Painting by Paul Kane, showing a Chinookan child in the process of having its head flattened, and an adult after the process.

Head flattening, also called head binding, head shaping or head moulding, is the application of pressure or bindings to cranial bones (the human skull) to alter their shapes. Flat shapes, elongated ones (produced by binding between two pieces of wood), rounded ones (binding in cloth) and conical ones are among those chosen. It is typically carried out on an infant, as the skull is most pliable at this time. In a typical case, headbinding begins approximately a month after birth and continues for about six months.

Usually it is a part of a cultural ritual, aimed at creating a skull shape which is aesthetically more pleasing or associated with desirable attributes such as intelligence. For example, in the Nahai-speaking area of Tomman Island and the south south-western Malalukan, a person with a finely elongated head is thought to be more intelligent, of higher status, and closer to the world of the spirits.

[edit] History

A case of skulls from the Andean Paracas culture, as seen in the Museo Nacional de Arqueología Antropología e Historia del Perú in Lima, Peru.

Intentional head molding producing extreme cranial deformations was once commonly practiced worldwide.^{[citation needed]} Although rarer today, it is still prevalent in very few groups. It is a form of permanent body modification.

The earliest known culture to bind their children's heads were the ancient Egyptians of the third millennium BC. The practice was also known among the Australian Aborigines, Maya, and certain tribes of North American natives, most notably the Chinookan tribes of the Northwest and the Choctaw of the Southeast.

In the Old World, Huns are also known to have practiced similar cranial deformation.

The Native American group known as the Flathead did not in fact practice head flattening, but were named as such in contrast to other Salishan people who used skull modification to make the head appear rounder.^[1] However, other tribes, including the Choctaw,^[2] Chehalis, and Nooksack Indians, did practice head flattening by strapping the infant's head to a cradleboard.

[edit] Bibliography

• Ellen FitzSimmons, Jack H. Prost, Sharon Peniston, "Infant Head Molding, A Cultural Practice", Arch Fam Med, Vol 7, Jan/Feb 1998
• Adebonojo, F. O., "Infant head shaping". JAMA, 1991;265:1179.
• Henshen F. The Human Skull: A Cultural History . New York, NY: Frederick A Praeger, 1966

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Headshaping, Australian Museum's Body Art: [1]