NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 213 



flattened head in all its varieties is considered a mark of distinction among 

 these people, tliey are very loth to abandon it. In several instances, where 

 the "papooses" came under medical treatment, efforts were made to induce 

 the mothers to discontinue the practice, but without avail. 



These conflicting statements show how difficult it is to determine satisfac- 

 torily whether Nos. 457 and 578 are Chinooks or not. The latter somewhat 

 resembles the Naas skull, No. 214, but is comparatively shorter and broader. 

 The former is more like the Chimseyan. If they are really Chinooks, it shows 

 that these people are naturally dolichocephalic. Judging from the deformed 

 specimens, I should suppose the heads of the Chinooks were naturally short 

 or brachycephalic. The unflattened Chinook, No. 578, is a rather short, broad 

 oval, having the vertex regularly and more highly arehed, and the occipital 

 region less promiuent, rather flatter in fact, than is the case in the Arickaree 

 and Assinaboin crania. No. 457 approaches the peculiar form exhibited in a 

 Pocasset skull, presently to be referred to. 



Upon a careful examination of all the cranial specimens of these fiat-head 

 tribes of the Columbia River, I find that the distortion is not alike in all. In 

 Nos. 203, 207, 208, 461, 577, 641, 721, 946, 1013, 1014 and 1349 the compres- 

 sion has been so applied as to cause the right half of the occipital region to 

 be more flattened than the left, and, consequently, the antero-posterior diam- 

 eter of the right side to be shorter than the left. In Nos. 574 and 575 the 

 distortion is just reversed. Nos. 462, 573, 576 and 944 are almost symmetri- 

 cally flattened, and in such a manner that the coronal region forms a horizon- 

 tal plane parallel with the basis cranii. In the Kawichen skull, No. 1015, the 

 pressure has been so applied as to give to it the form of a cone or sugar-loaf, 

 causing it thereby to resemble very strongly the strangely deformed Natchez 

 crania, and the Mound Skull, No. 1212, from the ancient town of Chiuchiu, 

 near the Desert of Atacama. 



Three crania recorded in the third edition of Dr. Morton's Catalogue of 

 Skulls, as belonging to " Cotonay or Blackfoot Indians,"* differ from each 

 other sufficiently to justify the reference of them to two separate groups. 

 While Nos. 744, a male skull, and 745, a female, are decidedly dolichocephalic, 

 No. 1227, the head of a chief named the Bloody-Hand, from the upper Mis- 

 souri, occupies an intermediate place between the long and short heads. It 

 is a shorter, broader and more elevated or arched cranium. In Nos. 744 and 

 745 the occipital region exhibits the superiorly inclined or shelving parieto- 

 occipital flatness so characteristic of Swedish and Norwegian crania. The 

 occipital flatness of No. 1227 is less inclined and more vertical. In the length 

 of skull, prominence of occiput, and general shape of the coronal region, No. 



744 resembles the cast of a Norwegian skull, No. 1260, which I have in an- 

 other place already briefly described. The receding forehead, strongly marked 

 supraorbital ridges, and everted upper alveolus of the Kootenay cranium, 

 however, serve to distinguish it from the Norwegian. In general form No. 



745 resembles the Arikaree type, as that type or form is displayed in No. 619. 

 No. 1227, in the general outline of the coronal region and flatness of the occi- 

 put, resembles the short-headed Germanic and Anglo-Saxon forms. On the 

 other hand, the strongly-marked face, the deep, massive jaw and prominent 

 maxillary alveoli of this skull are striking points of difference. In Crania 

 Americana, plate 40, Dr. Morton figures a Kootenay skull loaned to him by 

 Geo. Combe, the celebrated phrenologist. It is decidedly dolichocephalic. 

 Dr. M. has cuven us no description of this head, but merely alludes to its 

 great interparietal breadth. I am inclined to think that No. 741 is really the 

 cranium from which this plate was drawn. There is not only a close resem- 

 blance in the outlines of the two, but in the skull there is a hole in the 



*The Kitnnaha or Skalsa; Kootenays, Coutanies, Arcs-en-Flat, or Flat-bows, inhabit the western 

 side of the Rocky Mountains, on the Flat-bow branch of the Columbia Iliver. They are not Black- 

 feet, and though they hunt on the Missouri, they do not live there. 



18G6.] 



