80 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
Among the many models of perfection in the 
human figure that appear in the islands, (present¬ 
ing to the eye of the stranger all that is beautiful 
in symmetry and graceful in action,) instances of 
deformity are now frequently seen, arising from a 
loathsome disease, of foreign origin, affecting the 
features of the face, and muscular parts of the 
body. There is another disease, which forms such 
a curvature of the upper part of the spine, as to 
produce what is termed a humped or broken back. 
The disease which produces this distortion of shape, 
and deformity of appearance, is declared, by the 
natives, to have been unknown to their ancestors ; 
and, according to the accounts some of them give 
of it, was the result of a disease left by the crew of 
Vancouver’s ship. It does not prevail in any of 
the other groups ; and although such numbers are 
now affected with it, there is no reason to believe, 
that, formerly, except the many disfigurements pro¬ 
duced by the elephantiasis, which appears to have 
prevailed from their earliest antiquity, a deformed 
person was seldom seen. 
The countenance of the Society Islander is open 
and prepossessing, though the features are bold, 
and sometimes prominent. The facial angle is fre¬ 
quently as perpendicular as in the European struc¬ 
ture, excepting where the frontal and the occipital 
bones of the skull were pressed together in infancy. 
This was frequently done by the mothers, with the 
male children, when they were designed for war¬ 
riors. \The forehead is sometimes low, but fre¬ 
quently high, and finely formed; the eye-brows 
are dark and well defined, occasionally arched, but 
more generally straight; the eyes seldom large, 
but bright and full, and of a jet-black colour ; 
the cheek-bones not high; the nose either recti- 
