On the Aborigines of Brazil. 3 



The Indian population of the large Brazilian empire dis- 

 plays a distinct individual character in all its physical peculi- 

 arities. To examine how far this marked character of the 

 Brazilian aborigines recurs or varies in the other parts of the 

 American continent, in short, in how far it is to be consider- 

 ed a more or less extensive type of the human family, is 

 foreign to my present purpose to enquire ; yet unprejudiced 

 observation leads to the impression, that the red man, as he 

 is found, here in the aborginal forests, there in the bound- 

 less plains of Brazil, is in all essential respects the same, and 

 appears every where as part of one and the same race. 

 Although I have seen him over a great extent of country, 

 from the tropic of Capricorn to the line, from the eastern 

 sea-coast to the boundaries of Peru and Popayan, under very 

 various circumstances and in many different stages of social 

 development, yet I everywhere recognised the most striking 

 characteristics in stature, proportion of limbs, countenance, 

 color, and hair. I must not, however, be understood to say, 

 that the variety in the lineaments of the face, which we are 

 accustomed to observe among civilized nations, was in any 

 degree wanting ill him. True it is, that my companion Von 

 Spix and myself, when we found ourselves among the Indians, 

 thought at first that we could not recognise these marked 

 differences ; but this solely arose from our not being accus- 

 tomed to the striking novelty of their whole appearance, and 

 has been the case with many other travellers in the com- 

 mencement of their journies. After we had got over our 

 first impressions, and were able to observe details, we satis- 

 fied ourselves, that the individual physiognomies of the 

 Indians are as varied and as distinctly marked^ as tliose 

 of any other people equally low in moral, social, and in- 

 tellectual development. It is but natural, that the want of 

 varied occupations, and the absence of the different emo- 

 tions and feelings, which influence civilized man, should tell 

 on the mirror of the soul, the countenance, and deprive it of 



