THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 41 7 



ascertaining of their disturbance, it was solely with a view to pos- 

 sess myself of one or two specimens of the peculiar American type 

 of cranium, which possessed a special interest to me from its approx- 

 imation to the ancient brachy-cephalic skull, familiar to me, as 

 found in one important class of early British barrows. It 

 was accordingly, simply with a sense of disappointment that I 

 found the results of repeated efforts, in different localities, supplied 

 me with crania, which, though undoubtedly Indian, exhibited little 

 or no trace of the rounded form, with short longitudinal diameter, 

 so strikingly apparent in the ancient crania of Central Amer- 

 ica and the Mounds. Appreciating, as I did, the invaluable 

 labours of Dr. Morton — which will be more fully prized, as the im- 

 portant science they tend to elucidate commands a wider attention 

 and more careful study — it did not occur to me at first to question 

 any of the results so frequently reiterted by him, and repeatedly 

 confirmed by the concurrence of later writers. Slowly, however, the 

 idea has forced itself upon me that, to whatever extent the affirmed 

 typical form of the American cranium is found to prevail in other 

 parts of the continent, the crania most frequently met with along 

 the north shores of the great lakes, are deficient in some of its most 

 essential elements. 



In order to institute such a comparison as will satisfacto test 

 this question, it is necessary to define the essential requisites of the 

 American type of cranium ; for, neither Dr. Morton, nor his succes- 

 sors, have overlooked the fact of some deviation from the sup- 

 posed normal type, not only occurring occasionally, but existing as 

 a permanent characteristic of certain tribes, including those to 

 which I have more particularly to refer. Dr. Morton, as has been 

 already shown, recognized a more elongated head as pertaining to 

 certain tribes, of which he names the Lenape stock, the Iroquois, 

 and the Cherokees, to the east of the Alleghany Mountains ; and 

 the Mandans, Ricaras, and Assinaboins, to the west. But such 

 elongation he speaks of as a mere slight variation from the more 

 perfect form of the normal skull ; and he adds : " even in these 

 instances the characteristic truncation of the occiput is more or less 

 obvious."* So also Dr. Nott, after defining the typical characteris- 

 tics of the American cranium, remarks : " Such are more universal 

 in the Toltecan than the barbarous tribes. Among the Iroquois, for 

 instance, the heads were often of a somewhat elongated form, but the 

 Cherokees and Choctaws, who, of all barbarous tribes, display greater 



* Crania Americana, p. 69. 



