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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the time and place. Such, however, is far from being the case. 

 The custom of artificially changing the form of the head is one of 

 the most ancient and widespread with which we are acquainted. It 

 is far from being confined, as many suppose, to an obscure tribe of 

 Indians on the northwest coast of America, but is found, under various 

 modifications, at widely different parts of the earth's surface, and 

 among people who can have had no intercourse with one another. It 

 appears, in fact, to have originated independently, in many quarters, 

 from some natural impulse common to the human race. When it once 

 became an established custom in any tribe, it was almost inevitable 

 that it should continue, until put an end to by the destruction either 

 of the tribe itself, or of its peculiar institutions, through the inter- 

 vention of some superior force, for a standard of excellence in form, 

 which could not be changed in those who possessed it, was naturally 

 followed by all who did not wish their children to run the risk of the 

 social degradation which would follow the neglect of such a custom. 

 " Failure properly to mold the cranium of her offspring gives to the 

 Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy and undutiful mother, and 

 subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of their young compan- 

 ions, so despotic is fashion." * It is related in the narrative of Commo- 

 dore Wilkes's " United States Exploring Expedition," f that " at Niculu- 

 ita Mr. Drayton obtained the drawing of a child's head, of the Walla 

 Walla tribe (Fig. 6), that had just been released from its bandages, in 



order to secure its flattened shape. Both the 

 parents showed great delight at the success 

 they had met with in effecting this distortion." 

 Many of the less severe alterations of the 

 form to which the head is subjected are unde- 

 signed, resulting only from the mode in which 

 the child is carried or dressed during infancy. 

 Thus habitually carrying the child on one arm 

 appears to produce an obliquity in the form of 

 the skull which is retained to a greater or less 

 degree all through life. The practice folloAved 

 by nomadic people of carrying their infants 

 Fig. 6 Flat-headed Indian fastened to stiff pillows or boards, commonly 



causes a flattening of the occiput ; and the 

 custom of dressing the child's head with tightly fitting bandages, still 

 common in many parts of the Continent, and even used in England 

 within the memory of many living people, produces an elongated and 

 laterally constricted form. J In France this is well known, and so com- 



* Bancroft, op. tit., vol. i., p. 238. \ "Vol. iv., p. 3S8. 



% After the lecture, a gentleman of advanced age showed me a circular depression 

 round the upper part of his head, which he believed had been produced in this manner, 

 as the custom was still prevailing at the time of his birth in the district of Norfolk of 

 which he was a native. 



