628 CRANIAL DEFORMATION OF NEW-BORN CHILDREN, 



remembering having read, many years before, the opinion of the 

 celebrated biologist and anthropologist, K. E. de Baer, member 

 of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, who 

 would not believe that a manual pressure could have such an 

 effect on the skull. [ Vide K. E. de Baer, Ueber Papuas and 

 Alfuren, < Memoires de l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St. Peters- 

 bourg,' 6 serie, t. viii. 1859, page 331.] K. E. de Baer expresses 

 this opinion, analysing the information given by J. Macgillivray 

 [Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Eattlesnake ; London 1852, 

 vol. 1. page 189], he thinks that the observations of Macgillivray, 

 who has seen the same above-mentioned manual deformation 

 performed on children at Cape York, are not exact enough. 

 Eemembering this contradiction, I was careful to decide the 

 contested point, and now, after careful examination, measurements, 

 and inquiries, I believe the question may be regarded as settled, 

 and that the information given by Macgillivray about the head 

 deformation at Cape York was not too hasty, and was correct. As 

 far as I know, it will be the only well authenticated example of 

 cranial deformation by means of manual pressure. 



The deforming of heads at Mabiak is an instance of an 

 intentional deformation, made for the sake of a singular idea of 

 beauty ; but in the village Bara-Bara, on the east end of New 

 Guinea, and in other villages on the South Coast of this Island, 

 I had a chance of observing numerous cases of not intentional 

 distortion of heads of adult females, in consequence of an 

 established practice. The females in those parts of Now Guinea 

 are accustomed to carry heavy burdens in large bags, the band of 

 which serves as a handle and rests across the head, a little behind 

 the sutura coronalis. As very young girls have to begin to 

 assist their mothers in the household, this mode of carrying the 

 heavy bags has resulted in forming a transversal and saddle- 

 shaped depression of the head corresponding to the anterior parts 

 of the Ossa parietalia. I have inspected a few hundred heads 



