FEOM THE SANTA BARBARA ISLANDS. 283 



suture, five of them being in the form of epactals or "Inca" bones. In 

 two the interparietal suture was still open, and in three, or 2 per cent, 

 metopism, or persistence of the frontal suture, was present. Among Eu- 

 ropeans this latter peculiarity is stated to exist in one in seven, or a little 

 over 14 per cent. 



In thirty-five, or 23 per cent., of these skulls, there is evidence of pos- 

 terior flattening, due without doubt to cradle-board pressure, though in no 

 case was it sufficient to interfere with the accuracy of our measurements. 

 As a rule, it is limited to a slight flattening of the parietals at the obelion, 

 much as if a small slice had been taken off the skull at that point. Rarely, 

 if ever, does it extend down as far as the inion, though the lambda is not 

 unfrequently included. Sometimes one or even two, and in one instance 

 three, small depressions were found on this flattened surface. These may 

 have been caused by some unevenness in the wad or pillow upon which the 

 child's head rested. In only four specimens (and in these it was so slight 

 as scarcely to exceed the limits allowed in cases that merely show a marked 

 want of symmetry) was found that form of occipital flattening so common 

 among the Moundbuilders' skulls, in which one or the other of the parietals 

 is pushed forward and the whole of the posterior portion of the head is 

 forced out of shape. In three of these it was the right parietal that had 

 been so deformed. This was probably accidental, though it is worthy of 

 remark that in a large majority of the crania from the mounds in Tennessee 

 that have been so flattened, it is the same side of the head that has suffered. 

 In a hundred of these, taken at random and including males and females, 

 it was found that fifty had the right parietal so distorted, twenty-eight the 

 left, while in twenty-two the skull was either normal or the pressure had 

 been so evenly applied as not to cause any perceptible difference. In one 

 case two crania taken from the same grave* were found to be distorted to 

 about the same extent, though on opposite sides. This is believed to be 

 decisive of the point so far as the Moundbuilders are concerned, and it is 

 hardly probable that any special significance should havebeen attached by the 

 Santa Barbara Indians to the results of a process that is shown to have been 

 accidental among the people among whom the practice was far more common. 



* Peabody Museum, Nos. 17281 and 17282, 



