# Do all Native Americans look alike?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-native-americans-look-alike/586504>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 22, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-native-americans-look-alike/586504 "2011-06-22T23:51:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-native-americans-look-alike/586504/21 "2011-06-23T17:45:14Z")

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> [@China\_Guy](#):
>
> Navaho men have pretty distinct body shapes. At least native Americans in the SW seem to be able to tell the difference at a glance between Navaho, Apache, Hopi, etc.

An acquaintance of mine, who teaches music to Navajo and Apache kids & teenagers, told me once that the Navajo believe the nearby Apache are shorter and smaller than them. He hadn’t given the matter a second thought until a Navajo told him this, and the next time he was among Apache, he noticed that the Apache _ **were** _ actually shorter and smaller.

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**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-native-americans-look-alike/586504/22 "2011-06-23T17:53:47Z")

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Which could easily be caused by diet rather than genetics. It’s a crapshoot. It’s easier to pick up on cultural differences than it is on physical ones.

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**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-native-americans-look-alike/586504/23 "2011-06-24T03:41:09Z")

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Well, diet can cause a noticeable difference and be used to recognize differences. I don’t claim to be an expert on Native Americans, but Tony Hillerman, in all of his SW books, had his characters able to identify different tribal groups from a visual alone.

We’ve had this discussion before about Asians. There is a percentage of the population, I have no idea what, that looks like their group. Eg, 50% of Japanese, look, well, Japanese. And there’s a percentage of Korean’s that look Korean, and Han chinese that look Han. There is also a stereotypical look of certain Han sub-groups. Actress Joan Chen is very stereotypically Shanghaiese looking. I will also agree it is also harder to do so with a 3rd generation Asian Americans. It’s not infallable but I can certainly do better than random and I do get it completely wrong more often than I would like to.

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