OBSERVATIONS on a SERIES of ARTIFR^IALLY 

 DISTORTED SKULLS. 



Bv R. W. CILENTO, M.B., B.S., Capt. A.A.M.C, 



Latk Medical Okfilkr in chargk of The districts of Kakwikng and Namat^nai, 



Nkw Ireland (lxte) German New Guinea; Demonstrator in Anaeomv in the 



University of Adelaide. 



Plates xxxiv-xlii. and Text figs. 57-63. 



Tcipinard ('"''). a f^rof^os of artificial deformation, very truly said that "Man 

 is an intelligent animal, liut also a very whimsical one. The structure of his 

 hrain incites him to the noblest deeds as well as to the most ridiculous prac- 

 tices, such as cutting- off the little finger, scorching the soles of the feet, 

 extracting the front teeth, or defurming the head, simplv because others have 

 done so before him." Whatever the cause that originally incited primitive 

 man to deliberate skull distortion, the practice became an extraordinarih' 

 widespread one, and once established, habit and usage so firmly fixed the 

 custom that even to-day we find evidences of it throughout the world. 



First described by Herodotus and Hippocrates (^) among the Macro- 

 cephales near the Sea of Azofif (where one occasionally discovers instances 

 still), the practice also engaged the attention of Aristotle, Strabo. and Pliny; 

 and observers of the last centurv have noted its occurrence in ancient and 

 contemporaneous skulls of the most widely varied races and periods. 



Specimens have been obtained in France (') (deformation Toulousaine) 

 in Limousin, Normandy, and Brittany; in Holland on Marken Is. (2) ; in 

 Russia, especially in the Caucasus and the Crimea; in Lower Hungary; Swit- 

 zerlaiul : Belgium: West Germany: Burgundy: Silesia; Italy; England; Asia 

 Minor: Africa (e.g. among the Monbuttu or Mangbetu); in India (in the 

 Punjab) and elsewhere 



The chief centre, however, lies in America (^^), where, in the pre- 

 Columbian period, skull-distortion was especially widespread throughout 

 Peru, North Mexico, among the old clifl^-dwellers and mound-builders, in the 

 Southern States, the Mississippi valley, Florida, the Caribbean Isles, and 

 throu.ghout the Argentine. To-day it is still widely practised among the 

 Apaches. Navajos, all the Pueblo tribes, the flathead Indians of the North- 

 west Coast, and in scattered areas of Central and South America. 



