A fact of considerable interest is the presence of artificial
deformation in more than half of all the skulls preserved. In the
majority of cases this appears to be a simple occipital, cradle-board
flattening, but there are three or four instances in which there
are plain traces of bilateral frontal compression, which indicates
intentional deformation and suggests that all the posteriorly flattened
skulls may possibly be of this variety, though the applied pressure
failed in most cases to leave a distinct mark on the frontal bone.[11]
The result of no such practice has been observed in any other part of
the northern or middle Atlantic States, but deformation of exactly this
type was common in Arkansas and Louisiana, as well as in the area to
the northeastward.[12] Among the crania of the earlier and somewhat
more easterly Lenape reported by the writer[13] to the number of 25,
only two (both females) showed slight occipital flattening. These facts
are significant and point either to some difference in derivation
between the Munsee and other Lenape and eastern Algonquian tribes,
or, if of common derivation, to a connection between the Munsee and
some people from the Trans-Appalachian region to the southwestward.
It is in this connection that the historic accession to the Munsee of
some Shawnee is suggestive, for the latter, or a part of them, lived
in Kentucky and Tennessee, where the practice of fronto-occipital
deformation was not uncommon, and in some parts of that area, indeed,
was quite general.
[10] Had the cemetery, prior to its disturbance, contained the remains
of as many as 200 bodies of all ages, including infants, with a yearly
mortality in the tribe of 35 per thousand, it could have been in use
only about 60 years by a population of 100, and proportionately less,
of course, for a larger group.
[11] As happened frequently on the coast of Peru, for instance, where
the same type of deformation was practiced. No board was used in these
instances, the frontal compression being effected by means of pads.
[12] Report on a Collection of Crania from Arkansas, _Journal of the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila._, XIII, 558-563, Phila., 1908;
Report on an Additional Collection of Skeletal Remains from Arkansas
and Louisiana, ibid., XIV, 1909, pp. 173-240, 9 figs.; Report on
Skeletal Remains from a Mound on Haley Place, near Red River, Miller
County, Ark., ibid., XIV, 1912, pp. 639-640; Report on a Collection of
Crania and Bones from Sorrel Bayou, Iberville Parish, La., ibid., XVI,
1913, pp. 95-100.
[13] _The Crania of Trenton_, op. cit., 1902.