of the time and place. Such, however, is far from being the case. The custom of artificially changing the form of the head is one of the most ancient and widespread with which we are acquainted. It is far from being confined, as many suppose, to an obscure tribe of Indians on the northwest coast of America, but is found, under various modifications, at widely different parts of the earth's surface, and among people who can have had no intercourse with one another. It appears, in fact, to have originated independently, in many quarters, from some natural impulse common to the human race. When it once became an established custom in any tribe, it was almost inevitable that it should continue, until put an end to by the destruction either of the tribe itself, or of its peculiar institutions, through the intervention of some superior force, for a standard of excellence in form, which could not be changed in those who possessed it, was naturally followed by all who did not wish their children to run the risk of the social degradation which would follow the neglect of such a custom. "Failure properly to mold the cranium of her offspring gives to the Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy and undutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of their young companions, so despotic is fashion."[1] It is related in the narrative of Commodore Wilkes's "United States Exploring Expedition,"[2] that "at Niculuita Mr. Drayton obtained the drawing of a child's head, of the Walla Walla tribe (Fig. 6), that had just been released from its bandages, in
Fig. 6.—Flat-headed Indian child. order to secure its flattened shape. Both the parents showed great delight at the success they had met with in effecting this distortion."
Many of the less severe alterations of the form to which the head is subjected are undesigned, resulting only from the mode in which the child is carried or dressed during infancy. Thus habitually carrying the child on one arm appears to produce an obliquity in the form of the skull which is retained to a greater or less degree all through life. The practice followed by nomadic people of carrying their infants fastened to stiff pillows or boards, commonly causes a flattening of the occiput; and the custom of dressing the child's head with tightly fitting bandages, still common in many parts of the Continent, and even used in England within the memory of many living people, produces an elongated and laterally constricted form.[3] In France this is well known, and so com-
- ↑ Bancroft, op. cit., vol. i., p. 238.
- ↑ Vol. iv., p. 388.
- ↑ After the lecture, a gentleman of advanced age showed me a circular depression round the upper part of his head, which he believed had been produced in this manner, as the custom was still prevailing at the time of his birth in the district of Norfolk of which he was a native.
