352 VARIETIES OF FIGURE. 



I am not acquainted with any natural differences in the 

 form or size of the ears as characterizing the several races 

 of men. It is well known that they stand off further from 

 the head, and are in some degree moveable in savages ; also 

 that the lobulus is enlarged and monstrously elongated by 

 various artificial means in many instances. These practices 

 may have given rise to the fables of some older writers con- 

 cerning the enormous ears of certain people. 



In some instances, a slit is made in the external ear, pa- 

 rallel to and near its circumference, and extending through 

 almost its whole length. This is not only subservient to de- 

 coration by holding ornaments, but is also converted to the 

 convenient purpose of receiving knives or other useful 

 articles *. 



The Brasilians inserted gourds in the slits of their ears, 

 increasing the size until the fist could be put through, and 

 the ears reached the shoulders. When they prepared for 

 battle, these ornamental appendages were fastened behind 

 the head f. 



CoNDAMiNE and Ulloa saw the lobuli extended to four 

 or five inches in length, so as to touch the shoulders in 

 many cases. The perforations were seventeen or eighteen 

 lines in diameter X, 



Similar practices prevail extensively in the Asiatic and 

 South-Sea Islands, where persons are seen with the lobuli 

 reaching the shoulders, and having slits large enough for the 

 hand to pass §. 



I shall shortly mention here some other modes of orna- 

 mental bodily embellishment, which have been practised 



♦ See portrait of a New-Zealander in Hawkes worth's Collection of Voy- 

 ages, V. 3. pi. 13. Also pi. 11 . in the Atlas of Cook's Voyages to the Pacific. 



+ Soothey's History ofBrasil, v. i. pp. 135, 136, and 631 note 36. 



I Memoires de V Acad, de Sciences ; 1745. p. 433. Travels in South Ame- 

 rica,\.\. p. 395. A similar account is given by Adair, Hist, of the North- 

 American Indians,^. 171. 



^ FoRSTER, Obs. on a Voyage round the World, p. 592. A man at Tanna 

 wore thirteen ear-rings of turtle-shell, an inch in diameter, and three quarters 

 of an inch broad. Cook's Voy. towards the South Pole^ v. i. p 290, pi. 46 

 and 47. Man and woman of Easter Island, with elongated lobuli. 



