Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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They Wear Their
Hair Plaited In Two Long Tresses; They Do Not Paint Their Skin; And
Wear No Other Ornaments Than Necklaces And Bracelets Made Of
Shells, Birds' Bones, And Seeds.
Both men and women are very
muscular, but at the same time fleshy and plump.
I saw no person
who had any natural deformity; and I may say the same of thousands
of Caribs, Muyscas, and Mexican and Peruvian Indians, whom we
observed during the course of five years. Bodily deformities, and
deviations from nature, are exceedingly rare among certain races of
men, especially those who have the epidermis highly coloured; but I
cannot believe that they depend solely on the progress of
civilization, a luxurious life, or the corruption of morals. In
Europe a deformed or very ugly girl marries, if she happen to have
a fortune, and the children often inherit the deformity of the
mother. In the savage state, which is a state of equality, no
consideration can induce a man to unite himself to a deformed
woman, or one who is very unhealthy. Such a woman, if she resist
the accidents of a restless and troubled life, dies without
children. We might be tempted to think, that savages all appear
well-made and vigorous, because feeble children die young for want
of care, and only the strongest survive; but these causes cannot
operate among the Indians of the Missions, whose manners are like
those of our peasants, or among the Mexicans of Cholula and
Tlascala, who enjoy wealth, transmitted to them by ancestors more
civilized than themselves.
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