THE AMERICAN FAMILY. 65 



designation, it is proposed to adopt the name of Fuegians. Their own national 

 appellation is Yamnnacunnee. They rove over a sterile w^aste w^hich is computed 

 to be as large as the half of Ireland, and yet their w^hole number has been 

 computed by Forster at tv^o thousand souls.* The physical aspect of these 

 people is altogether repulsive, and their domestic usages tend to heighten the 

 defects of nature. They are of low stature, seldom exceeding five feet four or 

 five inches. They have large heads, broad faces, and small eyes. Their chests 

 are large, their bodies clumsy, with large knees and ill-shaped legs. Their hair 

 is lank, black and coarse, and their complexion a decided brown, like that of the 

 more northern tribes. The expression of face is vacant, and their mental opera- 

 tions are to the last degree slow and stupid ; they are almost destitute of the usual 

 curiosity of savages, caring little for any thing that does not minister to their 

 present wants. The difference between the Fuegians and the other Americans is 

 no doubt attributable to the effects of climate and locality, and the consequent 

 habits of life, which tend, in this instance, to depress and brutalise the mind, and 

 to impair the physical man. 



General Observations on the Barbarous Nations composing the American 

 Family. — xlfter examining a great number of skulls, I find that the nations east 

 of the Alleghany mountains, together with the cognate tribes, have the head more 

 elongated than any other Americans. This remark applies especially to the great 

 Lenape stock, the Iroquois, and the Cherokees. To the west of the Mississippi 

 we again meet with the elongated head in the Mandans, Ricaras, Assinaboins and 

 «ome other tribes. Yet even in these instances the characteristic truncation of the 

 occiput is more or less obvious, while many nations east of the Rocky Mountains 

 have the rounded head so characteristic of the race, as the Osages, Ottoes, Missouris, 

 Dacotas, and numerous others. The same conformation is common in Florida; but 

 some of these nations are evidently of the Toltecan family, as both their characters 

 and traditions testify. The head of the Charibs, as well of the Antilles as of 

 Terra Firma, are also naturally rounded ; and we trace this character, so far as 

 we have had opportunity for examination, through the nations east of the Andes, 

 the Patagonians and the tribes of Chili. In fact, the flatness of the occipital 

 portion of the cranium will probably be found to characterise a greater or less 

 number of individuals in every existing tribe, from Terra del Fuego to the 

 Canadas. If these skulls be viewed from behind, w^e observe the occipital outline 



* Obs. During a Voy. Round the World, p. 225, 

 17 



