AMERICAN VARIETY. 323 



being very flat, and as it were depressed. These people are 

 not born so ; but they force the head to assume that form, 

 by placing on the forehead of the newly-born child a small 

 plate which they tie firmly behind. This remains until the 

 bones have acquired their consistence ; so that the fore- 

 head is flattened to that degree, that they can see almost 

 perpendicularly above them, without elevating the head '^. 



CoNDAMiNE informs us, that " the appellation Omaguas 

 in the language of Peru, as well as Cambevas in tliat of 

 Brazil, given to the same people by the Portuguese of Para, 

 signifies ' flat-head ;' For they have the strange custom of 

 pressing between two plates the forehead of their newly-born 

 children, in order to give them this singular shape, and make 

 them, as they say, resemble the full moonf." 



A collateral proof of these practices is afforded by their 

 having been noticed and expressly prohibited by the Spa- 

 nish ecclesiastical councils (as related by Blumenbach), 

 two hundred years ago. In the history of the third synod 

 of the diocese of Lima, held in July 1585, a decree was 

 passed against the Indian practice of disfiguring the head. 

 " Cupientes penitus extirpare abusum et superstitionem, 

 quibus Indi passim infantum capita formis imprimunt, quas 

 ipsi vocaot caito, oma, opalta ; — statuimus et preecipimus," 

 &c. &c. reciting various punishments, as, for instance, that 

 any woman found guilty, " frequentet doctrinam per con- 

 tinuos decern dies mane et vesperi, pro prima culpa ; pro 

 secunda vero per viginti, " &c. X 



* Voyage aux Isles de VAmeriquc., t. 2. p. 72. Blumenbach also cites 

 the authority ofOviEuo Historia General de las Indias ; 1535, p. 25. and 

 Rayjiond Breton, Dictionnaire Caraibe Francois ; 1665. 8vo. pp. 58, 92, 

 145,289. The same custom, which belonged originally to the red-coloured 

 natives of the West Indies, has been adopted by the free Negroes or Black 

 Caribs of St. Vincent's. See Thsbault de Chanvalon, Voyage a la Mar- 

 tinique, p. 39; and Amic in Journal de Physique^ v. 39. p. 132. 



f 3Iemoires de VAcad. des Sciences, 1745, p. 427-8. Ulloa gives the same 

 testimony respecting the Omaguas; Travels in South America, v. i. p. 394. 

 also ToRQUEMADA Monarchia Yndiana ; t. iii. p. 623, 



:j: J. S. DE Aguirre Colleciio maxima Conciliorum omnium Ilispania; et 

 Novi Orbis, ed. 2. Romse, 17 55. fol. t. vi. p. 294- 



Y 2 



