These Indians Are Of An Extraordinary Stature, And Call'd
By Their Neighbours Flat Heads, Which Seems A Very Suitable Name
For them.
In their Infancy, their Nurses lay the Back-part of their Children's Heads
on a Bag of Sand,
(Such as Engravers use to rest their Plates upon.)
They use a Roll, which is placed upon the Babe's Forehead,
it being laid with its Back on a flat Board, and swaddled hard down thereon,
from one End of this Engine, to the other. This Method makes
the Child's Body and Limbs as straight as an Arrow. There being
some young Indians that are perhaps crookedly inclin'd,
at their first coming into the World, who are made perfectly straight
by this Method. I never saw an Indian of a mature Age,
that was any ways crooked, except by Accident, and that way seldom,
for they cure and prevent Deformities of the Limbs, and Body, very exactly.
The Instrument I spoke of before, being a sort of a Press, that is
let out and in, more or less, according to the Discretion of the Nurse,
in which they make the Child's Head flat, it makes the Eyes stand
a prodigious Way asunder, and the Hair hang over the Forehead
like the Eves of a House, which seems very frightful: They being ask'd
the Reason why they practis'd this Method, reply'd, the Indian's Sight
was much strengthened and quicker, thereby, to discern the Game in hunting
at larger Distance, and so never miss'd of becoming expert Hunters,
the Perfection of which they all aim at, as we do to become
experienced Soldiers, learned School-Men, or Artists in Mechanicks:
He that is a good Hunter never misses of being a Favourite amongst the Women;
the prettiest Girls being always bestow'd upon the chiefest Sports-Men,
and those of a grosser Mould, upon the useless Lubbers.
Thus they have a Graduation amongst them, as well as other Nations.
As for the Solemnity of Marriages amongst them, kept with so much Ceremony
as divers Authors affirm, it never appear'd amongst those many Nations
I have been withal, any otherwise than in the Manner I have
mention'd hereafter.
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