THE NATCHEZ. 



161 



" From secretiveness to secretiveness 65. 



" From constructiveness to constructiveness 4 



1 jj 



Mr. Dorfeuelle, of Cincinnati, has kindly presented me with a cast of another 

 skull obtained near the city of Natchez, and which corresponds in most of its 

 details with that here figured, and of which I subjoin two diagrams. 



I am further informed that five at least of these extraordinary crania, have 

 been obtained from different mounds in the ancient territory of the Natchez. It 

 is now well ascertained, however, that several other tribes of our southern Indians 

 also practised the art of changing the form of the skull. Among these were the 

 Choctaws. "They flatten their heads with a bag of sand," says Adair, "which 

 with great care they keep fastened to the skull of the infant, while it is in its 

 tender and imperfect state."* Bartram is more explicit. " The Choctaws are 

 called by the traders Flats, or Flatheads, all the males having the fore and hind 

 part of their skulls flattened or compressed, which is effected in the following 

 manner. As soon as the child is born, the nurse provides a cradle or wooden case, 

 where the head reposes, being fashioned like a brick mould. In this part of the 

 machine the little boy is fixed, a bag of sand being laid on its forehead, which, by 

 continual gentle compressure, gives the head somewhat the form of a brick from 

 the temples upwards, and by these means they have high and lofty foreheads, 

 sloping off* backwards."! The Choctaws, therefore, moulded their heads in the 

 same style or form with the Natchez. I subjoin diagrams of an admirably 

 preserved cranium from a mound high up the Alabama river, and which has been 



*Hist. of the Amer. Indians^ p. 2S4. 

 41 



t Trav. p. 517. 



