To the average man of every race the woman who most completely embodies
the type of his race is usually the most beautiful, and even mutilations
and deformities often have their origin, as Humboldt long since pointed
out, in the effort to accentuate the racial type.[152] Eastern women
possess by nature large and conspicuous eyes, and this characteristic
they seek still further to heighten by art. The Ainu are the hairiest of
races, and there is nothing which they consider so beautiful as hair. It
is difficult to be sexually attracted to persons who are fundamentally
unlike ourselves in racial constitution.[153]
It frequently happens that this admiration for racial characteristics
leads to the idealization of features which are far removed from aesthetic
beauty. The firm and rounded breast is certainly a feature of beauty, but
among many of the black peoples of Africa the breasts fall at a very early
period, and here we sometimes find that the hanging breast is admired as
beautiful.
The African Baganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe states (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, January-June, 1902, p. 72), admire
hanging breasts to such an extent that their young women tie them
down in order to hasten the arrival of this condition.
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