131 



the point, and ornamented with the amphibaena, 

 or mysterious double-headed serpent. It is 

 possible, that this extraordinary physiognomy 

 might indicate a race of men very different from 

 that which now inhabits these countries, whose 

 noses are broad, flat, and of a moderate size ; 

 but it is also possible, that the Mexican people 

 might have thought, with the prince of philo- 

 sophers *, that there was something majestic 

 and royal (fisanhntov) in a large nose, and might 

 have considered it in their reliefs and in their 

 paintings, as the symbol of power and moral 

 worth. 



The pointed form of the heads is not less 

 striking in the Mexican drawings, than the size 

 of the noses. If we examine osteologically the 

 skulls of the natives of America, we see, as I 

 have elsewhere remarked, that there is no race 

 on the Globe in which the frontal bone is more 

 flattened, or which have less forehead -j~. This 

 extraordinary flattening exists among people of 

 the copper-coloured race, who have never been 

 acquainted with the custom of producing arti- 

 ficial deformities, as is proved by the skulls of 

 Mexican, Peruvian, and Azteck Indians, which 

 M. Bonpland and myself brought to Europe, 



* Plato, de Republica, lib. 5. 



t Blumenbach, Decas quinta Craniorum, 1808, p. 14, 

 tab. 46. 



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