82 Professor D. Wilson’s Illustrations of the Significance 
broad, and presents in profile a uniform, rounded conforma- 
tion passing almost imperceptibly into the coronal region. 
Indeed the broad, well rounded occiput is considered by the 
Fijians a great beauty. The bearing of this, however, in 
relation to the present argument, depends on whether or 
not the Fiji neck-pillow is used in infancy. From the un- 
reasoning uniformity of adherence to any national custom, 
common to all rude people, it is probable that the same 
pillow is used for the infant and the adult as among the 
Egyptians; but I have failed to obtain definite informa- 
tion on this point. In one male Fiji skull brought home 
by the United States Exploring Expedition (No. 4581), 
the occiput exhibits the characteristic full, rounded form, 
with a large and well-defined supra-occipital bone. But 
in another skull in the same collection that of Veindovi, 
Chief of Kantavu, who was taken prisoner by the U. 8. 
ship Peacock in 1840, and died at New York in 1842, 
the occiput, though full, is slightly vertical. The occi- 
pital development of the Fiji cranium is the more in- 
teresting as we are now familiar with the fact that the arti- 
ficially flattened occiput. is of common occurrence among 
the islanders of the Pacific Ocean. ‘‘In the Malay race,” 
says Dr Pickering, “‘a more marked peculiarity, and one 
very generally observable, is the elevated occiput, and its 
slight projection beyond the line of the neck. The Mon- 
golian traits are heightened artificially in the Chinooks, but 
it is less generally known that a slight pressure is often 
applied to the occiput by the Polynesians, in conformity 
with the Malay standard.”"* Dr Nott, in describing the 
skull of a Kanaka of the Sandwich Islands who died at the 
Marine Hospital at Mobile, mentions his being struck by its 
singular occipital formation ; and this he learned was due to | 
an artificial flattening which the islander had stated to his 
medical attendants in the hospital was habitually practised 
in his family.t According to Dr Davis, it istraceable to 
so simple a cause as the Kanaka mother’s habit of supporting 
the head of her nursling in the palm of her hand.t What- 
ever be the cause, the fact is now well established. The 
* Pickering’s Races of Man, p. 45. t Types of Mankind, p. 436. 
{ Crania Britannica, Dec. III. pl. 24 (4). 
