" ("Smithsonian Report," 1862,
p. 286.)
Dr. L. A. Gosse testifies to the prevalence of the same custom among the
Caledonians and Scandinavians in the earliest times; and Dr. Thurman has
treated of the same peculiarity among the Anglo-Saxons. ("Crania
Britannica," chap. iv., p. 38.)
PERUVIAN SKULL.
CHINOOK (FLAT-HEAD), AFTER CATLIN.
Here, then, is an extraordinary and unnatural practice which has existed
from the highest antiquity, over vast regions of country, on both sides
of the Atlantic, and which is perpetuated unto this day in races as
widely separated as the Turks, the French, and the Flat-head Indians. Is
it possible to explain this except by supposing that it originated from
some common centre?
The annexed out represents an ancient Swiss skull, from a cemetery near
Lausanne, from a drawing of Frederick Troyon. Compare this with the
illustration given on page 271, which represents a Peruvian flat-head,
copied from Morton's "Ethnography and Archaeology of the American
Aborigines," 1846. This skull is shockingly distorted. The dotted lines
indicate the course of the bandages by which the skull was deformed.
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