4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



ware, heavily tempered with shell and poorly fired — a small pot in- 

 side of a conical bowl. These had been placed at the right side of the 

 head. The head itself was a remarkable example of extreme fronto- 

 occipital deformation. Measurements taken on the skeleton as it lay 

 gave a length of 5 feet 7 inches, and it was then photographed in situ 

 before any of the bones were removed (pi. i, fig. i). 



Subsequently the skull and some of the long bones were sent for 

 study to Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, of the U. S. National Museum. The 

 report on them, kindly furnished by Dr. T. Dale Stewart, is as 

 follows : 



U. S. N. M. NO. 362447. FEMALE OF ADVANCED AGE. NATCHITOCHES, LA. 



Skull. — Complete. Excessive fronto-occipital flattening. Generalized oblitera- 

 tion of the sutures. Whole face broadened to conform with the deformation 

 (pis. 2 and 3). Upper left first premolar lost post mortem; upper second 

 premolars and first and second molars lost ante mortem ; remaining teeth show 

 extreme wear; alveolar resorption is advanced. 



Skeleton. — Only right humerus, left tibia, first 5 cervical vertebrae, and 

 hyoid. Apparently the suture was medium. 



Nothing can be said of the physical type of no. 362447 because of the extreme 

 degree of flattening. Such a type of deformity was probably produced by pres- 

 sure boards and was not uncommon among the Indians of the Gulf States. 



In the Luxembourg Memoire, written evidently before 1718, a de- 

 scription of this process of artificial head flattening is given : 



They have * * * the head pointed and almost of the shape of a miter. They 

 are not born so ; it is a charm which is given them in early years. What a 

 mother does to the head of her infant in order to force its tender bones to as- 

 sume this shape is almost beyond belief. She lays the infant on a cradle which 

 is nothing more than the end of a board on which is spread a piece of the skin 

 of an animal ; one extremity of this board has a hole where the head is placed 

 and it is lower than the rest. The infant being laid down entirely naked she 

 pushes back its head into this hole and applies to it on the forehead and under 

 the head a mass of clay which she binds with all her strength between two little 

 boards. The infant cries, turns completely black, and the strain which it is 

 made to suffer is such that a white, slimy fluid is seen to come out of its nose 

 and ears at the time when the mother presses on its forehead. It sleeps thus every 

 night until its skull has taken on the shape which custom wishes it to receive.^ 



This particular description was probably based on observations 

 among the Natchez, but it undoubtedly applies to all the southern 

 tribes who practiced head deformation. 



* Swanton, J. R., Indian tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and adjacent 

 coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bur. Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 43, p. 54, 191 1. 



