316 BIMANA. 



Titicaca) belonged. Many sepulchres of the present race of Peruvian 

 Indians occur along the coast of the Pacific Ocean ; the skulls found in 

 which agree, in every respect, with the form of that race ; but in no 

 instances do they possess the peculiar characters of those found in the 

 interior. A careful examination of these skulls has convinced me that 

 their peculiar shape cannot be owing to artificial pressure. The great 

 elongation of the face, and the direction of the plane of the occipital bone, 

 are not to be reconciled with this opinion ; and, therefore, we must con- 

 clude, that the peculiarity of shape depends on a natural conformation. 

 If this view of the subject be correct, it follows, that these skulls belonged 

 to a race of mankind now extinct, and which differed from any now exist- 

 ing." That pressure was used, however, there is every reason to believe ;* 

 nor was the practice confined to Peru. It prevailed among the Caribs, in 

 Carolina, and is now continued by the Indians on the banks of the river 

 Columbia and Nootka Sound ; but, as it more immediately relates to the 

 Peruvians, after the fall of the Incas dynasty, and under Spanish legislation, 

 the practice was still continued, as is proved by an edict issued by the third 

 synod of the diocese of Lima (1585), prohibiting this unnatural custom. 



Another writer, who advocates the Malayan colonization of America, 

 along its western coast, from California to Chili, is M. Bory St. Vincent ; and, 

 as he justly observes, it was by availing himself of the discord between the 

 aboriginal tribes of Mexico and the foreign race, by whom the empire was 

 founded, that Cortes succeeded in overthrowing the throne of Monte zuma.-j- 

 He might have added, that Montezuma himself stated, that his ancestors 

 came from a remote region, conquered the country, and founded a great 

 empire, of which the chief city was Mexico, or Tenuchtitlan ; and that, 

 according to an ancient tradition, the person who founded the colony 

 returned to his own country, promising that, at some future period, his 

 descendants should visit them, assume the government, and reform their 

 constitution and laws.J Nearly similar, if reduced to plain language, is 



* The process of compressing the skull of the infant, in order to give it the form deemed 

 essential to beauty, has been previously noticed (p. 206.) 



t Cortes was joined by the natives of Tempoalla, Quiabislau, the Totonaques, a fierce mountain 

 people, and the Tlascalans, a warlike nation, all impatient of the domination of the Mexican 

 empire. 



I "According to the account of the Mexicans themselves, their empire was not of long duration. 

 Their country, as they relate, was originally possessed, rather than people^d, by small independent 

 tribes, whose mode of life and manners resembled those of the rudest savages. But, about a period 

 corresponding to the beginning of the tenth century of the Christian era, several tribes moved, in 

 successive 'migrations, from unknown regions, towards the north and north-west, and settled in 

 different provinces of Anahuac, the ancient name of New Spain: these, more civilized than the 

 original inhabitants, began to form them to the arts of social life. At length, toward the commencement 

 of the thirteenth century, the Mexicans, a people more polished than any of the former, advanced from 

 the border of the Californian Gulf, and took possession of the plains adjacent to the Great Lake, near the 

 centre of the country : after residing there about fifty years, they founded a town, since distinguished 

 by the name of Mexico, which, from humble beginnings, soon grew to be the most considerable city of 

 the New World. The Mexicans, long after they were established in their new possessions, continued, 

 like other martial tribes in America, unacquainted with regal dominion, and were governed in peace, 



