404 



Professor Flower 



[May 7, 



Fig. 12. 



which the skull is flattened between boards or other compressors, 

 applied to the forehead and back of the head, and as there is no lateral 

 pressure, it bulges out sideways to compensate for the shortening in the 

 opposite direction. (Fig. 10.) This form is very often unsymmetrical, 

 as the flattening boards, applied to a nearly spherical surface, naturally 

 incline a little to one side or the other ; and when this once commences, 

 unless great care is used, it must increase until the very curious oblique 

 flattening so common in these skulls is produced. This is the ordinary 

 form of deformity among the Chinook Indians of the Columbia Eiver, 

 commonly called " Flat-heads." It is also most frequent among the 

 Quichuas of Peru. 



The second form of deformity (Figs. 7, 11, and 12) is produced by 

 constricting bandages of deer's hide, or other similar material, en- 

 circling the head behind the ears, 

 usually passing below the occiput 

 behind, and across the forehead, and 

 again across the vertex, behind the 

 coronal suture, producing a circular 

 depression. The result is an elonga- 

 tion of the head, but with no lateral 

 bulging, and with no deviation from 

 bilateral symmetry. This was the 

 form adopted with trifling modifica- 

 tions by the Macrocepliali of Hero- 

 dotus, by the Aymara Indians of 

 Peru, and by certain tribes, as the 

 Koskeemos, of Vancouver Island. 

 The " deformation Toulousaine " is a 

 modification of the same form. 



The brain, of course, has had to 

 accommodate itself to the altered 

 shape of the osseous case which con- 

 tained it ; and the question naturally 

 arises, whether the important func- 

 tions belonging to this organ are in 

 any way impaired or affected by its 

 change of form. All observations upon the living Indians who have 

 been subjected to it, concur in showing that if any modification in 

 mental power is produced, it must be of a very inconsiderable kind, 

 as no marked difference has been detected between them and the 

 neighbouring tribes which have not adopted the fashion. Men 

 whose heads have been deformed to an extraordinary extent, as Con- 

 comly, a Chinook chief, whose skull is preserved in the museum at 

 Haslar Hospital, have often risen by their own abilities to considerable 

 local eminence, and the fact that the relative social position of the 

 chiefs, in whose families the heads are always deformed, and the 

 slaves on whom it is never permitted, is constantly maintained, proves 

 that the former evince no decided inferiority in intelligence or energy. 



Posterior view of Cranium deformed 

 according to the fashion of circular 

 constriction and elongation. (Mus. 

 Roy. Coll. Surgeons.) 



