While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Artificial Head Deformation. Deformations
of the human head have been known since the writings of Herodotus. They are
divisible into two main classes, those of pathological and those of mechanical
or artificial origin. The latter, with which this article is alone concerned,
are again divisible into um-intentional and intentional deformations. One
or the other of these varieties of mechanical deformation has been found among
numerous primitive peoples, as the ancient Avars and Krimeans, some Turkomans,
Malays, Africans, etc., as well as among some civilized peoples, as the French
and Wends, in different parts of the Old World, and both varieties existed from
prehistoric through historic time to the present among a number of Indian tribes
throughout the Western hemisphere. Unintentional mechanical deformations of the
head present but one important, widely distributed form, that of occipital
compression, which results from prolonged contact of the occiput of the infant
with a resistant head support in the cradleboard.
Intentional deformations, in all parts of the world and in all periods, present
two important forms only. In the first of these, the flat-head form, the
forehead is flattened by means of a board or a variety of cushion, while the
parietes of the head undergo compensatory expansion. In the second form, known
as macrocephalous, conical, Aymara, Toulousian, etc., the pressure of bandages,
or of a series of small cushions, applied about the head, passing over the
frontal region and under the occiput, produces a more or less conical,
truncated, bag-like, or irregular deformity, characterized by low forehead,
narrow parietes, often with a depression just behind the frontal bone, and a
protruding occiput. All of these forms present numerous individual variations,
some of which are sometimes improperly described as separate types of
deformation.
Among the Indians N. of Mexico there are numerous tribes in which no head
deformation exists and apparently has never existed. Among these are included
many of the Athapascan and Californian peoples, all of the Algonquian,
Shoshonean (except the Hopi), and Eskimo tribes, and most of the Indians of the
great plains. Unintentional occipital compression is observable among nearly all
the southwestern tribes, and it once extended over most of the United States
(excepting Florida) s. of the range of the tribes above mentioned. It also
exists in ancient skulls found in some parts of the N. W. coast.
Both forms of intentional deformation are found in North America. Their
geographical distribution is well defined and limited, suggesting a
comparatively late introduction from more southerly peoples. The flat-head
variety existed in two widely separated foci, one among the Natchez and in a few
other localities along the northeast coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and the other
on the N. W. coast from s. Oregon as far N. as s. Vancouver id., but chiefly w.
of the Cascades, along Columbia r. The Aymara variety existed, and still exists,
only on and near the N. w. extremity of Vancouver id.
The motives of intentional deformation among the Indians, so far as known, are
the same as those that lead to similar practices elsewhere; the custom has be
come fixed through long practice, hence is considered one of propriety and duty,
and the result is regarded as a mark of distinction and superiority.
The effects of the various deformations on brain function and growth, as well as
on the health of the individual, are apparently, insignificant. The tribes that
practise it show r no indication of greater mortality at any age than those
among which it does not exist, nor do they show a larger percentage of
imbeciles, or of in sane or neuropathic individuals. The deformation, once
acquired, persists throughout life, the skull and brain compensating for the
compression by augmented extension in directions of least resistance. No
hereditary effect is perceptible. The custom of head deformation among the
Indians, on the whole, is gradually decreasing, and the indications are that in
a few generations it will have ceased to exist. See Flatheads. (A.H.)
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Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
