326 Records of the S.A. Museum 



There exists a secondary centre nf importance in our own South Seas, 

 especially in those districts where custom insists on some particular method 

 Is. (^^). Waigiou Is., and as far north as Borneo, the Celebes, and Mindanao. 



In very many cases the deformity is unintentional and is produced, 

 especially in those districts where custom insists on some particular method 

 of cradling, such as that of nian\ mimadic tribes who bind the infants fast to 

 a board with strips of hide, and thus induce marked occipital flattenings. 

 Even a hard resting- place such as the earth (Korea) is sufficient to slightly 

 flatten the back of the head, while bonnets that are bound beneath the chin 

 or the nape of the neck, and certain methods of coifing are frecjuent factors 

 in producing a flattening of the vertex. Neuhaus (^-) figures a deformation 

 of the vertex resulting from the pressure of the headband that supports the 

 weight of baskets carried nati\c-fashion ; and the absence of any frontal 

 depression or deformity in many of the ancient deformed skulls suggests that 

 these may often be the unintentional results of a particular decubitus. 



The inethods bv which the deformities are deliberateh' produced xixry 

 :iccording to the tril)c and faniih", and modifications in the consequent dis- 

 tortions have led to the distribution of the skulls among a number of types. 

 Gosse C'^) has described sixteen varieties, subsequently reduced to five ; 

 Lunier (^^) se^•en. Topinnrd, from further investigation, is content to admit 

 two types onh-, "the one, dresse; the other couche," and in the opinion of the 

 writer this moderate classification is sufficient to include the remaining varie- 

 ties, which mav be regarded as local gradations and modifications retjuiring 

 no separate distinction. 



Topinard savs : "In the first kind, luore or less forcible pressure and 

 counter-pressure, varying also in height and in extent, have been exerted at 

 the two extremities of the skull, thus shortening the antero-posterior and 

 lengthening the vertical and frequently the transverse diameter. In the 

 second the length is. on the contrary, increased. Whether the deformations 

 be symmetrical or asymmetrical is immaterial ; sometimes we should expect 

 (he latter, but most fre(|ucntly this would be unintentional, and the result of 

 a badh'-conducted operation. When in the first kind, the dresse, tlie most 

 continuous pressure was exerted on a great extent of the occiput, while at tlic 

 forehead there was only slight counter-pressure, the result was simple occi- 

 pital deformation, or a Aertical occiput. This is obser\ed oti the coasts of 

 Peru, among some Puelchas. in one of the tribes of the Vancouver Archi- 

 pelago, in Malacca, and even in France. If the sides of the skull were at the 

 same time compressed or suii]iortcd, we should get the quadrangular deforma- 

 tion met with in South .\merica and among the Paws tnentioned bv Morton. 



