100 THE GEOKGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



By this remarkable operation the brain ia singularly changed from its natural shape, 

 but in all probability not in the least diminished or injured in its natural functions. 

 This belief is drawn from the testimony of many credible witnesses, who have closely 

 scrutinized them and ascertained that those who have the head flattened are in no 

 way inferior in intellectual powers to those whose heads are in their natural shapes. 



In the process of flattening the head there is often another form of crib or cradle, 

 into which the child is placed, much in the form of a small canoe, dug out of a log 

 of wood, with a cavity just large enough to admit the body of the child, and the head 

 also, giving it room to expand in width, while from the head of the cradle there is a sort 

 of lever, with an elastic spring to it that comes down on the forehead of the child, and 

 produces the same effects as the one I have above described. 



The child is wrapped in rabbits' skins and placed in this little coffin-] ike-looking 

 cradle, from which it is not, in some instances, taken out for several weeks. The band- 

 ages over and about the lower limbs, and as high up as the breast, are loose, and repeat- 

 edly taken off in the same day, as the child may require cleansing ; but the head and 

 shoulders are kept strictly in the same position, and the breast given to the child by 

 holding it up in the cradle, loosing the outer end of the lever that comes over the 

 no?e, and raising it up or turning it aside, so as to allow the child to come at the 

 breast without moving its head. 



The length of time that the infants are generally carried in these cradles is three, 

 five, or eight weeks, until the bones are so formed as to keep their shapes and pre- 

 serve this singular appearance through life. 



This little cradle has a strap, which passes over the woman's forehead whilst the 

 cradle rides on her back; and if the child dies during its subjection to this rigid 

 mode, its cradle becomes its coffin, forming a little canoe, in which it lies floating on 

 the water in some sacred pool, where they are often in the habit of fastening the ca- 

 noes containing the dead bodies of the old and the young ; or, which is often the case, 

 elevated into the branches of trees, where their bodies are left to decay, and their 

 bones to dry; whilst they are bandaged in many skins and curiously packed in their 

 canoes, with paddles to propel and ladles to bail them out, and provisions to last and 

 pipes to smoke as they are performing their "long journey after death to their con- 

 templated hTinting-grounds," which these people think is to be performed in their 

 canoes. 



In Plate 210^ letter a is an accurate drawing of the above-mentioned cradle, per- 

 fectly exemplifying the custom described; and by the side of it (letter &) the draw- 

 ing of a Chinook skull, giving the front and profile view of it. Letter c in the same 

 plate exhibits an Indian skull in its natural shape, to contrast with the artificial.* 



This mode of flattening the head is certainly one of the most unaccountable as well 

 as unmeaning customs found amongst the North American Indians. What it could 

 have originated in, or for what purpose, other than a mere useless fashion, it could 

 have been invented, no human being can probably ever tell. The Indians have many 

 curious and ridiculous fashions, which have come into existence, no doubt, by acci- 

 dent and are of no earthly use (like many silly fashions in enlightened society), yet 

 they are perpetuated much longer, and that only because their ancestors practiced 

 them in ages gone by. The greater part of Indian modes, however, and particularly 

 those that are accompanied with much pain or trouble in their enactment, are most 

 wonderfully adapted to the production of some good or useful results, for which the 

 inquisitive world I am sure may forever look in vain to this stupid and useless fash- 

 ion that has most unfortunately been engendered on these ignorant people, whose 

 superstition forbids them to lay it down. 



It is a curious fact, and one that should be mentioned here, that these people have 

 not been alone in this strange custom ; but that it existed and was practiced precisely 

 the same, until recently, amongst the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who occupied a 



♦This once powerful nation resides in the vicinity of Astoria, Oreg. Ter. They are few in numbers 

 and gain their subsistence by fishing. — J. M. Stanley, 1848. 



