Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/191

Rh child is very young, while the cranium is yet soft, and somewhat pliable. It nevertheless requires a long time to complete it. It must be effected very gradually, and the pressure must be continued upon the skull, until it has acquired a degree of hardness, sufficient to retain the shape which has been given. The object is to press back the forehead, which, when the operation is completed, is generally about parallel with the nose. In effecting this, the back part of the head is also somewhat compressed. This object is accomplished by binding a small board, or any other hard plane substance, closely upon the forehead, so as to press in the required direction. The child itself is lashed to a board, in such a manner as to favor the securing of the flattening plane, in the necessary position, and to prevent the child from strangling. This operation, although so unnatural, so confining, and affecting an organ so delicate as the brain, and though performed upon such tender years, does not, however, appear to produce pain. Mortality does not appear to be greater among the Flathead children than among the adults, in comparison with that of other Indian Tribes. Neither does the flattening of the head appear, in the least degree, to affect the mind. Slaves, born among them, whose heads are not flattened, are the same, in every respect, pertaining to the mind, as far as it is possible to determine. In disposition, passion, intellect, and in their whole character, as far as different individuals are alike, they are alike. But it is probable that this practice will soon become extinct, if not from the abandonment of the custom, at least from the extinction of the race.

In the climate of Western Oregon, we find one of the principal advantages which this country, together with the whole Western coast of the Continent, possesses over those portions laying East of the great mountain range, which, extending from within the Arctic circle, divides the