CRADLES OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 



195 



of it, whereas the body and limbs have been strapped up almost to the 

 last degree. This child has light, thin hair, through which the general 

 form of the skull could be easily examined, but after the most careful 

 measurements I failed to detect any flattening of the occipital region 

 of the head. 



In examining the full blooded infants of 

 different ages of this tribe of Indians I 

 occasionally found one wherein I thought 

 I could satisfactorily determine that the 

 back of its head was unduly flattened, but 

 it was by no means always the case. 



Another thing must be remembered, and 

 this is that these Navajo women do not 

 always keep their infants thus strapped 

 up in their cradles, and this fact goes to 

 sustain the proposition that whatever 

 pressure is brought to bear against the 

 back of their heads, it is not a constant one. 

 We often see here the little Navajo babies 

 playing about for hours together at a time 

 when they are scarcely able to walk. 

 Among older children I have satisfied my- 

 self — as well as I could through their mat- 

 ted hair — that the hinder region of their 

 heads was flattened, but it never seemed to equal that of the Navajo 

 girl, which I have illustrated in the October number of the Journal of 

 Anatomy. 



There can be, I think, no question but that Prof. Sir William Turner 

 is correct in regard to its being not only a distortion but due to pressure, 

 though it would appear from the examinations which I have been able 

 to make that at some time or other the strapping must have been very 

 differently applied. To produce posterior flattening of the skull alone 

 the pressure must be applied only upon that side, and to do this, in 

 order to produce anything like the extraordinarily distorted skull that 

 I have figured in my second paper on this subject, the child would 

 have to have its head against a hard board for a long time and con- 

 tinually kept there. If it were strapped it must be quite obvious 

 that a certain amount of frontal flattening would also be produced, 

 but I have never discovered such a distortion in any of the Navajo 

 skulls. 



Now, so far as I have seen, they do not treat their children in this 

 way, but, as I have said, always give them a soft pillow and leave the 

 head free. • 



Perhaps in former times the strapping of their babies in these cradles 

 was very different from the methods now employed among this tribe, 

 and again, the question of heredity may possibly enter into the subject, 



Fig. 29. 

 Apache Woman carrying child. 



(From photograph.) 



