OUR RACE AND ITS ORIGIN. 
77 
Some tribes view certain peculiarities of person as being 
most becoming. In America there is a tribe which has the 
practice of pressing the skull of the poor infant between two 
boards to render it flat, hence they have acquired the sobriquet 
of Flat Heads. The Maori admires a flat nose as a mark of 
beauty, and to acquire this, the poor infant must have the 
bridge of the nose pressed in and broken. Thus with the 
Chinese a small foot is the grand proof of female beauty ; 
% and to obtain it the infant's shoe is made the measure of the 
full-grown woman's foot. Unnaturally small waists are, or 
used to be, in a similar way admired with us. 
Thus different nations have some custom or other which 
tends to impart a peculiar feature to that section of the 
human family, and so aids in puzzling ethnologists to ac- 
count for these apparently unaccountable differences, and 
compels them to demand an increased number of parents 
for the human race. 
The variety of color in the human hair must likewise be 
noticed; it is almost as wonderful as even the different 
shades of the skin. To a certain extent the complexion 
corresponds with the hair. The bright red is generally 
accompanied by a freckled skin, the flaxen by the contrast of 
the lily and the rose on the face, the black by the absence of 
the latter. Races may be distinguished by their hair. The 
prevailing colour of the Dane is red, of the Saxon flaxen, 
and of the Spaniard black. The eye of one is grey, of 
another blue, and of the last black. The hair of the Dane 
is curly, of the Saxon wavy, and of the Spaniard straight ; 
and widely separated as the red haired inhabitant of northern 
Europe is from the Polynesian Isles, yet even there we find 
his counterpart in the natives of Fiji, Samoa and other isles. 
The general color of the New Zealander's hair is black, but 
instances of brown, flaxen, and red are far from being uncom- 
mon. Climate seems to have a decided influence in determining 
the color of the hair. The colonial children of Australia 
are generally to be distinguished by their white curly locks ; 
the horses of Normandy, by being so frequently white, whilst 
those of Australia are chestnut. 
