Woman and Child, Showing How the Heads of Children are Flattened

George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872 · 1837-1839?

Catlin described this work as a portrait “of a Chinook woman, with her child in her arms, her own head flattened, and the infant undergoing the process . . . which is done by placing its back on a board . . . to which it is lashed with thongs, to a position from which it cannot escape, and the back of the head supported by a sort of pillow, made of moss or rabbit skins, with an inclined piece . . . resting on the forehead of the child.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 48, 1841; reprint 1973)