1886. ] Anthropology. 485 
is no difference either in the form or the manners of the inhabi- 
tants, nor in their language. All have the face and forehead 
long, the head round, with the same distance between the temples 
as from the forehead to the occiput.” ; 
e may affirm then, in virtue of this testimony, that the prim- 
itive Caribs had no habits of deformation, and that their heads, 
instead of being elongated and flattened as was supposed, were 
round and elevated. : 
Oviedo! was the first to start the report of the existence of vol- 
untary deformation in America. In his edition of 1535 he says 
that the inhabitants of St. Domingo had the forehead very wide 
on account of certain manipulations, “ For at the moment of 
birth they press the forehead and the occiput of children.” | 
Such treatment would not effect a permanent change in the 
form of the head.2 : 
Gomara’ expresses himself in parallel terms in relation to Saint 
Domingo, only he specifies that it was the wise women to whom 
was due the shape of the head in these Indians. He adds, re- 
garding the Indians of Cumaná, that the pressure made at the 
moment of accouchment was effected by two bundles of cotton. 
Mara was never on American soil. 
Casas‘ says that in Peru it was a great privilege granted to” 
certain chiefs whom they wished to honor to give to the heads of 
their infants the form of those of the king and princes of the 
royal family. t : 
From this we conclude that the practice was neither obligatory 
Central America better than did Oviedo, and though he mentions 
Practices attributed to mothers or wise women, deformations of 
t is ta, 
by ri the operation is reversed, first the bandages and then 
e 
f o 
place. But he knows only indifferently the countries of which 
Oviedo. Historia general y Natural de Indias, 11, cap. 5; XLII, cap. 3. 
s Topinard, Elements d’ Anthropologie generale. Pari 
jomate. ‘Historia de las Indias. Madrid, 1852, 172; 206: 
` Casas. A logetica Historia, cap. 34, 392. 
«a Cron 
a 
_ 45; 399 
os 
T 
ica del Perú, cap. 26, 378, 1853. Madrid. Also cap. 50, 404; also aoe o 
