36 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



unavoidable conclusion ; yet such was not the case. 

 During the moulding process, travellers who have witnessed 

 it tell us, children display no sign of suffering, even though 

 their eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets from 

 the pressure. But they cried when the thongs were 

 loosened. On attaining to man's estate, such victims 

 to parental folly seemed to be in every way as intelligent 

 as the men of neighbouring tribes which had no such 

 insane customs. 



How deeply rooted was the prejudice in favour of 

 this extraordinary fashion is shown by the fact that 

 when, during infancy, from sickness, or other cause, the 

 bandaging was neglected or omitted, and the child, in 

 consequence, attained to man's estate with a head of 

 the shape designed by nature, he was seriously hampered 

 in the struggle for existence, for no honours among his 

 tribe were possible. Indeed, as often as not he was sold 

 as a slave. But thus did Public Opinion bring disaster 

 on its advocates, for those misguided people have been 

 swept off the face of the earth by their own folly. Those 

 who survived the ordeal, it is true, seemed in no way 

 mentally deficient, but the infant mortality must have 

 been great, and none of the adults could ever have attained 

 to their full potentiality. 



These people were, however, not the only lunatics at 

 large. For this extraordinary practice found its devotees 

 in many other widely sundered parts of the world. De- 

 formed heads of various types have been found in rock- 

 tombs near Tiflis, in the Crimea, Hungary, Silesia, in South 

 Germany, Switzerland, and even in France, Belgium and 

 England ! How did it spread from one nation to another ? 

 Since means of communication were extremely limited 

 centuries ago, one can only suppose that in most cases it 



