that I cannot think they are due to the imperfect skill of the sculptor. In fact, I am rather inclined to think that they were possibly produced by tight bandages applied during the infancy of the individual, and removed when she attained full growth, just in the same way as the shape of the skull is permanently altered among other nations, by gradual crushing and moulding while the bones are yet pliable in childhood.
Hippocrates, about 400 B.C., speaks of a people he calls the Macrocephali, who, he says, directly a child is born, while its head is still tender, begin to fashion it with their hands, "and constrain it to assume a lengthened shape by applying bandages and other suitable contrivances, whereby the spherical form of the head is destroyed, and it is made to increase in length. Thus, at first, usage operated, so that this constitution was the result of force; but in the course of time it was formed naturally, so that usage had nothing to do with it." But it must not be thought that this is a long extinct custom; for, indeed, it is still existing among the Chinook Indians and the natives of Vancouver Island, although it is dying out under European influence.
According to Bancroft,1[1] "Failure properly to mould the cranium of her offspring gives to the Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy, undutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of their young companions, so despotic in
- ↑ 1 "Native Races of the Pacific States of North America," 1875, vol. i. p. 238.
