FASHION IN DEFORMITY. 



735 



pressure, it bulges out sideways to compensate for the shortening in 

 the opposite direction (Fig. 10). This form is very often unsymmet- 

 rical, as the flattening boards, applied -to a nearly spherical surface, 

 naturally incline a little to one side or the other ; and when this once 

 commences, unless great care is used, it must increase until the very 

 curious oblique flattening so common in these skulls is produced. This 

 is the ordinary form of deformity among the Chinook Indians of the 

 Columbia River, commonly called " Flat-heads." It is also most fre- 

 quent among the Quichuas of Peru. 



The second form of deformity (Figs. 7, 11, and 12) is produced by 

 constricting bandages of deer's hide, or other similar material, encir- 

 cling the head behind the ears, usually 

 passing below the occiput behind, and 

 across the forehead, and again across the 

 vertex, behind the coronal suture, pro- 

 ducing a circular depression. The re- 

 sult is an elongation of the head, but 

 with no lateral bulging, and with no de- 

 viation from bilateral symmetry. This 

 was the form adopted with trifling modi- 

 fications by the Macrocephali of Herodo- 

 tus, by the Aymara Indians of Peru, and 

 by certain tribes, as the Koskeemos, of 

 Vancouver Island. The "deformation 

 Toulousaine " is a modification of the 

 same form. 



The brain, of course, has had to ac- 

 commodate itself to the altered shape of 



the osseous case which contained it ; and 



Fio. 12. Posterior View of Crantum. 

 deformed accordinc; to the fashion 

 of circular constriction and elonga- 

 tion. (Museum of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons.) 



the question naturally arises, whether the important functions belong- 

 ing to this organ are in any way impaired or affected by its change of 

 form. All observations upon the living Indians who have been sub- 

 jected to it, concur in showing that if any modification in mental 

 power is produced, it must be of a very inconsiderable kind, as no 

 marked difference has been detected between them and the neighbor- 

 ing tribes which have not adopted the fashion. Men whose heads have 

 been deformed to an extraordinary extent, as Concomly, a Chinook 

 chief, whose skull is preserved in the museum at Haslar Hospital, have 

 often risen by their own abilities to considerable local eminence, and 

 the fact that the relative social position of the chiefs, in whose families 

 the heads are always deformed, and the slaves on whom it is never 

 permitted, is constantly maintained, proves that the former evince no 

 decided inferiority in intelligence or energy. 



Although the American Indians, living a healthy life in their native 

 wilds, and under physical conditions which cause all bodily lesions to 

 occasion far less constitutional or local disturbance than is the case 



