PHYSICAL ETHNOLOGY. 257 



Huron or Wyandot branch of the Iroquois stock, I had observed and cursorily 

 examined a considerabh; number, before my attention was especially drawn to 

 the peculiar characteristics now under consideration, owing to repeated njection 

 of those which turned up, as failing to furnish specimens of the assigned typical 

 American head. Since then I have carefully examined and measured seventy 

 Indiail skulls belonging, as 1 believe, to the Wyandot or the Algonquin stocks, 

 with the following results : 



L Only five exhibit such an agreement with the assigned American type, as, 

 judged by the eye, to justify their classification as true brachy cephalic crania. 

 One very remarkable and massive skull was turned up at Barrio, on Lake 

 Simcoe, within the Iluron region, with upwards of two hundred oth(!rs. It 

 differs from all the others in exhibiting the vertical occiput so very strikingly, 

 that when resting on it, it stands more firmly than in any other position. This 

 is, without doubt, the result of artificial compression; and in so far as fashion 

 regulated the varying forms thus superinduced on the natural cranial conforma- 

 tion, it is suggestive of an intruder from the country lying towards the mouth 

 of the Mississippi, where the ancient graves of the Natchez tribes disclose many 

 ekulls moulded into this singular form. In some respects, indeed, it presents 

 features strongly suggestive of comparison with the Scioto Mound skull, while 

 the smallness of the lower jaw increases its divergence from the Iluron or other 

 northern Indian type. No note has been preservisd of the general character of 

 the crania discovered at the same time ; but this one no doubt owed its selection 

 to its peculiar form. The whole subject of occipital and varied cranial com- 

 pression is deserving of minuter consideration than is admissible in reference to 

 the Iluron crania, which exhibit in general no traces of an abnormal forma- 

 tion. Nor is Dr. Morton's assiginneut of the vertical occiput as one of the most 

 characteristic features of the true American cranium borne out by an examina- 

 tion of those found in Canadian cemeteries. On the contrary, I have been struck 

 •with the evidence afibrded by the majority of skulls examined by me, that such 

 ■was certainly no prevailing characteristic of the iluron or other tribes, by whom 

 Upper Canada was occupied prior to its European settlement. Many of them, 

 indeed, exhibit a total absence of any approximation to the flattened occiput. 

 Twenty of the crania referred to show a more or less decided posterior projec- 

 tion of the occiput: eighteen of these being markedly so; and ten of them pre- 

 sent such a prolongation of it, as constituted one of the most striking features 

 in one class of ancient Scottish crania, which chiefly led to the suggestion of 

 the term kumbecephalic, as a distinctive term for them. But since my observa- 

 tions on this subject were first published,* the special question of the prevailing 

 form of the occiput has been taken up in a valuable monograph contributed by 

 Dr. J. Aitken Meigs to the Transactions of the Academy of Natural .-cienceg 

 of Philadelphia. t The conclusions he arrives at are: that the form of the 

 human occiput is not constant, but varies even among individuals of ihe same 

 race or tribe. lie divides the different forms into three primary classes : 1st. 

 The protuberant occiput, which is exhibited among the nations of the New 

 World by the Esqumiaux, Chippewas, Ilurons, and more or less among thirty- 

 six different American tribes or nations. 2d. The vertically flattened occiput 

 he assigns as more or less prevalent among sixteen tribes, and characteristic of 

 the majority of the Mound-builders. 3d. The full and rounded or globular 

 occiput characterizes nine American nations or tribes, and occurs occasionally 

 in a greater number. But the fiual summary of Dr. Meigs goes even further 

 than this; and, trcciting as it does, not solely of the Ameiican, but of human 



*" Supposed prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the Americau AhorigincH." — 

 Canadian Journal, November, la. ,7; Ldutbiirgh New FhUosopkical Journal, January, 1858. 



t Obseroutions upon the Form of the Occiput in tht Various Races of Men, by J. Aitkea 

 Meigs, M. D. Pimadelphiii, 18oU. 



17 S 



