HEAD FLATTENING

intentional or unintentional artificial deformation of the human skull. Some Indians of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America produced head flattening by binding an infant's head to a cradleboard; only the heads of free men, not slaves, were deformed. Indians of southeastern North America deformed infants' heads by means of specially constructed cradleboards and the pressure of a wooden block or a bag of sand against the forehead.