Physically the Maoris are true Polynesians, tall, well-built, with straight or slightly curved noses, high foreheads and oval faces.
We have the means of comparing the personal appearance of the Mexicans and Central Americans by their portraits on early sculptures, vases, &c.; and, though there does not appear any clear distinction of race-type, the extraordinary back-sloping foreheads of such figures as those of the bas-reliefs of Palenque prove that the custom of flattening the skull in infancy prevailed in Central America to an extent quite beyond any such habit in Mexico.
Mexican peasants regularly paint or tattoo a cross on their foreheads, and the old Armenian equivalent for destiny or fate is cakatagir or forehead-writing.
The "soldiers" of Mithras, says Tertullian, were signed or sealed on their foreheads.
The foreheads of these two skulls have an ape-like form, obvious on comparison with the simian skulls of the gorilla and other apes, and visible even in the smallscale figures in the Plate, fig.
