132 
and several of which are deposited in the Mu- 
seum of Natural History at Paris. The negroes 
prefer the thickest and most prominent lips ; the 
Calmucks perceive the line of beauty in turned 
up noses. M. Cuvier ^ observes^ that the Gre- 
cian artists/ in the statues of heroes, raised the 
facial line from 85 to 100 degrees, or beyond the 
natural form. I am led to think, that the bar- 
barous custom, among certain savage tribes in 
America, of squeezing the heads of children 
between two planks, arises from the idea, that 
beauty consists in this extraordinary compres- 
sion of the frontal bone, by which nature has 
characterized the American race. It is no 
doubt from following this standard of beauty, 
that even the Azteck people, who never dis- 
hgured the heads of their children, have repre- 
sented their heroes and principal divinities with 
heads much flatter than any of the Caribs I saw 
on the lower Orinoco. 
The figure of the warrior in the relief of 
Oaxaca presents a very extraordinary mixture 
of costumes. The Ornaments of his headdress, 
which has the shape of a helmet ; those of the 
standard (lignum) , which he holds in the left 
hand, and on which we see a bird, as on the 
standard of Ocotelolco ; are found in all the 
Azteck paintings. The vest with the long and 
* Le 9 onsd’Anatoraie conaparee, t. 2, p. 0. 
