KLETciiEK.i PERFOUATED AMERICAN CRANIA. 25 



niiglit have made tlie punctures for the convenience of stringing the skulls. 

 Tliis would explain why the hole was invariably at a point opposite to the 

 Ibi-anien magnum. A discovery of Mr. Gilman's, however, seems to throw 

 some doubt upon this theory. He found, in a mound at Devil River, Micli- 

 igau, the remains of a person, evidently of rank, lying upon his back, but 

 with the characteristic perforation in his skull. 



Mr. W. C. Holbrook, in an account of his examination of some Indian 

 mounds on Rock River, at Sterling, 111., says : 



Inside this dolmen I found the remains of eight human slicletous. . . . One of tlic skulls pre- 

 sented a circular opening about the size of a silver dime. This perforation had been made durin" lilV, 

 for the edges had commenced to cicatrize. -"^ 



It is not stated in what part of the skull the opening was found, nor 

 whether any evidences of fracture or other injury existed, so that, as it 

 stands, the case cannot be thought to be one of trephining, but rather one 

 of a partly healed wound. 



Before concluding this review of the evidence so far accumulated upon 

 the subject, some account must be given of the method of trephining prac- 

 ticed in our own day by some semi-barbarous tribes, with the purpose of 

 seeing whether it throws any light on the prehistoric operation. 



In the djebel Aouri\s (Mont Aures), the southern termination of the 

 Atlas mountain range, in the province of Constantino, in Algeria, there 

 exists a race of Kabyles who are the descendants of the Berbers, the gen- 

 uine autochthones of Africa. The practice of trephining prevails exten- 

 sively among them, although it is by no means general among other tribes 

 of Kabyles. Two French army surgeons, MM. L.-T. Martin*^ and Amedee 

 Paris," have given very full accounts of the method adopted. 



It appears that the operation is performed for fracture of the skull, 

 whether simple or compound, for disease of the bone, and for violent psins 

 in the head. It may be performed at any age, upon either sex, and upon 

 any part of the skull, though the parietal bones seem to be most frequently 



<-Amer. Naturalist, Salem, 1877, xi, 088. 



«La tr(5panatiou du cr^ue, telle qn'elle est pratiqude par les Kabyles de I'Aures. Par L.-T. Mar- 

 tin. Le Montpelller raiSd., 1867, xviii, .';2o-535. Aho, Reprint. 



•" De la trdpauation c<;phali(iue pratiqude par les niddecins indigenes de I'Aourcss (province do 

 Constantiue). Par M. lo dr. AmiSddc Paris. Gazette mdd. de I'Algdrie, Alger, 1868, xiii, 25-28. Aho, 

 Kepriut. 



