alent among the Chenooks and other tribes at the north of the
Columbia river, in Oregon.
4. A simple vertical elevation of the occiput, giving the head in most
instances a squared and inequilateral form.
A curious decree of the ecclesiastical court of Lima, dated A. D. 1585,
and quoted by the late Prof. Blumenbach, alludes to at least four
artificial conformations of the head, even then common among the
Peruvians, and forbids the practice of them under certain specified
penalities.[TN-4] These forms were called in the language of the
natives, "Caito, Oma, Opalla, &c.;" and the continuance of them at that
period, affords another instance of the tenacity with which the
Peruvians clung to the usages of their forefathers.
FOOTNOTES:
[4-*] See more particularly the communications of Mr. R. C. Taylor, in
vol. xxxiv, of Mr. S. Taylor, in vol. xxxiv, and of Prof. Forshey in
vol. xlix.
[5-*] We take this occasion to observe, that skulls taken from the
mounds, should at once be saturated with a solution of glue or gum, or
with any kind of varnish, by which precaution further decomposition is
effectually prevented.
[6-*] Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, I, p. 281.
[6-+] Rambles in Yucatan, p. 217.
[6-++] L'Homme Americain, Tome I, p. 306. I corrected my error before I
had the pleasure of seeing M. D'Orbigny's very interesting work. Amer.
Jour. of Science, vol. xxxviii, No. 2. Jour. Acad. Nat. Sciences of
Philadelphia, vol. viii; and again in my Distinctive Characteristics of
the Aboriginal Race of America, p. 6.
[6-Sec.] See Proceedings of the Acad. of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia for
Dec. 1844.
[7-*] Amer. Jour. of Science, xxxii, p. 364.
[7-+] See Proceedings of the Acad. of Nat. Sciences of Phila., vol. ii,
p. 274. If I mistake not, I was the first to bring forward this _mode of
interment_ practiced by our aboriginal nations, as a strong evidence of
the unity of the American race. "Thus it is that notwithstanding the
diversity of language, customs and intellectual character, we trace this
usage throughout both Americas, affording, as we have already stated,
collateral evidence of the affiliation of all the American
tribes."--Crania Americana, p. 246, and pl. 69. Mr. Bradford in his
valuable work, _American Antiquities_, has added some examples of the
same kind; and the Chevalier D'Eichthal has also adduced this custom, in
connexion with some traces of it in Polynesia, to prove an exotic origin
for a
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