570 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
“chief” (pl. 5), he succeeded in getting a fairly accurate lateral profile, 
but was less successful in the placement of the features within this 
outline. No other aspects of the skull were illustrated, so these are 
given here for the first time in the form of photographs (pl. 6). Im- 
perfect though it is, Morton’s single illustration constitutes the first 
description of Chinook deformity based on a skull known to have 
come from an early 19th-century elevated canoe interment. This fact 
has been generally overlooked or ignored, because credit is given to 
Boas (1891), rather than to Morton, for defining the Chinook type 
of deformity (cf. Oetteking, 1930, pp. 16-17; Dingwall, 1931, p. 163 
ff.). By the time Boas came along, of course, it was possible to draw 
broad conclusions on this subject. However, Boas defined the Chi- 
nook deformity type simply from skulls attributed to this tribe. The 
recovery of deformed skulls from the area traditionally occupied by 
a tribe undoubtedly provides strong evidence regarding the type of 
deformity practiced there, but the evidence provided by a historically 
documented skull, and especially one collected before acculturation 
has made much headway, establishes the fact much more convincingly. 
With this in mind, and if for no other reason than to supplement and 
substantiate Morton’s classic report, a description of Comcomly’s 
skull now is in order. 
CRANIOMETRY 
Having said so much about deformity, it is desirable to take up 
first the analysis of this trait. For this purpose I will use a combina- 
tion of the Klaatsch (1909) and Oetteking (1930) schemes of lines 
and angles. Figure 2 shows a stereographic drawing of Comcomly’s 
skull treated in this fashion and, for comparison, a similar rendition 
of the skull of Townsend’s “chief” (hereafter referred to as No. 462). 
Most students follow the Klaatsch scheme alone in describing cranial 
deformities, but so far as the Northwest coast is concerned, Oette- 
king’s (1930) elaboration of this scheme cannot be ignored, especially 
since it gives a basis for judging variability. 
In spite of the existence of such schemes, there is still no general 
agreement on the lines and angles best suited for characterizing 
deformity. This being the case, and not wishing to overly complicate 
the drawings, I will report also a few details not illustrated. For 
example, the frontal bone being essentially the area between the land- 
mark glabella (G) and bregma (Br), the amount of frontal flattening 
may be represented by the ratio of the frontal chord length (G—Br) 
and the maximum distance between this chord and the frontal profile 
(measured vertical to the chord). The same is true of the parietal 
(Br-L) and occipital (L-B) areas. 
