Note 214 — Chapter XXV · ACCOUNT OF THE MANDAN INDIANS

Say, who, in general, gives a very accurate description of the North American Indians (see Major Long's Travels), lays too much stress, as it appears to me, on the character of the receding of the forehead; for, by a comparison of a great many skulls, I have fully convinced myself of the contrary. Say affirmed, also, that the facial angle is not so small as Professor Blumenbach supposes. The Indian features, as far as my experience reaches, cannot be called either Mongol or Malay, the latter of which is more perceptible in the Brazilians, notwithstanding the manifest affinity with the North Americans. The learned traveller, Augustus de St. Hilaire, even attributes to the Brazilians a conformation of the skull, according to which those people are endowed with inferior intellectual faculties. (See Voyages dans les Districts de Diamande). The missionary, Parker, in his Travels to the Columbia River, p. 155, expresses himself, in this respect, entirely in accordance with my views; and D'Orbigny confirms them in respect to the South Americans, in the conformation of whose skulls he found considerable diversities.—Maximilian.