lawson's history 61 



a very large and lightsome cabin, tlie like I liave 

 not met withal. They laid furs and deer skins . 

 npon cane benches for ns to sit or lie upon, bring- 

 ing immediately, stewed pea«hes and green corn, 

 that is preserved in their cabins before it is ripe, 

 and sodden and boiled when they use it, which 

 is a pretty sort of food, and a great increaser of 

 the blood. 



These Indians are of an extraordinary stature, 

 and called by their neighbors flat heads, which 

 seems a very suitable name for them. In their 

 infancy, their nurses lay the back part of their 

 children's heads on a bag of sand, (such as engra- 

 vers use to rest their plates upon.) They use a 

 roll which is placed upon the babies forehead, it 

 being laid with its back on a flat board, and swad- 

 dled hard down thereon, from one end of this en- 

 gine to the other. This method makes the child's 

 body and limbs as straight as an arrow, there be- 

 ing some young Indians that are perhaps crooked- 

 ly inclined, at their first coming into the world, 

 who are made perfectly straight by this method. 

 I never saw an Indian of mature age that was any 

 ways crooked, except by accident, and that way 

 seldom ; for they cure and prevent deformities of 

 the limbs and body very exactly. The instrument 

 I spoke of before being a sort of a press, that is 

 let out and in, more or less, according to the dis- 

 cretion of the nurse, in which they make the 

 child's head flat: it makes the eyes stand a prodi- 

 gious way asunder, and the hair hang over the 



