THE NATCHEZ. 161
“ From secretiveness to secretiveness 6j.
“ From constructiveness to constructiveness 4J.”
Mr. Dorfeuelle, of Cincinnati, has kindly presented me with a cast of another
skull obtained near the city of Natchez, and which corresponds in most of its
details with that here figured, and of which I subjoin two diagrams.
I am further informed that five at least of these extraordinary crania, have
been obtained from different mounds in the ancient territory of the Natchez. It
is now well ascertained, however, that several other tribes of our southern Indians
also practised the art of changing the form of the skull. Among these were the
C h o c t aw s . “ They flatten their heads with a bag*of sand,” says Adair, “ which
with great care they keep fastened to the skull of the infant, while it is in its
tender and imperfect state.”* Bartram is more explicit. “ The Choctaws are
called by the traders Flats, or Flatheads, all the males having the fore and hind
part of their skulls flattened or compressed, which is effected in the following
manner. As soon as the child is born, the nurse provides a cradle or wooden case,
where the head reposes, being fashioned like a brick mould. In this part of the
machine the little hoy is fixed, a bag of sand being laid on its forehead, which, by
continual gentle compressure, gives the head somewhat the form of a brick from
the temples upwards, and by these means they have high and lofty foreheads,
sloping off backwards.”f The Choctaws, therefore, moulded their heads in the
same style or form with the Natchez. I subjoin diagrams of an admirably
preserved cranium from a mound high up the Alabama river, and which has been
* Hist, of the Amer. Indians, p. 2S4.
41
t Trav. p. 517.