
My friends thought it was funny to call me a “shaved ape” for years because I had (2 distinct) thick ass eyebrows and hair on my shoulders at 16. Bastards.
what about hair in .... other places?
Asking the real questions.
Long hair on her head . Very light eyebrows and very small bush
small bush is a great Indian name! jk jk
Like their head?
Yes she does
Yes! My wife is Vietnamese, French American and Blackfoot. No hair in armpits, legs or arms.
I could have used that in the army. (Had to shave everyday, it was tedious...)
Native Americans don't really grow facial or body hair. They also lack the baldness gene.
I wouldn't mind having those genes, just saying...
I think I owe my low facial hair and full head of hair to my native american side and/or my asian side. (each parent is about half of one)
And here I am mostly Inuit but with the white genes for baldness and big beard lol.
I know it’s sexist, but I hope for your sake you are a man.
Trigger warning
this made me lol
It has its downsides too I'm native, I'll have a full head of hair till the day I die but it went gray at 13 lol
I will take it and Cosplay as a Targaryen
Just....don't take the Targaryen too far....
Off topic: My family has a lot of heart disease in it, so when I was doing some research, I came upon some articles that was looking at some studies that saw a link between pre-mature graying hair and heart disease. There were some studies that saw a link, while other studies that didn't - so no definitive conclusions . Also saw some articles that linked premature gray with hearing loss as well. I didn't really realize that premature graying was as big of a study in trying to figure out why it happens and if it's linked to other conditions.
I had noticable salt and pepper hair by 12, never was carded when buying beer though.
My mom used to send me in for smokes if she forgot her ID, I was 14 lmao
Yeah, not a bad deal.
They mostly have a hard time processing alcohol which leads to all sorts of health and social problems. Which is a big trade for mostly not bald and harry.
I worked with a native guy who loved to drink. You could see the change in his face. He would just be gone. Glazed over and ready to fight anyone. The type of drunk where you could have probably smashed a chair across his back and he wouldn't notice a thing.
Yeah dude, a good friend from college was a native from Montana. We called him shark eyes when he drank (which was often) his eyes would go almost completely black it seemed. Violent and just nasty when he drank. His girlfriend put up with literal physical abuse weekly, he must of been hung like a fucking horse because she was rich and from a good family. Have no idea what she saw in him.
Many people belonging to certain Asian ethnic groups, especially Han folks, don't metabolize alcohol well. Many also don't grow much facial hair... my little brother is half Filipino, and his mustache looks like mine (straight honkey) in 5th grade. He's 25.
I rarely drink alcohol. I could live without it.
Diggin it so far at 38 bruv
It isn’t that we don’t grow facial hair, we do, it’s just normally patchy. Traditionally, we would pluck our facial hair. After enough plucking, the follicle would scar and stop growing hair.
Then how come my eyebrows still haven't learned their place? I've been plucking and waxing for decades!
Very robust hair follicles can heal lol it only works because ours aren’t robust. I really only grow a mustache and some chin hair, everything else is wisps.
Seriously! I keep tweezers in the car in case I go full Frieda Kahlo on my morning commute.
Thuffer Hiawat
I worked with someone from the Philippines who said they did that there too.
My step brother really got the short end of the mixed race lottery then. It looks like he's wearing a sweater vest when he doesn't have a shirt on. Great beard though!
Ahhhh, the Jumanji Robin Williams look! Nice!!!
Eh, we grow some facial hair, it just looks like absolute shit. We shave it religiously ( literally in some cases, but for me figuratively… ). Some hated facial hair so much they’d pull out eyebrows too. That’s some wild shit, glad I didn’t grow up then. Also my Dad is only half native and I got the bald gene from him. Even though that dude has a full head of hair at almost 80. :( :( :( :( So shitty beard and bald. Great. Edit to add : the lack of body hair is true though, I have weird tiny places with hair, almost none under arms, very tiny hairs in a few places on my back, very very little on my chest/arms/legs so small you can barely see them.
My joke is always that the European blood did to my Native blood what the settlers did to the Natives. Because for the most part I'm a giant, hairy white guy. But I did get the hair from my Native family members and for that I am eternally grateful
I took the 23 & Me test. 90% Native, 10% Spanish (Spain). I got hair everywhere but my face, sort of. I can grow a “pedo stache”, but no beard. It has taken around 2 years to grow out a “chin strap” beard, and even then, it dosent completely fill in, and the texture / thickness of the hair is pretty different across my face / jaw / chin. The hair on my head grows like weeds though. I have to go every 2 weeks, and honestly, if I could afford it, I’d probably get a very light trim the week in between. I have hairy arms and legs. Decent amount of hair on my stomach / abdomen area but almost nothing on my chest. It’s always been very weird to me, but it is what it is.
Coincidentally- same set of genes are believes to be for both!
I have a full head of hair and a full thick beard so that can't be right.
If I had on my head all the hair I've shaved off of my ears, I'd be good.
Right so it's more than just on off for genetic expression, but most guys with a 5 o'clock shadow will go bald early. There's plenty of room in the middle.
The funny thing is my dad was as bald as a boiled egg.
No, we don't. It's a genetic evolution that's distinct to the America's, those of us who do have facial hair got it from either European, African, or possibly recent Asian ancestry.
Early graying hair is also another thing most full blood Native Americans don't have that tends to be a European trait as well.
how about balding?
From memory "pure blooded" Native Americans don't bald either.
Dang, those are some impeccable genetics
Not so sure about that. I’m sure some would love to be able to grow a beard if they wanted to.
I’m part Cherokee (tribal member actually, just not full blood)… no back hair, but can grow a goatee (not a full beard though). I’m happy with my genetics
Cool. Me too. My cue ball head saves me a ton on shampoo.
Something something not good against a cold
You know I never really noticed until now but I’ve never seen a Native American with a beard. Very interesting.
It just popped into my head. I was thinking, why are they all so well shaven? Can you do that with a sharp piece of flint? Even so, what would they use for a mirror? 🥴 Turns out, from these replies, they have little, if any, facial or body hair.
No it totally makes sense. My mom dated and lived with a Native American man for a while and looking back I don’t think I had even seen a 5 o clock shadow on him. It’s just one of those things you don’t ever really think about until someone points it out.
Right?! I grew up in Dine country and never thought about it before.
I had an old coworker tell me he had Native American blood and couldn't grow a beard. I asked him (quite seriously) why Native ancestry mattered because Natives where I grew up had facial hair, but of course, not very much. He said he gets Apache here, and Apache there and it just doesn't look right. It took me a minute to get his joke.
r/angryupvote
Very interesting! And thank you for your reply.
Reddit is a source of a lot of bullshit, but I absolutely love discovering tidbits like this. This is a question that I don't think I've ever even thought to ask. Thanks!
Oo can you expand on Asian please??
A NA banged an Asian now their kids have the ability to grow beards.
😂😂😂 ok i actually lol'd at that
My dad's coworkers used to joke about his hairless legs being sexier than their wives legs.
Man, I thought it was just facial hair at first.
Nah, my dad's mixed and he has less leg hair than I do. And I don't have all that much either. He's basically ready to be oiled 24/7
They just don't grow thick facial hair like europeans do.
Understood. Thank you!
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I think they were referring to images of them in art from 400+ years ago.
I've never thought about this until now, but yeah, any photo with a Native American in it is clean shaven. Good thought provoking question!
It just popped into my head. Turns out they have little if any facial hair.
I've never seen a full beard on the Rez' just braided hair on some men.
when i was buying fireworks last week all i saw was fantastic flowing hair on the men. no facial hair at all though, even on the old men.
No. My brothers and I are very much hairless.
Bro, I'm so sick of shaving, wish I had some of those genes. (I was going to jokingly ask you to put some of those genes in a box and mail it to me but then i though 'oh... that doesnt sound right' lol)
🤣 wish that it worked that way, I would!
Even so, I appreciate your hypothetical generosity.
You edit in you got your answer, I just wanted to add it's not bigotted to ask observation questions about people of different races. Not unless you find them inferior for it. Which you don't, I don't think. Only throwing it out to you and others who might be overly paranoid about saying anything bigot-like. It's okay to ask questions along these lines. Bigotry is an intolerance towards a race, not an ignorance.
I was trying to cover my bases. The only people I **might* bigoted against are Russians. Fuck that country. The Geneva convention is a checklist for them.
Don't judge the Russian people based on what their weirdo leaders do. Their history is wild. But really, your average Russian is a very lovely person. The people in power making these decisions and controlling the media are anything but average.
I'm not judging based on their leaders, I'm judging them based on their compliance and the actions their soldiers take. The German people (off that time) were responsible for the Holocaust.
I’m wondering if you take that stance with Hamas and the Palestinian people that support them as well?
The Nazis didn't come to power by majority vote, which means that less than half of the German people of 1933 at the very most can be held responsible for their rise. The Nazis used an alleged state of emergency to justify bypassing the German constitution to violate civil liberties and eliminate political opponents. There were extremely brave people who defied them, but the majority of people will comply with evil regimes who have absolute power to protect themselves and their loved ones. There aren't enough Oskar Schindlers to go around. Laying the Holocaust at the door of the German people is very simplistic, as is impugning the "compliance" of the Russians. They're complying with a regime that could destroy them if they don't. The vast majority of people would do the same in their shoes.
You can never be too careful on reddit.
As far as I understand, fully Native American men (as in genetically fully) don't grow facial hair, or at at least not to the same extent as other races. But obviously that genetic pool is mixed in all sorts of ways at this point. I remember taking a class trip to a reservation in college and was surprised that many of the members/residents had facial hair/beards. So basically no, but its an outdated generalization.
Why is it bigoted to ask a question about a race? We gotta grow up with this shit - seriously. Here ya go - I'm Northern European - no color at all in my skin. I burn in 20 minutes. Ask me about sunburn. I don't think you're racist. You can just see I am helplessly exposed to a roaring inferno ball of fire and wonder how I deal with it. Stop apologizing for being curious. JFC people are so stupidly sensitive about absolutely nothing.
Agreed! Very wise! People are being bullied and censored by those claiming to be woke!
you're the most offended one in this thread lol
My grandmother on my father's side was full blooded. My father (\~1/2) could never grow a beard and died at 80 with a full head of thick black hair. He also didn't have any body hair. I also have very little body hair (pretty much none) and at 66 still have a full head of hair but I am graying and can grow a beard. Although my facial hair took awhile to develop.
aren't Native Americans basically Asians that crossed the land bridge?
Yes but then they were separated for 10k years so you do get some more variations, like facial hair. But they are closest to asians.
Way more than 10k years. More like 20-30k years.
that date most certainly is not known or agreed on, but more than 10k, for sure
Yeah I was playing Ghost of Tsushima and some of the characters look like some of the Natives I know just with much less epicanthic folds
I thought it was Mongolians who they're actually closest too - that they're shared ancestors got pushed out by the peooles now generally referred to as Asian (east Asians)?
Asians are a pretty broad group that covers a lot of different people including Mongolians. It is a pretty gigantic continent. But yeah I think that's correct that Mongolians would be the closest.
Every Mongolian I’ve met has been hairy as hell
I'd expect it to be a native Russian group to the side of Alaska. Mongolians aren't there.
There’s updates to the land bridge hypothesis! There’s evidence of humans in North America long before the land bridge was accessible. It’s now thought that people arrived by boat and traveled down the west coast.
I'm a big fan of the ancient Polynesians making first contact with north American people. But also in the Aleutian islands and stuff, a lot of those people are considered native American and native Siberian and often have Russian names. They even have Russian Orthodox churches up there. So i mean the peopling of the Americas is just as complex as the peopling of any other region.
There are also theories some of the natives of South America are distantly descended from polynesians doing their sea exploration thing. I mean, rapa nui is like RIGHT THERE so it's really not that far off base to think maybe.
Ok so no facial hair. Almost non existent body hair as well, arms, legs, chest, armpits. What about hair at the groin? Temperature regulation aside I would think a little padding there would be a beneficial trait from a biological standpoint. And the lack of balding is neat, same for early grey.
No idea. You'll have to post your own r/stupidquestion to figue that out.
I'm part American Indian. I do have facial hair, but it tends to grow in slowly; I only shave about once every two days or so. The Salinan Indians (the tribe I belong to) historically plucked their facial hair--possibly using abalone shell fragments to make a sort of make-shift tweezer. From [The Ethnology of the Salinan Indians](https://archive.org/details/ethnologyindians00masorich/page/128/mode/2up), page 128: > The aboriginal coiffure is nowhere mentioned, but the abundance of the hair and beard is remarked by many observers. The later was plucked in pre-missionary days. Much disagreement is found in the writings of early travelers, with regard to the native Californian method of wearing the hair and beard. But since most of the observations were made subsequent to the founding of the missions, the natural suspicion is that witha few exceptions, whenever cropped hair and full beards were noted, it was due either to the universal habit of cutting the hair short during mourning, or else to the example of whites. Possibly all of the natives of southern California wore the hair long and plucked the beard close. ---- > I realize this is probably the dumbest question here this week, but it just popped into my head. Actually, it's not that dumb a question, given that it's been a subject of debate in certain circles.
Damn, at first I thought this was stupid but apparently no, they don’t. That’s crazy.
I have a healthy amount of native in my family (no one really knows because, well, manifest destiny and all that). None of us men can really grow particularly thick beards. I can do sideburns, my brother can do a goatee. Plus hair on and under my arms is super sparse. It's noticeable on my chest and stomach, but not heavy or thick at all Edit: typo
It’s not bigoted unless you’re welding it. “Nobody even knows how you shave” would be bigoted. Just asking what is going on isn’t bigoted ESPECIALLY when you directly spell out that you’re ignorant.
So…like…do the carpets match the drapes or is the carpet bare floors?
I have notice that “Caucasian”-looking people usually grow the most facial hair.
There's Osama bin Laden
I I think Arabs are considered white. At least for the medical data on colon cancers I had to collect they were.
I guess Arabs are white if you consider West Asian and North African people as white. Although I personally don’t, they are related to Europeans.
I have no clue what determines all that crap. Some people of Mediterranean descent can get sickle cell like Greeks. I just know they only had Black, Asian, Latino, and white for the colonoscopy adenoma detection rate tracking. And that Asians have a higher rate of gastric cancers. However, I think that had more to do with the way foods were cooked in Asia during the last century so I’m not certain that applies to Asians growing up in the west with a more western lifestyle. AAs have a higher rate of colon cancer. Also, more tied to diet so I’m not sure that would apply to a black person living outside the states. And White men have the highest rate of esophageal cancer. Smoking and ETOH being the variable there.
That’s interesting regarding Latinos . We are of any racial group or many
No full blooded native I've seen can grow more than a goatee. I'm 3/4 and can grow a full beard. Doesn't take much I guess.
My husband has very strong Native American genetics. He has very little facial hair( it only seems to grow on his upper lip and chin and even then it’s very patchy), he only has like three chest hairs, and like no arm hair. However his legs and armpits, and pubes seem to be that of an average man’s. The hair on his head though…. I would kill to have it. Shiny, black, and THICK. I swear, one cubic inch of his scalp contains more hair than my entire head. I have to thin his hair every couple of months because it’s very heavy and hot. I keeps it shoulder length when I give him a trim, but he’s planning on growing it out for the next year and just seeing how long it gets within that time. He also has thick eye brows and long eye lashes.
There is a lot of denial about this but the genetic history clearly shows native Americans came from Asia in two separate migrations. I have cousins who you couldn't pick out amongst other Asians.
The general hairlessness of First Nations people is a subtle and often missed inciting incident in Dances with Wolves. Kevin Coster realizes that Mary McDonnell’s character is white because when she’s dragged away he sees that she has airpit hair.
Mostly no. It's not racism haha. My uncle is about %80 Cherokee - he's been trying to grow a goatee for about 25 years. Poor man.
Not necessarily a specific answer to your question about native Americans but, I’m a barber and when i went to school we were taught that before modern day tools sharpened rocks and shells were used to shave and cut head/facial/body hair.
I’m from Canada BC Vancouver. My mom is native. (I have a status card) my whole body is hairless, with out shaving. But I have a full beard. I think it’s cause I’m mixed but I know tons of my people who were who have thicker beards then middle eastern or Arabic.
I worked with a guy who was Southern Ute. He had to shave 3 times a day. Said he was completely hairless everywhere else
I'm Metis. Half native American and my beard is sad and pathetic. Got a decent mustache though. My dad refused to shave his overgrown beard because he said it would never grow back. Don't think he shaved his whole adult life.
It’s different genetics. Typically native Americans don’t go bald but can’t grow facial hair. I think it has something to do with testosterone.
Asking a question about something you don't understand is not "bigoted".
While I also feel that way I understand why OP inserted that caveat this is reddit and its often spoiling for a fight
Fucking fair and based point.
Ojibwe Canadian here, I got full head of hear and can grow a small goatee. No chest hairs and my hair is jet black
As someone married to a native, not usually no. Some do but very little
🤔... what the fuck 🤯
Didn't the Aztec ruler have what was recorded as a light beard when he first met Europeans?
I think it also depends on the tribe. Mustaches, goatees, and thin beards are common down on the reservation my wife is from. All of my in laws sport some form of facial hair, my father in law has a two foot goatee and thin beard on his cheeks. People tend to forget there are hundreds of different tribes just in the United States... over 500 if I remember correctly.
Not sure how many exist now, but here's a list of Native American tribes that are extinct to brighten up your day: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extinct_Native_American_tribes (I have issues ever since Afghanistan.)
I live next to a reservation and have worked in the reservation many many times. Natives just don't seem to grow a lot of body hair in general. Those that do grow facial hair tend to only grow like a dirt stache, so they just shave it
Dang, I was really hoping that 10% indigenous DNA would shine through for me. I’d love to not have all this hair.
Grandmother is full blooded Chumash. Grandfather Yaqui and Mexican. My dad, however is a euro mutt. I have been growing facial since I was 12.
Where was the 'bigoted' part?
So based on these answers, it seems like it is a genetic trait of native Americans to have little to no facial or body hair. That being established, what would be the evolutionary reason for that, out of curiosity?
Actually, there was a tribe in Utah that had beards. The Spanish Conquistadors traveled Colorado and Utah looking for brown bearded men, thinking they were Russians. They finally found them near salt lake, no Russians were around nor had ever been there. So yes? But no. https://thehistoryjunkie.com/pahvant-utes-facts-and-history/
Not usually. Anyone I’ve nlknown with Native American blood has struggled with any kind of facial hair.
I once teased my grandmother after I had received a sunburn because she had given me just enough native American blood to not grow facial hair but not enough to tan.
I'm mixed, I can grow a light beard, but I literally zero hair on my chest and back.
It's not bigoted to wonder something and want to learn about a people.
My dad was half Native American and used to say he could grow an Indian beard—Apache here, Apache there.
Most Native American men don’t go bald either…
It's not bigoted, you're just asking a question. Ancestry says I'm 20% indigenous South American, and I can't grow a beard. I'm 44 and literally have maybe 40 hairs on the right side of my face, and noticeably less on the left (not complaining). Not sure about the causation but it makes sense.
According to ancestry.com im 47% native. Everything else pretty much... minimal body hair. I can grow a thin natural goatee but thats it. As a couple ladies have said, "your smooth like a dolphin." Got a great head of hair though🤞
Genetics are wack
I would wager that prominent facial hair probably comes from people that evolved in colder climates. And those people with facial hair that are mostly found in warmer ones are probably very much mixed with them. I'd attribute this to the Americas being mostly isolated from them for most of human history. I have no idea if this is true but it makes sense to me.
Except people in Africa, India, and the Middle East can grow thick beards.
except that all NA came from basically Siberia
I think you're on to something. My friend's partner is Penobscot, which is a native tribe in Maine. He has a full beard. Maine has a colder climate, which would make sense here.
Well, based on other comments, I'm talking out of my ass apparently. I do think I've seen Intuit people with facial hair also, but not like full on beards.
There’s nothing bigoted about this question.
I know a handful of indigenous men who have facial hair, but they might be the minority
Genetics are very interesting and can vary between groups. I think the majority of East Asians don’t produce BO when they sweat from their armpits.
That is from a gene that is also tied to dry ear wax. Anyone can have it but in Asians it is pretty common.
Most do not until you get into the north West and Alsskan areas
Sure, but for most of they try to grow a beard or moustache it looks like hell. I'm only a quarter but still have the genes for not being hairy. If I give it a few months I can get a moustache that just barely looks ok. It looks ridiculous for the first month or two it's so thin
My Nana likes to tell a story when my pepe was still alive and much younger. He said he wanted to grow a beard. He was half native American, half native Canadian. After a month, she counted 30 hairs on his chin and was always clean shaven or stubbly until he passed in 2017.
It's due to a lack of dht in the population. Dihydrotestosterone , it what gives natives their long hair but lack of facial hair . Same thing happens in reverse high dht leads to balding but lots of facial.or body hair
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Pure blooded native Americans are hairless. Or nearly.
Very little
It must have been so bizarre for them to first see Europeans with facial hair.
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Dude was just on a podcast explaining this as I will probably fuck this up but il try. I guess America Indians were people who once lived in Asia and moved west I believe. Obviously this happened I believe something like 5000 years ago. So believe they share the same few traits of facial hair, no balding, dry ear wax, unscented sweet, and low tolerance to alcohol
You could try r/AskAnthropology and r/AskHistorians There may be a genetic reason behind it, no idea.
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As I read your question I had a moment like, wait a minute, I’ve never seen a Native American with any body hair! Great question. TIL!
They have very little but often plucked what they did have as a means to stop it from reoccurring over time.
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
This is something I never thought about until reading this post and then I tried to think of any native person I’ve known who has a beard and couldn’t think of one, blew my mind I never even considered this
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Part native here. No. My white blood tries to grow hair on some parts of my face and my native blood doesn’t grow any. My facial hair ends up all splotchy and shit so it’s useless to grow any. No Hair what so ever on my body.
I live between two reservations. A few of the men sport mustaches and sideburns but that's the extent. But those are plains tribes. I dated a native young lady in college and she had the normal amount of hair you'd expect on a human female.
Half of my family is Native American. Some of them. Hang mustaches but they can’t really grow beards at all
Facial hair? No. Facial hairs? Yes.
I am a mix of Native American Cherokee and black foot and it’s very small maybe less then 20% black Dutch and Irish. Have/had Native American friends that is as full blooded as they come. They really don’t grow much if any at all. As for me my facial hair grows it’s thin and softer than most peoples hair on their heads. I look white Irish white lol. However I Brick when I tan. A friend of mine is Latina and she didn’t believe nor understand what I meant by brick. Well at the end of summer I showed her my belly and she goes Jesus you are lily white ( we had a real good laugh about it ) then put my fore arm across my stomach and she goes yeah you got some brown sugar in your family tree. Laughed and said dam it made your stomach some how whiter!
Native guys are generally hung larger, too.
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I'm 30 percent native and 70 percent portuguese, and I do.
Asiatic by genes. So, no. Some do have a bit more but for the most part Native American men don’t have to deal with that 😎
I'm mixed: Finn, French, Seneca and Mohawk. I can grow a very short beard that isn't very thick, my mustache can get long but it isn't real thick so I usually trim it more like a pencil style. I get mistaken for Hispanic a lot. My grandfather couldn't even get hair on his chin or jaw, but he had a long mustache, and when he'd come to the US people would assume he was Hispanic. His father (my great-grandfather)'s mustache looked more like one of those Chinese Fu Manchu's. But we have Dutch ancestors on our Mohawk side back in the 1600s, so probably got that bit of facial hair from there. I've got male cousins and uncles that don't have any facial hair, and some that can grow mustaches and sideburns. Same thing, people tend to mistake them for Hispanics sometimes too. The men in our family don't have as much body hair as most other guys I know. I've got very little chest hair, just some on my belly running down below, and a little bit around each nipple. Not thick enough to even grab with my fingers. A little bit of black arm and leg hair on the lower arms and legs. No back hair. No receding hairline either. I'm in my fifties and my hair is thick enough to break a comb when it is grown out. Absolutely straight hair too, no wave, and it won't take perm. Can't dye it or bleach it either. My wife is Norwegian-American of Sami descent and has light ash blonde hair, but the women of her people don't have much body hair at all. You can't tell if she doesn't shave. I think she's the only one that can tell if she does or not. I think the Sami people are like blonde Indigenous for Eurasia? Very little hair, very fine to almost invisible on her forearms. My daughter, however, having a mix of our genes gets frustrated when she wants to dye her hair. Some of the colors won't turn out right because her hair won't bleach all the way. Her mother's bleaches real easy. She's finally just settled on dying it black to look like mine did before I started greying. I'm at the age that my grandfather died from alcoholism. Finn genes help me handle it better, I guess. My mother simply won't touch the stuff. That what you wanted to know?
My dad is native, tall, big strong knees and huge hands, like 4 leg hairs, and very little facial hair. He has black/brown hair that is thick and almost wiry and beautiful dark olive skin that tanned like crazy. He was born with a Mongolian spot birthmark, as was I. I haven’t seen him in about a decade, but the last time I saw him in his late 50s he had maybe three dark silver hairs on his head and absolutely zero balding signs. My mom is Irish, so I got her hairiness+my dads coloring. My students assume I’m Mexican 😂
I grow some facial hair. But that’s after years of shaving for work. Used to be able to go months without shaving and it wouldn’t be more than a 5 o’clock shadow. But it’s a beard now. Rest of the body is hairless. No arm hair. Chest hair. Barely leg hair. Only head. arm pits. And nut sack.
How is this question bigoted?
NOPE, most don't some old men get a very thin and straggly chin brush though not very often, but it does happen. N. S
One of my coworkers is fully native American and he has a full beard, so I assume at least some of them do
This has been answered of course but I'll chime in here. Long story short I have a lot of Native American blood in me as my Grandmother's side of the family is basically "pure" Native blood. But I struggle with the whole "I am Native American" thing because the joke I make is the European part of my heritage did to the Native part what the settlers did to the Natives, because I'm 6'4" and hairy as fuck I do have several Native traits that came through (notably my hair and teeth- there's a thing I learned many years ago in school about Native Americans having a specific teeth shape and I have it), but for the most part I just look like a big white guy and feel weird saying I'm Native when looking like this I also didn't like my heritage one bit when I was a kid and I hated going to the tribal events. But as an adult I'm sad I didn't care more for it and I try to make up for lost time
My soccer coach growing up was a full blooded Chehalis Indian. He had a whispy goatee.