HEAD-FLATTENING AMONG THE NAVAJOS. 539 



the full-blooded infants of different ages of this tribe, I occa- 

 sionally found one wherein I thought I could satisfactorily deter- 

 mine that the back of its head was unduly flattened, but it was by 

 no means always the case. 



Another thing must be remembered, and that is that these Na- 

 vajo women do not always keep their infants thus strapped up 

 in their cradles, and this fact goes to sustain that whatever press- 

 ure is brought to bear against the backs of their heads is not a 

 constant one. We often see little Navajo babies playing about for 

 hours together, and that at a time when they are scarcely able to 

 walk. 



Among the older children, as well as I could do so through 

 their thick mats of hair, I have on one or more occasions satis- 

 fied myself that the hinder region of their heads was flattened, 

 though it was but rarely the case that one was met with that ex- 

 hibited this to a degree found in the skull figured in the present 

 paper. 



Such examinations as I have been enabled to make thus far 

 very thoroughly convince me that this head -flattening is not due 

 to the mode of strapping that part of the body employed by the 

 Navajo mothers of the present day. In ages or generations gone 

 by the ancestors of those Indians may have resorted to a very dif- 

 ferent method of fastening the infant's head in its cradle : perhaps 

 it may have been more tirmly fixed by thongs, and a pressure 

 brought to bear upon the occiput, and that of a nature to produce 

 the distortion in question ; but so far as the writer is aware we 

 have no such record for this tribe. How much heredity may have 

 to do with it, then, we are not fully prepared to answer. And in 

 any event we must bear in mind, when considering this matter, 

 that the distortion, if it may be so termed, does not occur by any 

 means in the skulls of all the representatives of the Navajos ; nor 

 is it limited to either sex ; nor does it disappear as age advances ; 

 nor does the plane of the flattened surface of the occiput always 

 bear the same relation to other planes of the skull, as the flatten- 

 ing may be central, or it may be more or less lateral, and so on ; 

 and, finally, it varies greatly in degree. 



That skull-distortion, due to various modes of artificial press- 

 sure, is to be seen among divers peoples still in existence, as well 

 as in the preserved skulls of former races that inhabited the earth, 

 there can be no question ; and it would seem, in the light of what 

 we have attempted to bring out in this paper, that one of the most 

 interesting points to decide with respect to it is whether such a 

 feature can become hereditary. 



At all events, the subject is full of interest, and will bear, it ap- 

 pears to me, further and fuller investigation. 



