THE AMERICAN FAMILY. 67 



like that of hearing among the same people, is perhaps chiefly to be attributed to 

 its constant and assiduous cultivation. The cheek bones are large and prominent, 

 and incline rapidly towards the lower jaw, giving the face an angular conformation. 

 The upper jaw is often elongated and much inclined outwards, but the teeth are 

 for the most part vertical. The lower jaw is broad and ponderous, and truncated 

 in front. The teeth are also very large, and seldom decayed ; for among the 

 many that remain in the skulls in my possession, very few present any marks of 

 disease, although they are often much worn down by attrition in the mastication 

 of hard substances. The long, black, lank hair, is common to all the American 

 tribes, among whom no trace of the frizzled locks of the Polynesian, or the woolly 

 texture of the Negro, has ever been observed. The beard is very deficient among 

 the Americans generally, and the little that nature gives them they assiduously 

 eradicate from early manhood. It is perhaps in this respect that we observe the 

 nearest analogy between the Americans and Mongols, although it is far from 

 being peculiar to them alone. It is not, however, as De Pauw asserts, that the 

 beard is w^hoUy wanting,* for travellers have occasionally noticed it long and full 

 where it has been allowed its natural growth. Examples of this kind have been 

 particularly observed among the Chippewyans, and the Slave and Dog-ribbed 

 Indians of the far north.f Lewis and Clarke remark that the beard, among the 

 Chopunnish west of the Rocky Mountains, " is very often suffered to grow, nor 

 does there appear to be any natural deficiency in that respect ; for we observed 

 several men w^ho, if they had adopted the practice of shaving, would have been as 

 well supplied as ourselves.''^ La Perouse observed good beards in about one half 

 of the Indians of New California, and the rest had probably eradicated theirs by 

 art : and Molina says that the Chilians occasionally have as thick beards as the 

 Spaniards. § " The mustaches, which modern travellers have found among the 

 inhabitants of the northwest coast of America," says Humboldt, " are so much 

 the more curious, as celebrated naturalists have left the question undetermined, 

 whether the Americans have naturally no beard, and no hairs on the rest of their 

 bodies, or whether they pluck them carefully out. Without entering here into 

 physiological details, I can affirm that the Indians who inhabit the torrid zone of 

 South America have generally some beard ; and that this beard increases when 



* " Les Americains etaient surtout remarquables en ce que les sourcils manquaient a un grand 

 nombre, et la barbe cl foiis.'^ 



t Mackenzie, Trav. in N. Amer. p. 36, j Exped. 11, p. 292, 



§ Hist, of Chili, I, p. 275. 



