Burton, believes that a woman whom we consider beautiful is admired
throughout the world. Anthropological Review, March, 1864, p. 245.)
The general truth of the principle, long ago insisted on by Humboldt
(69. Personal Narrative, Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 518, and
elsewhere. Mantegazza, in his Viaggi e Studi, strongly insists on
this same principle.), that man admires and often tries to exaggerate
whatever characters nature may have given him, is shewn in many ways.
The practice of beardless races extirpating every trace of a beard, and
often all the hairs on the body affords one illustration. The skull has
been greatly modified during ancient and modern times by many nations;
and there can be little doubt that this has been practised, especially
in N. and S. America, in order to exaggerate some natural and admired
peculiarity. Many American Indians are known to admire a head so
extremely flattened as to appear to us idiotic. The natives on the
north-western coast compress the head into a pointed cone; and it is
their constant practice to gather the hair into a knot on the top of
the head, for the sake, as Dr. Wilson remarks, of increasing the
apparent elevation of the favourite conoid form. The inhabitants of
Arakhan admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in order to produce it,
they fasten a plate of lead on the heads of the new-born children. On
the other hand, a broad, well-rounded occiput is considered a great
beauty by the natives of the Fiji Islands. (70. On the skulls of the
American tribes, see Nott and Gliddon, Types of Mankind, 1854, p.
440; Prichard, Physical History of Mankind, vol. i. 3rd ed. p. 321;
on the natives of Arakhan, ibid. vol. iv. p. 537. Wilson, Physical
Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, 1863, p. 288; on the Fijians, p.
290. Sir J. Lubbock ( Prehistoric Times, 2nd ed. 1869, p. 506) gives
an excellent resume on this subject.)
As with the skull, so with the nose; the ancient Huns during the age of
Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with
bandages, for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation. With
the Tahitians, to be called LONG-NOSE is considered as an insult, and
they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of
beauty. The same holds with the Malays of Sumatra, the Hottentots,
certain Negroes, and the natives of Brazil. (71. On the Huns, Godron,
De l Espece, tom. ii. 1859, p. 300. On the Tahitians, Waitz,
Anthropology, Eng. translat. vol. i. p. 305. Marsden, quoted by
Prichard, Phys. Hist. of Mankind, 3rd edit. vol. v. p. 67. Lawrence,
607