DISTORTIONS OF THE HUMAN CRANIUM. 441 



means. The occiput of the men is high, and almost perpendicular 

 above the front ; the frontal bone is small with regard to extent, and 

 in no comparison to the face below the eyes ; the cheek bones are 

 harsh and prominent ; but the most remarkable part of the head is 

 the great extent between ear and ear, if measured from the upper 

 part of that organ, and the line continued above the eyebrows to the 

 commencement of the other ear. It surpasses the measurement of 

 other Indians generally by an inch or two." Notwithstanding the 

 inability of this intelligent and observant traveller to recover any 

 traces of artificial causes influencing so remarkable a form of head, 

 we might still be tempted to refer it to a source so familiar to 

 the American craniologist. But three days after his arrival at 

 the settlement, one of the women, a Maopityan, but the wife of 

 a Taruma, — a neighbouring tribe characterised by an unusually 

 small and difierently formed head, — was delivered of a male child. 

 Sir Kobert Schomburgk states : " The Indians invited me to see 

 the infant, and accordingly, provided with some suitable presents, 

 I went. The newborn child had all the characteristics of the 

 mother's tribe. It was not quite an hour old when I saw it, and 

 the flatness of its head as compared with the heads of other tribes, 

 was very remarkable."* Such a narrative, resting as it does on un- 

 questionable authority, shows the danger of error in referring all 

 seemingly abnormal cranial forms to artificial causes, and might 

 almost tempt the theorist to recur to the idea entertained by Hip- 

 pocrates, relative to the Macrocephali of the Crimea, that long 

 heads ultimately became so natural among them that the favourite 

 form was perpetuated by ordinary generation. 



But as we have thus derived illustrations of our subject from 

 Europe, Asia, and America, we also find in ancient Africa a diverse 

 form of head, to which art may have contributed, solely by leaving 

 it more than usually free from all extraneous influences. Such 

 at least is the conclusion suggested to my mind from the examina- 

 tion of a considerable number of Egyptian skulls. Among familiar 

 relics of domestic usages of the ancient Egyptians is the pillow 

 designed for the neck, and not the head, to rest upon. Such 

 pillows are found of miniature sizes, indicating that the Egyptian 

 passed from earliest infancy without his head being subjected even 

 to so slight a pressure as the pillow, while he rested recumbent. The 



♦ Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. svi. pp. 53, 57. 



