HEAD-FLATTENING AMONG THE NAVAJO S. 535 



Murray to delay the publication of his views on that subject 

 " for two years." 



It was easy for me and for others to prove that the first state- 

 ment was not only, to use the Duke of Argyll's favorite expres- 

 sion, " contrary to fact," but that it was without any foundation 

 whatever. The second statement rested on the Duke of Argyll's 

 personal authority. All I could do was to demand the production 

 of the evidence for it. Up to the present time, so far as I know, 

 that evidence has not made its appearance ; nor has there been 

 any withdrawal of, or apology for, the erroneous charge. 



Under these circumstances, most people will understand why 

 the Duke of Argyll may feel quite secure of having the battle all 

 to himself, whenever it pleases him to attack me. Nineteenth 

 Century. 



t 



HEAD-FLATTENING AS SEEN AMONG THE 

 NAVAJO INDIANS. 



By Dr. K. W. SHUFELDT. 



A LITTLE over a year ago, when in the northwestern part of 

 New Mexico, the opportunity was afforded the writer to 

 make a great many observations upon the Navajo Indians, the 

 tribe found in that section of the country. Those studies, which 

 took into consideration in several instances their simple arts and 

 industries, have been published in various quarters ; but a widely 

 different field of research, for which they also afforded the material, 

 especially interested me at the time, and this was the subject of 

 their craniology. 



On a number of occasions fine specimens of the skulls of those 

 Indians, of both sexes and all ages, fell into my hands ; while the 

 peculiar distortion several of these presented at once commanded 

 my attention. In the main this distortion consisted in either a 

 direct or an oblique posterior flattening of the skull ; and that it 

 was a characteristic to be seen in many of the heads of the repre- 

 sentatives of that tribe of North American Indians has long been 

 a well-ascertained fact. 



For an equal length of time has the cause of this flattening of 

 the skull among the Navajos generally been attributed to a 

 pressure brought to bear over the region in question during the 

 infancy of the individual exhibiting it. This was also my own 

 preconceived opinion, an opinion which had become more or less 

 fixed by all my previous reading upon the subject, but not through 

 personal examination of the proper material itself, under the most 

 favorable circumstances possible. 



