12 J: 



ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



in the manner above described. A little boss of tightly plaited and woven grass is 

 then applied to the forehead and secured by a cord to the loops at the side. The 

 infant is suffered to remain thus from four to eight months, or until the sutures 

 of the skull have in some measure united and the bone become solid and firm. It 

 is seldom or never taken from the cradle, except in case of severe illness, until the 

 flattening process is completed." 



The effect of this process is to depress the head, to widen the face, to diminish 

 the facial angle, and to augment the breadth between the parietal bones. A 

 striking irregularity of the two sides of the cranium almost invariably follows ; yet 

 the absolute internal capacity of the skull is not diminished, and the intellectual 

 faculties are not impaired to any known or perceptible degree. The testimony of 

 all travellers is, that their intellect is equal if not superior to that of the otlier 

 Indian tribes of North America, 



Dr. Scouler states that the people by whom it is practised are peculiarly subject 

 to apoplexy. 



The method of practising this compression of the head, as well as its effects, are 

 illustrated by Fig. 64. 



In the preceding figure will be seen a Chinook woman with her child in her 

 arms, her own head flattened, and the infant undergoing the process of flattening. 



The peculiarity of the heads of the Osage Indians 

 is produced by artificial means during infancy. Their 

 children, like those of all other tribes, are fastened 

 upon a board and slung upon the mother's neck. 

 The infants are lashed with their backs upon the 

 boards apparently in a very uncomfortable position ; 

 and among the Osages the head of the child is bound 

 down so tightly to the board as to force in the occi- 

 pital bone and create an unnatural deficiency on the 

 back part of the head, and, consequently, more than 

 a natural elevation. Tlie Osages practise this custom, 

 because it presses out the head into a bold and manly 

 appearance in front. The Osages, unlike the Flat- 

 head Indians beyond the Rocky Mountains, merely 

 press in the occiput, and that to a moderate degree 

 only, occasioning but a slight, and, in many cases, an 

 almost immaterial departure from the symmetry of 

 nature. 



Fig. 65. 



Osage chiefs and braves (after Cat- 

 lin), illustrating the effects of a com- 

 pression of the occiput. 



In Fig. 65 we have outlines of the heads of Osage 



Indians, after Catlin, illustrating the appearance of 



the countenance induced by artificial pressure similar 



to that which was employed by the Natchez Indians. 



Dr. Scoulcr has observed that the idioms of the Nootka Columbians, though 



they are a distinct branch, indicated traces of remote connection with the dialects 



of the northern tribes ; and it is believed by some ethnologists that both these 



groups of languages originated from one common stock. Dr. Pritchard, in his 



