ciliary arch. This anomaly, which is generally attributed to an artificial disfiguration of
the head, or the taste of the artist, now admits a more natural explanation ; it being now
proved by these authentic documents, that there really existed on this continent a race
exhibiting this anomalous conformation. The skeletons, which were of both sexes, were
of the ordinary height, although two of the men were above the common stature. These
heads, according to the received opinions in Craniology, could not have occupied a high
position in intellectual standing. This opinion is corroborated by finding an instrument of
imperfect construction joined with the skeletons. This instrument is simply a smooth stone,
of about ten inches iu circumference, evidently intended to bruise seeds or hard substances.
“ In other caverns he has found other human bones, which show equally the characteristics
of fossils, being deprived of all the gelatinous parts, and consequently very brittle
and porous in the fracture.
Finally, the “ Peruvian Antiquities” of Rivero and Tschudi620 corroborate
the above scientific view, viz., that the artificial disfigurement
of the skull among the Inca-Peruvians and other South American
families, owes its origin to the prior existence of an autocthonous
race, in whose,crania such (to us, seemingly) a deformity was natural:
and thus the contradictory materials which induced Dr. Morton at
first to deem this peculiarity to be congenital, and afterwards so exclusively
artificial, become reconciled ; while due regard is preserved to
his truthful candor and craniological acumen.
Fig 297 621 Hi f our forms of the head among
the Old Peruvians, which were produced
by artificial means (as established by Morton,
in Ethnography and Archoeology of the
American Aborigines, 1846), space restricts
me to one example (Fig. 297), on which
the “ course of every bandage is in every
instance distinctly marked by corresponding
cavity of the bony structure ; ” and
another form (Figs. 298, 299) is monumentally
illustrated through D e l R i o ’s
Account of Palenque.522
The learned antiquaries, Rivero and Tschudi, whose researches establish that these
grotesque forms are primeval, no less than congenital (being exhibited even in the
foetus among Peruvian mummies), do not appear to have been aware that Dr. Morton
had already classified the
Fig. 298.
Fig. 299.
four varieties of such
distortions, in a paper
published five years previously
to their work.623
The compression of
the head practised by
various Indian tribes, although
it causes* distortion
of the cranium in
different directions, does
not diminish the volume
of the brain. This singular
fact was announced
many years ago by Prof.
Tiedemann,and has since
been a b u n d a n t ly confirmed
by the multiplied observations of Morton. From the measurements of twenty-six
Peruvian crania, all extremely distorted, some elongated, others eomoal, and others again
flattened on the forehead and expanded laterally, he obtained a mean of 76 cubic inches,
or one inch more than the Peruvian average. From twenty-one native skulls from Oregon,
all more or less distorted by artificial means, he obtained a mean rather below the average
of the barbarous tribes; but from the whole of his measurements of distorted crania, as
derived from the Peruvian and Nootka-Columbian series collectively, he found the average
volume of the brain to be 79 cubic inches, or precisely the mean of the whole American
group of races. I may add that, as mechanical distortion of the skull does not lessen the
volume of the brain, neither does it appear to affect the intellect.
These points established, I would , remark, that the piost striking
anatomical characters of the American ,’erania are, small size, averaging
hut seventy-nine cubic inches internal capacity; low, receding
forehead; short antero-posterior diameter; great inter-parietal diameter;
flattened occiput; prominent vertex; high cheek-bones; ponderous
and somewhat prominent jaws. Such characteristics are more
universal in the Toltecan than the Barbarous tribes. 1 Among the
Iroquois, for instance, the heads were often of a somewhat more
elongated form; hut the Cherokees and Choctaws, who of all modern
Barbarous tribes display greater aptitude for civilization, present the
genuine type in a remarkable degree. My birth and long residence
in Southern States have permitted the study of many of these living
tribes (a hundred Choctaws may be seen daily, even now, in the
streets of Mobile), and they exhibit this conformation almost without
exception. I have also scrutinized many Mexicans, besides Catawbas
of South Carolina, and tribes on the Canada Lakes, and can bear
witness that the living tribes everywhere confirm Morton’s type.
One might, indeed, describe an Indian’s skull by saying, it is the
opposite in every respect from that of the Negro; as much as the
brown complexion of the Red-man is instantly distinguishable from
the Black’s ; or the long hair of the former differs in substance from
the short wool of the latter.
The annexed sketches of
three heads (Figs. 300-306)
will, by comparison, illustrate
this type better than
language. Figs. 300 and
301, a Negro ; Figs. 302
and 303, the head (in my
possession) of a Cherokee
Chief, who died while a
prisoner, near Mobile, in
1837 ;* and Figs. 305 and
306; the antique cranium
from Squier’s mound [ubi
supra, p. 291.]
I shall now proceed
56