102 ARCII^OLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The shape of head artificially produced has varied in different, and even in the 

 same tribes. Sometimes the bulk of the cranium was thrown backward by pressure 

 in front, the sides being confined to prevent expansion in a lateral direction. This 

 was the common Peruvian form. In other cases, both the forehead and the occiput 

 were compressed, causing the skull to spread laterally. Another form was conical, 

 inclining backwards. The Arrowacks of the larger West India Islands flattened 

 the head downwards, in the direction of the spine ; and, in some instances, an irre- 

 gular constriction occasioned a one-sided effect. 



Dr. Morton ascribes his original conclusions to the difficulty of conceiving in 

 what manner the form first mentioned above could be artificially produced from an 

 originally rounded skull ; and it was after he had, with the aid of D'Orbigny's sug- 

 gestions, ascertained how the bandages could be applied for the purpose, that he 

 adopted the theory subsequently retained by him. Other naturalists were probably 

 influenced by the same inability; and it appears to have been on the ground that 

 those forms could not be attributed to pressure, or any external force, that M. Pent- 

 land supposed them to be congenital, and that his view was confirmed, as he says, 

 by "Cuvier, Gall, and many other celebrated naturalists and anatomists." Tiede- 

 mann's expression is, moreover: "A careful examination of these skulls has con- 

 vinced me that their peculiar shape cannot be owing to artificial pressure. The 

 great elongation of the face, and the direction of the plane of the occipital bone, 

 are not to be reconciled with this opinion, and therefore we must conclude that 

 the peculiarity of shape depends on a natural conformation." The language of 

 Knox is: "That the Carib and Chinnook, and the ancient Macrocephali, fancied 

 that by pressure they could give to the human head what form they chose, is 

 certain enough ; but does it follow that they could do so ? The form of the head I 

 speak of is peculiar to the race; it may be exaggerated somewhat by such means, 

 but cannot be so produced." Dr. Morton was able to show how it could be and 

 was produced, and therefore he believed it to be always artificial. 



But investigations not alluded to by Morton, and of equal authority with those 

 of D'Orbigny, present other and stronger reasons for admitting the natural origin 

 of these deformities. Sir Robert Schomburgk found, near the sources of the Coren- 

 tyne, a branch of the Orinoco, the remnant of a race called the Maopityans, or 

 Frog Indians, whose heads were flattened by nature; at least he could not learn, 

 by the most minute inquiries, that artificial means were employed. A child was 

 born while he was with them, which he saw within an hour of its birth, that had, 

 he states, all the characteristics of the mother's tribe; "and the flatness of its head, 

 as compared with the heads of other tribes, was very remarkable." 1 



The national work on Peruvian antiquities, by Rivero and J. J. Von Tschudi, 

 contains an examination of the question; and, as the result of "the numerous and 

 scrupulously careful observations" of Dr. J. D. Von Tschudi, long a resident in 

 Peru, and of the writers' own private researches, it is affirmed that those physiolo- 

 gists are in error, who suppose that the different phrenological aspects offered by 



1 Journ. of the Royal Geograph. Society of LoncloD, XV, pp. 53 and 57. 



