It is one of those instances of human caprice, like the crippling of the feet of females in China, which are quite incomprehensible.

This custom prevails principally among the tribes on the sea-coast, and about the lower parts of the rivers.

How far it extends along the coast we are not able to ascertain.

Some of the tribes, both north and south of the Columbia, practice it; but they all speak the Chinook language, and probably originated from the same stock.
As far as we can learn, the remoter tribes, which speak an entirely different language, do not flatten the head.

This absurd custom declines, also, in receding from the shores of the Pacific; few traces of it are to be found among the tribes of the Rocky Mountains, and after crossing the mountains it disappears altogether.