What was Brawne's race?

Question

After reading all four books in the Hyperion Cantos, I wanted to know whether Lusians in general were white or black or unspecified--I know they were short and stocky because of the high gravity. The author generally goes into a lot of detail about various people's and worlds ethnic traits so I was wondering if I missed this about the Lusians.

Answer 1

She appears to be Caucasian. The main description of her...

she's shorter than many others, but has "heavy layers of muscle" (1.30). She also has "black curls [that] reached to her shoulders" (1.30) and a mouth "wide and expressive to the point of being sensuous, curled slightly at the corners in a slight smile which might be cruel or merely playful" (1.30) According to the narrator, she "might well be considered beautiful" (1.31). _^Schmoop

...doesn't mention her racial characteristics but there is a point in Hyperion where she uses a melanin pill to turn her skin black which implies that she was Caucasian (or at least non-black) beforehand:

Instead of ’casting back to Lusus, I spent a few minutes checking the plaza and side streets. By this time the melanin pill I’d swallowed had worked and I was a young black woman—or man, it was hard to tell in my trendy red balloon jacket and polarized visor, strolling idly while taking pictures with my tourist imager.