principally admired forms ; but that which tended to widen and elevate the head
appears to have greatly prevailed over the opposite extreme, which flattened and
elongated it in the horizontal direction. I have been at some pains to inquire
into the facts connected with this singular custom, as contained in the early
Spanish travellers and historians, and have gleaned the following particulars.
Cieça, one of the oldest authorities, states that “ in the province of Anzerma,
and in that of Quinbaya, as well as in some other parts of this continent, when a
child is born they fix its head in the shape they wish it to retain ; thus some have
no occiput, others have the forehead depressed, and a third set have the whole
head elongated. This conformation is, in the first place, produced by the application
of small boards, and is subsequently continued by means of ligatures.”*
The same traveller adds the following notice of the Indians called Caraques,
near the Spanish settlement of Puerto Viejo. | At the birth of a child,” says he,
“ they mould its head, and then bind it between two boards, in such manner that
at the age of four or five years it remains either broad or long, or destitute of the
occipital prominence. They assert that this custom contributes to health, and
enables them to carry greater burthens.”f
Torquemada, also writing of the Peruvians, has the following passage. ' | As
to the custom of appearing fierce in war, it was in some provinces ordered that
the mothers or their attendants should make the faces of their children long and
rough, and the foreheads broad, as Hippocrates and Galen relate of the Macroçe-
phali, who had them moulded by art into the elevated and conical form. This
custom is more prevalent in the province of Chicuito, than in any other part of
Peru.Ӕ
The preceding quotations are satisfactory evidence, that the custom of distorting
the skull, was common in many provinces of Peru at the period of the Spanish
invasion ; that it was resorted to for the purpose of increasing the ferocity of the
countenance in war,—augmenting an imaginary grace,—and adding to the health
and strength of the body. It is also obvious that there were two principal modes
of effecting this end, and that these were the opposites of each other.
The following passage from Garcilaso de la Vega, proves that this fashion
was not introduced by the Incas, but was in use before they conquered the
country. He states that the Inca Huyna Capac, having invaded the province of
Manta with a view to its subjugation, found there a people who were living in the
* Chronica del Peru, Cap. XXYL t Loco citât. Cap. L.
Î Monarquia Indiana, T. II, p. £8 1 . Fol. Madrid, 1723.
most barbarous and demoralised condition. Both the men and the women cut
their cheeks with pointed flints; they also deform the heads of their children by
placing, at birth, a small board on the forehead and another on the occiput, and
drawing them tighter day by day until the child has attained the age of four or
five years. By this process the head becomes broad from side to side, and narrow
from back to front. Not satisfied with this deformity they shave the hair from
the top Of the head, and the nape of the neck, letting it grow on the ,sides only ;
and this not being combed or otherwise arranged, but rude and; entangled, adds
to the hideousness of their physiognomy.”* The historian then gives the names
of six nations or tribes to whom the above description is applicable.
It thus appears that the custom of moulding: the cranium into artificial forms
is of great antiquity and prevalence in Peru.• We have seen that it existed among
what we have termed the civilised primitive Peruvians, that it was common
among many barbarous tribes at the invasion of the Incas, and that it continued to
be a popular fantasy when the Spaniards took possession of the country. Professor
Blumenbach quotes from Aguirre, part of a decree óf the Ecclesiastical Court of
Lima in the year 1585, forbidding parents, under certain specified penalties, to
compress or distort the heads of their children in the various modes which were
in vogue even at that late period ;f and that the custom was not extinct a very
few years ago, is evident from the statement of Mr. Skinner, an English traveller.
Speaking of the Connivos of Peru, he remarks, “ that all their attention is bestowed
on preserving a firm texture of the body, and on flattening the forehead and hinder
part of the head p n the upward direction] with a view of resembling, as they say,
the full moon, and of becoming the strongest and most valiant people in, the world.
To attain the former of these aims, they bind the waist, and all the joints, Of their
male offspring, from their tender infancy, with hempen bands. With a view to
the latter, they wrap the forehead in cotton, and lay on it a small square board,
applying another similar board to the occiput, and adjusting them with cords until
the intention has been answered. Thus the head is elongated above, and flattened
both before and behind.
The Omaguas, who, towards the middle of the last century, inhabited the
* Comment. Reales, Lib. IX, Cap. VIII.
t “ Gupientes penitus extirpare abusum, et superstitionem, quibus Indi passim infantum capita
formis exprimurit, quos ipsi vocant.Caito, Oma, Opalla,” &c. Vide Blumenbach, De Gén.Humani
Far. Nat. p. 220.—Laurence, L ed . on Z oqI. p. 377.
t Présent State of Peru, p. 269.
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