On the importance of a due estimate of the different modes and degrees of deformation of the skull, in the study of craniology / by Joseph Barnard Davis.

Joseph Barnard Davis

Date:: [1865]

Credit: On the importance of a due estimate of the different modes and degrees of deformation of the skull, in the study of craniology / by Joseph Barnard Davis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

11/18 page 11

$The North-American Indians do not confine themselves to the improvement of the head alone. The Indian mother of the Haeeltznk tribe, of Vancouver's Island, applies a thick pad or pillow to the region of the lower dorsal and the lumbar vertebra' of her female infant, so as to cause the spine to bend forwards to a greater degree than the natural curvature at this point. The protrusion of the glutei muscles is very conspicuous in tbe adult woman and is esteemed a grace; which is quite in accordance •with the taste of the English ladies a few years ago, the •size of whose bustles was generally proportionate to i their rank. A Haeeltzuk Chief's daughter, with whose i modelling great pains have been , taken, waddles consi- derably in her gait, and has a stuck-up, penguin-like i carriage. \ It would probably be considered only amusing to describe the different shapes into which the head is tor- 'tured by different tribes. There is scarcely any direction in which this spheroidal body can he changed in form I that is not practised by one tribe or another, or effected i by individual caprice. Examples are to be seen in most t craniological museums. Mine contains many. Perhaps that which strikes a person like myself, familiar with the usual . artificial deformations, as most curious, is that adopted by the Newatees, an exceedingly warlike tribe at the'northern (extremity of Vancouver's Island. This is an attempt and a pretty successful one too, by means of winding a cord made of deer's-skin round and round the head, which is I gradually tightened, to convert it into a cone, rising straight upwards. Their hair drawn up in the same direction and tied at the top of the cone, adds much to their very sin- gular appearance. The tribes who practise this mode of$