With respect to the origin of this singular custom, Humboldt is inclined to think that it may be traced from the natural inclination of each race to look upon their own personal peculiarities as the standard of beauty. He observes that the pointed form of the heads is very striking in the Mexican drawings, and continues thus: "If we examine osteologically the skulls of the natives of America, we see that there is no race on the globe in which the frontal bone is more flattened or which have less forehead.[267] (Blumenbach, _Decas Quinta Craniorum_, tab. xlvi., p. 14, 1808.) This extraordinary flattening exists among people of the copper-colored race, who have never been acquainted with the custom of producing artificial deformities, as is proved by the skulls of Mexican, Peruvian, and Aztec Indians, which M. Bonpland and myself brought to Europe, and several of which are deposited in the Museum 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 (_Leçons d'Anatomie Comparée_, tom. ii., p. 6) that the Grecian artists, in the statues of heroes, raised the facial line from 85° to 100°, or beyond the natural form. I am led to think that the barbarous 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 compression of the bone by which Nature has characterized the American race. It is no doubt from following this standard of beauty that even the Aztec people, who never disfigured the heads of their children, have represented their heroes and principal divinities with heads much flatter than any of the Caribs I saw on the Lower Orinoco."--Humboldt's _Researches on the Ancient Inhabitants of America_.]
[Footnote 267: "L'anatomie comparée en offre une autre confirmation dans la proportion constante du volume des lobes cérébrales avec le degré d'intelligence des animaux."--Cuvier's _Report to the Institute on Flouren's Experiments in 1822_.]
[Footnote 268: "Ces huiles leur sont absolument nécessaires, et ils sont mangés de vermine quand elles leur manquent."--Lafitau, tom. i., p. 59.