144 CRANIA AMERICANA. 



towards the temples, prominent cheek-bones, thick lips, and an expression of 

 gentleness in the mouth strongly contrasted with a gloomy and severe look."* 

 The same author adds, that the Mexicans, especially of the Aztec and Ottomite 

 races, have more beard than any other American nation. " Almost all the Indians 

 in the neighborhood of the capital, (Mexico)," says he, " wear small mustaches, 

 and it is even a mark of the tributary cast."t 



This account of the physical character of the Mexicans is chiefly derived 

 from Clavigero, who w^ell knew the people of whom he wrote, not only from 

 having studied all the works that have been written respecting them, but especially 

 from having resided thirty-six years among them. This author, however, states 

 that the Mexicans have narrow foreheads ; which may be in general true of the 

 existing tribes, but the remark does not apply to the ancient nations, as is proved 

 both by their sculpture and their crania. 



On the Heads of the Ancient Mexicans, — I have not succeeded in obtaining 

 an adequate series of Mexican skulls, and of those in my possession but eight are 

 older than the conquest. No one of them is altered by art, and they present a 

 striking resemblance, both in size and configuration, to the heads of the Ancient 

 Peruvians, In examining the delineations in Del Rio'sJ account of Palenque, I 

 observed in the corner of his fifth plate, a small, inverted skull, which is so com- 

 pletely characteristic of these nations that I have had it drawn on a larger scale, 

 preserving, however, the exact proportions of the original. On comparing this 

 skull with those of the Peruvians^ already figured, a striking resemblance is 

 manifest in the great lateral swell of the head, the rather expanded forehead, and 

 the prominent aspect of the vertex or crown. 



* Political Essay on New Spain, p. \05,^N. York ed. t Loco citat. 



t Description of the Ruins of an Ancient City in Guatemala. 



§ See more particularly the skull from the Temple of the Sun, plate XL— C, and compare this 

 again with the Natchez heads. The Palenquian relic is a medium between the two. 



