THE PRACTICE OF HE AD- MOULDING. 415 



have high, and lofty foreheads sloping off backwards."* The 

 Waxsaws, Muscogees or Creehs, Catawbas, and Altacapas are 

 described as having had a similar custom. It was, however, 

 only the male infants which were treated in this manner. 

 Among the Nootka- Columbians the practice of flattening the 

 head was universal. The child was placed in a box or cradle 

 lined with moss. The occiput rested on a board at the upper 

 part of the box and another board was brought over the 

 forehead, and tied firmly down on the head of the infant. 

 The process continued until the child was able to walk, at 

 which time it is described as presenting a most hideous 

 appearance. The eyes " stand a prodigious way asunder/' 

 the eyeballs project very much, and are directed upwards, 

 the head is very wide and has almost the form of a wedge. 

 The Newatees, a tribe residing on the north end of Van- 

 couver's Island, forced the head into a conical shape, by 

 means of a cord of deer-skin padded with the inner bark of 

 the cedar tree. This cord, which is about as thick as a man's 

 thumb, is wound round the infant's head and gradually 

 forces it to take the shape of a tapering cone.f Among the 

 Peruvians the forehead was pressed downwards and back- 

 wards by tight bandages, of which there seem to have been 

 generally two, leaving a space between them, and thus pro- 

 ducing a well-marked ridge running transversely across the 

 skull. Thus while the forehead was prevented from rising, 

 and the sides of the head from expanding, the occiputal 

 region was allowed full freedom of growth, and the develop- 

 ment of the brain was forced to take an unnatural direction. 

 So great was the change produced, so extraordinary is the 

 shape of these abnormal skulls, that many ethnologists have 

 been disposed to regard them as belonging to a peculiar race. 

 This theory, however, has been clearly proved to be erroneous 



* Schoolcraft, I.e. vol. ii., p. 324. 

 f Wilson on Physical Ethnology, Smithsonian Eeport, 1862, p. 288. 



