206 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



better than the cradles of our nation, for as much as we find them well 

 proportioned, not any of them crooked backed or wry legged ; and to 

 give their charracter in a worde, they are as proper meu and women for 

 feature and limbs as can be found, for flesh and blood as active." (" ^New 

 English Canaan." Prince Soc. Boston, 1883, p. 147.) 



The Choktah flatten their foreheads with a bag of sand, which with 

 great care they keep fastened on the skull of the infant while it is in its 

 tender and imperfect state. Thus they quite deform their face and give 

 themselves an appearance which is disagreeable to any but those of 

 their own likeness.* (Adair's American Indians, p. 284.) 



"The Indians flatten their heads in divers forms, but it is chiefly the 

 crown of the head they depress in order to beautify themselves, as their 

 wild fancy terms it, for they call us long heads by way of contempt. 

 The Choktah Indians flatten their foreheads trom the top of the head 

 to the eye-brows with a small bag of sand, which gives them a hideous 

 appearance, as the forehead naturally shoots upward, according as it is 

 flattened, thus, the rising of the nose, instead of being equidistant from 

 the beginning of the chin to that of the hair is, by their wild mechanism, 

 placed a great deal nearer to the one and farther from the other. The 

 Iudian nations round South Carolina and all the way to New Mexico 

 (properly called Mechiko), to effect this, fix the tender infant on a kind 

 of cradle, where his feet are tilted above a foot higher than a horizontal 

 position, his head bends back into a hole made on purpose to receive it, 

 where he bears the chief part of his weight on the crown of the head 

 upon a small bag of sand, without being in the least able to move himself. 

 The skull, resembling a fine cartilaginous substance, in its infant 

 state, is capable of taking any impression. By this pressure, and their 

 thus flattening the crown of the head, they consequently make their 

 heads thick and their faces broad, for when the smooth channel of 



* Voluey, C. F. (A View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America. 

 Philadelphia, 1804. 8 vo.) It is " the custom of the Choctaws to mould the skull of 

 their new-born children to the shape of a truncated pyramid, by pressing them be- 

 tween boards. This method is so effectual that the tribe is known by the name of 

 the Flat-Heads" (p. 365). Among the tribes near the head of the Wabash, " Weeaws, 

 Pavories, Sawkies, Pyankishaws, andMiamis, * * * the females * * * carry 

 one or two children behind them in a sort of bag, the ends of which are tied upon 

 their forehead. In this respect they have a strong resemblance to our [the French] 

 gypsies" (p. 353). 



Bartram, William. (Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 

 etc. London, 1794. 2d ed., 8vo.) " The Choctaws are called by the traders Flats or 

 Flat Heads, all the males having the fore and hind parts of their skulls artificially 

 flattened or compressed" (p. 515). The infant is placed "in a wooden case," on its 

 back, " a bag of sand being laid on the forehead, which, by continual gentle compres- 

 sion," causes the head to slope u off backwards * * * from the temples upwards." 

 The occiput is received in a concavity "fashioned like a brick-mould" (p. 515). 



Heriot, G. (Travels through the Canadas. Loudon, 1807. 4to.) "Some of the 

 tribes of Louisiana flatten the forehead of their children, and cause the summit to 

 terminate in a point. * * * Beauty, in their conception, consists in moulding the 

 head to a round form" (p. 348). 



