MAN— BEAUTY. 577 



The general truth of the principle, long ago Insisted on by 

 Humboldt,™ that man admires and often tries to exaggerate what- 

 ever characters nature may have given him, is shown in many 

 ways. The practice of beardless races extirpating every trace of 

 a beard, and often all the hairs on the body, affords one illustra- 

 tion. The skull has been greatly modified during ancient and 

 modern times by many nations; and there can be little doubt 

 that this has been practiced, especially in N. and S. America, In 

 order to exaggerate some natural and admired peculiarity. Many 

 American Indians are known to admire a head so extremely flat- 

 tened as to appear to us idiotic. The natives on the north-western 

 coast compress the head into a pointed cone; and it Is their con- 

 stant practice to gather the hair Into a knot on the top of the 

 head, for the sake, as Dr. Wilson remarks, "of increasing the ap- 

 "parent elevation of the favorite conoid form." The inhabitants 

 of Arakhan "admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in order to pro- 

 "duce It, they fasten a plate of lead on the heads of the new-born 

 "children." On the other hand, "a broad, well-rounded occiput is 

 "considered a great beauty" by the natives of the Fiji islands.™ 



As with the skull, so with the nose; the ancient Huns during 

 the age of Attlla. were accustomed to flatten the noses of their 

 Infants with bandages, "for the sake of exaggerating a natural 

 "conformation." With the Tahitians, to be called long-nose is 

 considered an Insult, and they compress the noses and fore- 

 heads of their children for the sake of beauty. The same holds 

 with the Malays of Sumatra, the Hottentots, certain Negroes, 

 and the natives of Brazil." The Chinese have by nature un- 

 usually small feet;™ and It is well known that the women of 

 the upper classes distort their feet to make them still smaller. 

 Lastly, Humboldt thinks that the American Indians prefer col- 



should add that a most experienced observer, Capt. Burton, believes 

 that a woman whom we consider beautiful is admired throughout the 

 world, 'Anthropological Review," March, 1864, p. 245. 



09 'Personal Narrative,' Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 518, and elsewhere. 

 Mantegazza, in his 'Viaggi e Studi,' 1867, strongly insists on this same 

 principle. 



™ On the skulls of the American tribes, see Nott and Gliddon, 'Types 

 of Mankind,' 1854, p. 440; Prichard, 'Phys. Hist, of Mankind,' vol. i. 

 3rd edit. p. 321 ; on the natives of Arakhan, ibid. vol. iv. p. 537. Wilson, 

 'Physical Ethnology,' Smithsonian Institution, 1863, p. 288; on the 

 Fijians, p. 290. Sir J. Lubbock ('Prehistoric Times,' 2nd edit. 1869, p. 

 506) gives an excellent resume on this subject. 



■" On the Huns, Godron, 'De rEspece,* torn. il. 1859, p. 30O. On the 

 Tahitians, "Waltz, 'Anthropolog.' Eng. translat. vol. i. p. 305. Marsden, 

 quoted by Prichard, 'Phys. Hist, of Mankind,' 3rd edit. vol. v. p. 67. 

 Lawrence, 'Lectures on Physiology,' p. 337. 



'2 This fact was ascertained in the 'Reiss der Novara: Anthropolog. 

 Theil,' Dr. Weisbach, 1867, s. 265. 



