Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 488 of 779 - First - Home
Venet.
1557.) I say most of them, because there are tribes which, as they
appear distinct from the others, are more worthy of fixing our
attention.
Such are, in North America, the Chippewas visited by
Mackenzie, and the Yabipaees, near the Toltec ruins at Moqui, with
bushy beards; in South America, the Patagonians and the Guaraunos.
Among these last are some who have hairs on the breast. When the
Chaymas, instead of extracting the little hair they have on the
chin, attempt to shave themselves frequently, their beards grow. I
have seen this experiment tried with success by young Indians, who
officiated at mass, and who anxiously wished to resemble the
Capuchin fathers, their missionaries and masters. The great mass of
the people, however, dislike the beard, no less than the Eastern
nations hold it in reverence. This antipathy is derived from the
same source as the predilection for flat foreheads, which is
evinced in so singular a manner in the statues of the Aztec heroes
and divinities. Nations attach the idea of beauty to everything
which particularly characterizes their own physical conformation,
their national physiognomy.* (* Thus, in their finest statues, the
Greeks exaggerated the form of the forehead, by elevating beyond
proportion the facial line.) Hence it ensues that among a people to
whom Nature has given very little beard, a narrow forehead, and a
brownish red skin, every individual thinks himself handsome in
proportion as his body is destitute of hair, his head flattened,
and his skin besmeared with annatto, chica, or some other
copper-red colour.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 488 of 779
Words from 132283 to 132547
of 211363
