Skull Binding

Different societies around the world have different characteristics which are define as their culture. There are a number of universal customs that are practiced on each continent around the globe. They include birth, circumcision, adolescence, marriage and burial rituals and skull deformation. These traditions initiated in our past and passed from generation to generation.

The tradition of human cranial deformation started in our remote past. The old Mayan were believed that people with deformed skull to be more intelligent, of higher status and closer to the spirits. The deformation was made by the people by distorting the normal growth of the skull of a child. It was practiced to demonstrate social status.

In France, head elongation was practiced up until the late 19th century. The custom of binding babies' heads in Europe in the twentieth century, though dying out at the time, was predominant in France, and also found in pockets in western Russia, the Caucasus, and in Scandinavia. Few examples of elongated skulls were discovered in south-eastern Australia in Coobool Creek and Kow Swamp.  Mangbetu people of Africa continued the practice up until the 1960s as a mark of beauty and social status. The Vanuatu are among the few people left in the world to practice skull deformation.