Seeing Difference: from the Aztec Body to Norma Normal

Nahua depiction of the body — *Nahua Depiction of The Body, from Antiquities of Mexico, reproduced 1831-1848. • Image Courtesy of the Tozzer Library, Special Collections, Harvard University*

According to ancient Mesoamerican beliefs, the body was used to organize and measure the world, connecting different body parts to thoughts and forces. This image links body parts to the twenty-day ritual calendar.

*Skin Color Chart, c. early 20th century. #2005.1.171. On Loan from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University*

Some measures reduced human beings to the appearance of their skin. What do charts like this one fail to show? What type of thinking do they enforce?

What does a ‘normal’ person look like? In 1943, one obstetrician thought he had the answer. He created diagrams of “Norma” (and her male counterpart, “Normman”) based on the measurements of 15,000 white men and women. Linked to the eugenics movement, these diagrams showed the “average American woman” and were used as a standard to measure, profile, and judge other people.

How do you measure up to Norma?

Graphic of Norma — *Is Norma normal? Robert Latou Dickinson, 1943.*