402 



Professor Flower 



[May 7, 



custom has become extinct witli the people who used it ; but the Chinook 

 Indians, of the neighbourhood of the Columbia Eiver, and the natives of 

 Vancouver Island, continue it to the present day, and this is the last 

 stronghold of this strange fashion, though under the influence of 

 European example and discouragement it is rapidly dying out. Here 

 the various methods of deforming the head, and their effects, have been 

 studied and described by numerous travellers. The process commences 

 immediately after the birth of the child, and is continued for a period 

 of from eight to twelve months, by which time the head has perma- 

 nently assumed the required form, although during subsequent growth 

 it may partly regain its proper shape. " It might be supposed," 

 observes Mr. Kane, who had large opportunities of watching the 

 process, " that the operation would be attended with great suffering, 

 but I never heard the infants crying or moaning, although I have seen 

 their eyes seemingly starting out of the sockets from the great 

 pressure ; but, on the contrary, when the thongs were loosened and the 

 pads removed, I have noticed them cry until they were replaced. From 

 the apparent dulness of the children whilst under the pressure, I should 



Fig. 9. 



Fig. 8. 



Deformed Skull of an Infant who had died 

 during the process of flattening ; from the 

 Columbia River. (Mus. Roy. Coll. Surgeons.) 



Artificially flattened Skull of ancient Peruvian. 

 (Mus. Roy. Coll. Surgeons.) 



imagine that a state of torpor or insensibility is induced, and that 

 the return to consciousness occasioned by its removal must be naturally 

 followed by a sense of pain." 



Nearly, if not all, the different fashions in cranial deformity, 

 observed in various parts of the world, are found associated within 

 a very small compass in British Columbia and Washington Territory, 

 each small tribe having often a particular method of its own. Many 

 attempts have been made to classify these various deformities, but as 



