98 CRANIA AMERICANA. 



The first idea that occurs to every one on looking at a series of these skulls 

 is, that their peculiarities are in a great measure artificial. If, however, we care- 

 fully examine the cranium figured on the fourth plate, together with the accom- 

 panying smaller outlines, we find no evidence of mechanical compression. This 

 head, on the contrary, appears to be of the natural form, unaltered by art; and it 

 is figured as an illustrative type of the cranial peculiarities of the people now 

 under consideration. 



It must almost invariably happen, that when the forehead of a naturally 

 rounded head has been much compressed by art, the back and lateral parts of the 

 cranium become proportionally expanded, in order to make room for the brain that 

 has been displaced from the anterior chamber. Thus, among all the specimens I 

 have seen of this deformity, from the tribes on the Columbia river, the ancient 

 inhabitants of Venezuela, the Charibs of the Antilles and some tribes of Peruvians, 

 I have met with no exceptions to the preceding rule. All these nations have, 

 naturally, spheroidal heads, and the result of mechanical compression is such as 

 above described; a point on which the reader can judge for himself by comparing 

 the illustrations in various parts of this work. Now the heads of these ancient 

 Peruvians seldom present such lateral expansion; but on the contrary are as 

 remarkable for their narrowness as for their length. In fact their low facial angle, 

 their sloping forehead, and their protruding face, might lead to a suspicion of a 

 Negro origin, were it not for the unanswerable evidence derived from the texture 

 of the hair. This is uniformly long. and lank, and appears to have been worn 

 at full length by both sexes, and its natural blackness is preserved notwithstanding 

 centuries of inhumation. I am free to admit that the naturally elongated heads 

 of these people were often rendered more so by the intervention of art, but such 

 examples are for the most part readily detected. It is a feature both of civilised 

 and savage communities to admire their own national characteristics above all 

 others, and hence where nature has denied an imaginary grace, art is called in to 

 supply the deficiency; and even where there has been no such deficiency, human 

 vanity prompts to extravagance. Thus I have seen some skulls of this race which 

 must have been naturally very low and long; yet in order to exaggerate a feature 

 that was considered beautiful, compression has been applied until the whole head 

 has assumed more the character of the monkey than the man. An example of 

 this kind will be seen in the fifth plate, wherein the evidence of artificial flattening 

 of the forehead is undeniable: but the congenital lowness of this region and great 

 length of the head, have made very little compression necessary to effect the 

 desired object ; whence there has resulted but a trifling expansion of the posterior 

 and lateral parts of the skull. On the other hand, had this cranium been of the 



