1880.] 



on Fashion in Deformity. 



401 



tlio heads of infants, is derived from these people, or is of independent 

 origin, it is impossible to say. 



In Africa and Australia no analogons customs have been shown to 

 exist, but in many parts of Asia and Polynesia, deformations, though 



Fig. 7. 

 B 



Skulls artificially deformed according to similar fashions. A, from an ancient 

 tomb at Tiflis ; B, from Titicaca, Peru. (From specimens in the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons.) C, from the island of MallicoUo, New Hebrides. 



usually only confined to flattening of the occiput, are common. 

 Though often undesigned, it is done purposely, I am informed by 

 Mr. H. B. Low, by the Dayaks, in the neighbourhood of Sarawak. 

 Sometimes, in the islands of the Pacific, the head of the new-born 

 infant is merely pressed by the hands into the desired form, in which 

 case it generally soon recovers that which nature intended for it. In 

 one island alone, MallicoUo, in the New Hebrides, the practice of 

 permanently depressing the forehead is almost universal, and skulls 

 are even found constricted and elongated exactly after the manner of 

 the Aymaras of ancient Peru. 



Though the Chinese usually allow the head to assume its natural 

 form, confining their attentions to the feet, a certain class of mendicant 

 devotees appear to have succeeded to a remarkable extent in getting 

 their skulls elongated into a conical form, if the figure in Picart's 

 ' Histoire des Religions,' vol. iv. plate 131, is to be trusted. 



America is, however, or rather has been, the headquarters of all 

 these fantastic practices, and especially along the western coast, and 

 mainly in two regions, near the mouth of the Columbia River in the 

 north, and in Peru in the south. The practice also existed among the 

 Indians of the southern part of what are now the United States, and 

 among the Caribs of the West India Islands. In ancient Peru, before 

 the time of the Spanish conquest, it was almost universal. In an 

 edict of the ecclesiastical authorities of Lima, issued in 1585, three 

 distinct forms of deformation are mentioned. Notwithstanding the 

 severe penalties imposed by this edict upon parents persisting in the 

 practice, the custom was so difficult to eradicate, that another injunc- 

 tion against it was published by the Government as late as 1752. 



In the West Indies, and the greater part of North America, the 



Vol. IX. (No. 72.) 2 e 



