Flattening the Head.
Many of the southern tribes of the British Columbia Coast were in the habit of deforming the heads of their children. This custom resembles that of foot-binding among the Chinese, and other similar barbarous practices common to most heathen peoples. The Flatheads compressed the foreheads, of their little ones by means of boards or a hard cushion, or even a flat stone. The child was laid in its little basket cradle or placed upon a narrow piece of board, to one end of which another board was attached with thongs. The upper board was pulled tight down over the child’s forehead, and thus the head was pressed gradually out of shape and the forehead flattened back.
TWO FLATHEAD CENTENARIANS.
In the northern part of Vancouver Island they use a circular bandage, whereby the skull acquires an extraordinary length and forms what is called the sugar-loaf head. Some of the natives of the west coast of the island placed a bandage over the forehead of the child and then laid a flat stone upon this, thus securing the necessary deformation.
The effect of this pressure was to stupefy the senses and to crush out the intellect. Many of the children died under this cruel practice.
Again and again I have expostulated with them, and often have whipped out my knife and cut the cords which bound the little sufferer, only to incur the anger of the parents, who themselves were bound by inexorable custom.