Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/510

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
494
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Figs. 5 and 6.—Deformed Skulls. ever, has it been more prevalent than on the western coast of both

Americas. Of old races the Peruvians, Yucatanese, Mexicans, Caribs, Natchez, and some of the mound-building tribes deformed the head. In later days many tribes along the Northwest coast from Oregon to the Tlinkit territory have—or lately have had—the fashion. The method of applying the pressure varied. Sometimes a board was fastened firmly against the forehead, space being left between it and the back board of the baby-frame for the head to grow backward and upward to a wedgeform. Sometimes bands of cloth or bark were bound around the head so as to force the growth either upward or backward. All sorts of classifications of the various forms have been suggested. Three types, however, are particularly striking: (a) The "flat-head"—wedge-shaped; (b) the long cylindrical; (c) the "sugar-loaf." Ten