UALL -J SCHIZOCEPHALY. 95 



In the Marquesas skulls were preserved and ornamented, the eyes 

 replaced by pieces of pearl shell, and the lower jaw fastened to the 

 upper by cords. According to Schmeltz (I. c. p. 242) the Marquesans 

 used various methods of preserving the dead, who were frequeutly em- 

 balmed and preserved for a long time, or laid in caves or in trees. A 

 little house, high in the mountains or among the pinnacles of the rocky 

 coast, was used as a mausoleum. Here, until the flesh had disappeared 

 from the bones, were useful articles, food, and drink brought for the use 

 of the dead from time to time. Finally the skull is brought to one of 

 the sacred " taboo " places and secretly deposited there. This duty was 

 performed by one of the children of the dead, who, as well as others 

 who know of the act, does not speak of it to any one. The skull is the 

 only part which is regarded as holy ; the remainder of the skeleton is 

 destroyed. 



This recalls the observations of early writers among the Tlinkit, who 

 burned or destroyed the body and skeleton of the dead, and placed the 

 preserved head or skull in a little separate ornamented box near by or 

 upon the chest containing the ashes of the remainder of the frame. 



The point on the western coast of South America nearest to the Poly- 

 nesian Islands, as before pointed out when speaking of labretifery, is 

 in the region of Bolivia. Here we find the remarkable heads, from 

 which the bone has been extracted with its contents, and the remainder 

 by a long course of preparation, finally reduced to a dwarfish minia- 

 ture of humanity, supposed to be endowed with marvelous properties. 1 



A similar practice is reported from Brazil by Blumenbach, in the last 

 century.? The preserved heads from New Zealand are in most ethno- 

 graphic museums. 



How far the use or application of these remains may vary, or have 

 varied, among the different races who prepared them, there are no 

 means of knowing. The variations developed during an indefinitely 

 long period must be supposed to be great, however uniform the incipi- 

 ent practice. Thus, in Borneo the Dyak head hunter seeks trophies of 

 valor in his ghastly preparations, whatever associations they may also 

 have with the supernatural. The Australian widow carries for years 

 her badge of former servitude and present misery in the shape of her 

 husband's prepared cranium. These ideas are quite different from 

 those of the people we are considering, with whom the prepared re- 

 mains have a direct connection with their idolatry or fetichism, and 

 were, both in the Archipelago and in America, placed on or by the 

 idols at certain periods or continuously. But the bare fact of any use 

 or value being connected with such relics among certain peoples, while 

 to others the corpse and all its belongings become objects of terror and 



1 See also J. Barnard Davis, Thesaurus Craniorum, p. 249. This practice has also- 

 been reported from the Amazon region. 

 ■ Blumenbach, Decas Craniorum, Gottingen, 1790; cf. pi. xlvii. 



