[00 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of man in America, unless the "Flathead type" mny be considered an exception. 

 The primitive flatheads, if not constituting a distinct species of man, were, he 

 imagines, "at least the oldest and first wanderers that reached the American conti- 

 nent." In his judgment, an immigration, continuous for ages, from the east of Asia, 

 is indicated by the traditional pressure of nations from the northwest coast, east- 

 ward and southward. 



Regarding the flatheadecl Paltas, and Aturians, or primeval race of South Ame- 

 rica, as anomalous, though evidently mixed with tribes whose origin is more marked, 

 and admitting that some of them, such as the, so-called, Frog Indians, are still in 

 being about the east side of the Cordilleras, he states that the stock has in fact 

 been supplanted for ages by other nations, whose Malay aspect countenances the 

 supposition of their original arrival from the islands of the Pacific. The tribes on 

 the Sacramento Paver he derives from the Sandwich Islands; and he thinks that 

 Polynesians, from the direction of the winds and currents, could hardly fail to reach 

 the coast of Chili, whence they might mix with the Brazilian tribes, and form the 

 race of Araucas. 



That abnormal configuration of the skull, commonly expressed by the texniflat- 

 hcad, is undoubtedly the most remarkable phenomenon connected with the human 

 physiology of these continents. The regions of country where its existence has 

 been noted, the extent to which it prevailed, and the evidences of honor and rever- 

 ence with which it appears to have been associated, from a period of unknown 

 antiquity, render it an object not only of anatomical interest, but of striking 

 historical significance. 



From Lake Titicaca, the original seat of the oldest, and perhaps the highest 

 forms of Peruvian civilization, 1 the practice of moulding the head by compression 

 in infancy, has been traced among the Caribs of the continent and islands; in 

 Central America, Mexico, and Yucatan ; and along the southern shores of the 

 United States, from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean ; and it appears 

 again among the tribes of the northwest coast, from Columbia River nearly to the 

 54 th degree of latitude. Thus, in the United States, the Attacapas, the Natchez, 

 the Choctaws, the Waxsaws, the Creeks, and the Catawbas, are known to have had 

 the usage among them ; but from these it is necessary to pass the Rocky Mountains 

 and approach the Arctic regions, before meeting with it again. The custom was 

 prohibited in Peru, by an ecclesiastical decree, as early as 1585, and was abandoned 

 where the authority of the Spaniards could be enforced ; and with the breaking up 

 of native communities, and the decay of the race, it has generally ceased in both 

 continents ; but in Oregon it still continues, as essential to the holding of office or 

 rank in the tribes that make use of it, while it is forbidden to those who are in 



bondage. 



A like distinction and social supremacy appears to have attended this strange 

 disfigurement wherever it has been noticed. In Peru, its possessors were interred 

 with the most costly rites, in the largest and finest tombs; and in the sculptures 



Prescott's Couquest of Peru, I, 12. 



