78 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



presented a congenital form of head entirely different from that which characterizes 

 the great American race, but believed it to have been fully established by the 

 observations of M. D'Orbigny that the peculiarities of shape were wholly artificial, 

 and the result of pressure in infancy. 1 



The osteological characters are thus detailed in Dr. Morton's latest production : 

 " The Indian skull is of a decidedly rounded form. The occipital portion is flattened 

 in the upward direction, and the transverse diameter, as measured between the 

 parietal bones, is remarkably wide, and often exceeds the longitudinal line. The 

 forehead is low and receding, and rarely arched as in the other races ; a feature that 

 is regarded by Humboldt, Lund, and other naturalists, as a characteristic of the 

 American race, and serving to distinguish it even from the Mongolian. The cheek 

 bones are high, but not much expanded; the whole maxillary region is salient and 

 ponderous, with teeth of a corresponding size, and singularly free from decay. The 

 orbits are large and squared, the nasal orifice wide, and the bones that protect it 

 arched and expanded. The lower jaw is massive, and wide between the condyles; 

 but, notwithstanding the prominent position of the face, the teeth are for the most 

 part vertical." 2 



Such are the traits indicated by a comparison of upwards of four hundred crania 

 of tribes inhabiting almost every region of North and South America. It is stated 

 that the acute angles of the eyes seldom present the obliquity so common in the 

 Malays and Mongolians; that the color of the eye is almost uniformly between 

 black and gray; and that, even in young persons, it seldom has the brightness, or 

 expresses the vivacity, usual in the more civilized races. 



The moral constitution of the Americans is regarded as not less specific than the 

 physical, and as equally pervading the entire race. The intellectual appears to 

 exhibit greater diversity, and Dr. Morton has arbitrarily grouped the aborigines 

 into two families : one embracing the tribes which had made advances in civiliza- 

 tion, and termed by him Toltecan; the other, a more numerous division, consisting 

 of those remaining in a barbarous condition, which he calls American. These 

 appellations are by no means satisfactory or distinctive, unless the Toltecans are 



1 It will be seen, on subsequent pages, that this curious question continues to be involved in its 

 original obscurity. Humboldt wrote, in 1808, " This extraordinary flatness is found among cations to 

 whom the means of producing artificial deformity are totally unknown, as is proved by the crania of 

 Mexican Indians, Peruvians, and Atures, brought over by M. Bonpland and myself, of which several 

 were deposited in the Museum of Natural History at Paris. I am inclined to believe that the barbarous 

 custom which prevails among several hordes of pressing the heads of children between two boards, had 

 its origin in the idea that beauty consists in such a form of the frontal bone as to characterize the race 

 in a decided manner." — Political Essay, I, 154. 



Dr. Morton, when he published his Crania Americana, concurred in this view, but was led to change 

 his opinions by the statements of D'Orbigny, who was supposed to have proved, by an examination of 

 the tombs of the ancient race, that the greater number of crania were not flattened ; that the peculiarity 

 was confined to the men; and, as the most ill-shaped heads were found in the largest and finest tombs, 

 that the deformity was a mark of distinction. Traces of the bandages and the mode of their application 

 were also believed to be clearly discernible. — L'homme Americain considere sous ses Pap. Phys. el 

 Mor., par Alcide D'Orbigny. 1839. 



1 Schoolcraft's Hist, and Prosp., &c, II, 316. 



