498 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1B16. 



tive stature, badly shaped, and 

 their appearance by no means 

 prepossessing. They have broad 

 thick flat feet, thick ankles, and 

 crooked legs : the last of which 

 deformities is to be ascribed, in 

 part, to the uni%ersal practice of 

 squatting, or sitting on the calves 

 of their legs and heels, and also 

 to the tiglit bandages of beads 

 and strings worn round the 

 ankles, by the women, which 

 prevent the circulation of the 

 blood, and render tlielegs, of the 

 females particularly, ill shaped 

 and swollen. The complexion 

 is the usual copper-coloured 

 brown of the North American 

 tribes, though the complexion is 

 rather lighter than that of the 

 Indians of the Missouri, and the 

 frontier of the United States : the 

 mouth is wide and the lips thick ; 

 the nose of a moderate size, 

 fleshy, wide at the extremities, 

 with large nostrils, and generally 

 low between the eyes, though 

 there are rare instances of high 

 aquiline noses ; the eyes are ge- 

 nerally black, though we occa- 

 sionally see them of a dark yel- 

 lowish brown, with a black pupil. 



FLATTIXG TH£ HEAD. 



The most distinguishing part 

 of their physiognomy, is the pe- 

 culiar flatness and width of their 

 forehead, a peculiarity wliich they 

 owe to one of those customs by 

 which nature is sacrificed to fan- 

 tastic ideas of beauty. The cus- 

 tom, indeed, of flattening the 

 head by artificial pressure during 

 infancy, prevails among all the 

 nations we have seen west of the 

 Rocky mountains. To the east 

 of that barrier, the fashion is so 

 perfectly unknown, that there the 



western Indians, with the excep- 

 tion of the Alliatan or Snake 

 nation, are designated by the 

 common name of Flatheads. This 

 singular usage, which nature 

 could scarcely seem to suggest to 

 remote nations, might perhaps 

 incline us to believe in the com- 

 mon and not very ancient origin 

 of all the western nations. Such 

 an opinion might well accommo- 

 date itself with the fact, that 

 while on the lower parts of the 

 Columbia, both sexes are uni- 

 versally flatheads, the custom di- 

 minishes in receding eastward, 

 from the common centre of the 

 infection, till among the remoter 

 tribes near the mountains, nature 

 recovers Ixcr rights, and the 

 wasted folly is confined to a few 

 females. Such opinions, how- 

 ever, are corrected or weakened 

 by considering that the flattening 

 of the head is not, in fact, pecu- 

 liar to that part of the continent, 

 since it was among the first ob- 

 jects which struck the attention of 

 Columbus. 



But wherever it may have 

 begun, the practice is now uni- 

 versal among these nations. Soon 

 after the birth of her child, the 

 mother, anxious to procure for 

 her infant the recommendation of 

 a broad forehead, places it in the 

 compressing machine, where it it 

 kept for ten or tw elve months ; 

 though the females remain longer 

 than the boys. The operation is 

 so gradual, that it is not attended 

 with pain ; but the impression is 

 deep and permanent. The heads 

 of the children, when they ar ^ 

 released from the bandage, r ^j.g 

 not more than two inches t" ^j^j^^ 

 about the upper edge of the fore- 

 head, and still thinner ^'ijov e t 



nor 



