294 OEIGTNAL ARTICLES. 



nians and Gauls. And, if any further proof were required that such 

 nursing did produce this flatness, it is afforded by an examination of 

 the skulls of those tribes of North American Indians, who adopt 

 cradle-boards for their infants. In the calvarium of a Lenni-Lenape 

 from an old grave on the Delaware, which is in my collection, 

 exactly the same parieto-occipital flatness is seen, occupying the spot 

 already pointed out. (Fig. 3.) Like European examples, this cranium is 

 asymmetrical, being more depressed on the right than the left side, as 

 is generally, perhaps universally, the case ; which has arisen from the 

 child having been laid with an inclination to the right, or, more 

 likely, having had by nature greater power in the organs of the 

 right half of the body.* 



It seems most probable that the board upon which the women of 

 the so-called "Celtic" tribes placed their new-born infants to be 

 nursed, was not a mere piece of flat board, like that in use by some 

 of the North American Indian tribes. More likely it had a sort of 

 inclined or sloping shelf, or pillow, at its upper part, against which 

 the child's head rested. Some contrivance of this kind is introduced 

 into the cradles of the Flathead-Tribes, on the Columbia Eiver, as is 

 seen in the figure given in Morton's " Crania Americana," p. 204, 

 although, in this case, it is not placed in a sloping position. Tlie 

 different angle at which this inclined shelf for the head was intro- 

 duced, accounts for the diversities in the direction of the parieto- 

 occipital flatness, as seen in different skulls. Probably with a 

 supply of the soft flocculent sphagmim, the child woidd be secured 

 by straps, and retained in a pretty comfortable position, during the 

 period of suclding, which lasts a long time among all primitive 

 people. And, with a cradle so contrived, the mother would not be 

 confined, Kke a modern mother, to one spot or apartment in the 

 neighbourhood of her child, which is, in one sense, much of a fixture, 

 but able to take her nursling about with her in all her laborious 

 journeys and occupations, either when attending upon her husband, 

 or engaged in her own family duties. 



These cradle-boards among the ancient Britons would be made of 

 thin and light wood, probably willow. Hence, if they were occa- 

 sionally interred with the mother or child in the barrow, which is 

 likely, " there is no reason to expect that any fragments of them 

 would still remain in a recognizable form ; but, now that this 

 particular mode of nursing upon a cradle-board is made known, 

 some traces of its presence may yet be detected. 



• Among the South American tribes the same custom has prevailed. In two 

 prepared lieads of Quichuas, or Chinch as, (men) kindly presented to me by the 

 learned Professor J. Y. Simpson of Edinburgh, from the Chincha Islands, off the 

 coast of Peru, the parieto-occipital flatness is strongly manifested in the same spot, 

 and the same plane as in the Lenni-Lenape. It is deeply impressed, extensive, and 

 has l)ccn produced withfjut counter-pressure on the frontal bone, therefore, no 

 doubt, by the cradle-board. 



