Page:Narrative of a Voyage around the World - 1843.djvu/365

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1839.]
EXTENT OF THE PRACTICE.
307

fashion and variety. The custom of compressing the head in infancy is not practised here extensively. On the coast it is limited to a space of about one hundred and seventy miles, extending between Cape Flattery and Cape Look-out. Inland, it extends up the Columbia to the first rapids, or one hundred and forty miles, and is checked at the falls on the Wallamette. In this small compass there are several tribes having this one distinctive badge. Those with whom travellers are most likely to come in contact are the Chenooks, Clatsaps, Killimooks, Chee-hee-lees, and Shlakatats. We first witnessed the practice in the house of Choonamis, a chief of the Chenooks. The infant, very soon after birth, is placed horizontally

Cradles.
Cradles.

in a small wooden cradle, wrapped up in a fur, and lashings are repeatedly passed across it, so as to