CHAP, ir.] WEST INDIES. 45 



table writers, but after much inquiry, and some in- 

 stances of ocular inspection, I am satisfied that it is 

 groundless. 



- 



The circumstance the most remarkable concerning 



o 



the persons of the Charaibes, was their strange prac- 

 tice of altering the natural configuration of the head. 

 On the birth of a child, its tender and flexible skull 

 was confined between two small pieces of wood, 

 which, applied before and behind, and firmly bound 

 together on each side, elevated the forehead, and oc- 

 casioned it, and the back part of the skull, to resem- 

 ble two sides of a square ; an uncouth and frightful 

 custom still observed by the miserable remnant of red 

 Charaibes in the island of St. Vincent. || 



They resided in villages which resembled an Eu- 

 ropean encampment; for their cabins w r ere built of 

 poles fixed circularly in the ground, and drawn to a 

 point at the top.* They were then covered with 

 leaves of the palm-tree. In the centre of each vil- 

 lage was a building of superior magnitude to the rest. 

 It was formed with great labour, and served as a pub- 

 lic hall or state house, j- wherein we are assured that 



Oviedo, lib. iii. Rochefort, liv. Ji. c. ix. 



)j I have been told by anatomists, that the coronal suture of new-born 

 children in the West Indies is commonly more open than that of infants 

 born in colder climates, and the brain more liable to external injury. 

 Perhaps, therefore, the Indian custom of depressing the os frcnlis and 

 the occiput was originally meant to assist the operation of nature in closing 

 the skull. 



* P. Martyr, decad. \. lib. ii. 



{ Ibid. Rochefort, liv. ii. c. xvi. Lafitau, torn. ii. p. 8. 



