The truth of the principle, long ago insisted on by Humboldt,[440] that man admires and often tries to exaggerate whatever characters nature may have given him, is shewn in many ways. The practice of beardless races extirpating every trace of a beard, and generally all the hairs on the body, offers one illustration. The skull has been greatly modified during ancient and modern times by many nations; and there can be little doubt that this has been practised, especially in N. and S. America, in order to exaggerate some natural and admired peculiarity. Many American Indians are known to admire a head flattened to such an extreme degree as to appear to us like that of an idiot. The natives on the north-western coast compress the head into a pointed cone; and it is their constant practice to gather the hair into a knot on the top of the head, for the sake, as Dr. Wilson remarks, “of increasing the apparent elevation of the favourite conoid form.” The inhabitants of Arakhan “admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in order to produce it, they fasten a plate of lead on the heads of the newborn children.” On the other hand, “a broad, well-rounded occiput is considered a great beauty” by the natives of the Fiji islands.[441] As with the skull, so with the nose; the ancient Huns during the age of Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with bandages, “for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation.” With the Tahitians, to be called, _long-nose_ is considered as an insult, and they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of beauty. So it is with the Malays of Sumatra, the Hottentots, certain Negroes, and the natives of Brazil.[442] The Chinese have by nature unusually small feet;[443] and it is well known that the women of the upper classes distort their feet to make them still smaller. Lastly, Humboldt thinks that the American Indians prefer colouring their bodies with red paint in order to exaggerate their natural tint; and until recently European women added to their naturally bright colours by rouge and white cosmetics; but I doubt whether many barbarous nations have had any such intention in painting themselves.