208 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887 



natural Deeds without the inside being wet or soiled, except the down, 

 which is easily replaced with new. 



" Some nations in Louisiana, to whom the French have given the 

 name of flat heads, * * * have a groove practically in their cradle, 

 in which the mother puts the child's head ; she applies on the front and 

 back of the head a mass of clay which binds and bears down with all 

 force. She cradles the child all the time until its head has taken its 

 shape, and when the sutures of the head have taken consistency. The 

 children suffer extremely, become almost black ; a white and viscous 

 liquor comes from the eyes, nose, and ears ; they suffer much more from 

 the uneasy situation, where they are forced to pass all the time during 

 the lirst months of their infancy, but it is the cost of becoming beauti- 

 ful by art and the suffering to get that charm which nature refuses. 



" The Caribs and most of the Southern Indians have also flattened 

 foreheads and pointed heads. Their mothers fasten the head down 

 with little boards and pads of cotton bound strongly back of the head. 



" The child has no other cradle but a hammock proportioned to their 

 height in which the mothers can suspend them and transport them very 

 commodiously, and where the children are cradled all naked, without 

 any pain from confinement. 



" The Indians, which are called in Canada (le gens de Terres) Garha- 

 gonronnon, have a different taste from the Flatheads, for their beauty 

 consists in having a round head; thence they are called 'Bullet 

 Heads'" (pp. 593, 597). 



" The first years the child is kept all naked in the cabin to keep its 

 body from being injured by the air. When larger it works for the 

 family. They carry water and little billets of wood ; this they regard 

 as sport. Up to puberty they neglect their person; no ornaments are 

 worn until they are enrolled in the body of young men. They are edu- 

 cated like Spartans " (p. 597). 



" Women strong and robust but are not prolific. The enceinte womau 

 does not take care of herself; she carries heavy burdens and works 

 harder as she approaches her time. They say this violent exercise 

 facilitates their parturition and makes the child more robust. No one 

 can deny that they do bring forth with surprising ease. If caught in 

 labor away from the cabin they attend to themselves, and are appar- 

 ently able to do their regular work the same day " (pp. 590, 591). 



" They do suffer and die sometimes, but they bear their pain with 

 such fortitude that they do not seem to suffer " (p. 592). 



"Some Southern Indians think if the women do not bear their pain 

 with fortitude the children will inherit their weakness, and they kill 

 those children that are born of such a mother. They kill the mother 

 of a stillborn child, and also sacrifice one of twins, because one mother 

 is not enough for two children " (p. 592). 



"The Indians will not give their children to others to bring up. If 

 it happens that the mother dies while the ckild is yet in the cradle, it 



