s capable of trepanning? The
remoteness of the place entirely negatives the suggestion that a
civilised surgeon could have had anything to do with it.

The skull, the lower jaw of which is missing, is that of a Tarahumare
woman over fifty years of age. The age of the specimen itself is
impossible to arrive at, on account of the peculiar circumstances in
which it was preserved. However, the cranial walls still contained
some animal matter, were still somewhat fatty to the touch, and
retained some odour. A spindle provided with a whorl made from a
piece of pine-bark, which was lying among the bones in the cave,
indicates that the body of this female had not been put there in
recent times. This variety of whorl, so far as I can ascertain, has
not been observed among the Tarahumares of the present day. It is,
indeed, possible that the skeleton may be pre-Columbian.

The skull does not present any deformities or fractures, and the
singular aperture is almost exactly round, measuring two centimetres
in diameter. A careful examination shows that the cut was made a long
time, several years in fact, before death. The regularity of the hole
indicates beyond doubt that it is artificial.

Another skull taken from a burial-cave near Nararachic is also that of
a female, and the opening here, too, is in the parietal bone, and in
almost the same place as the opening in the first skull described. In
this second specimen the cavity is almost filled in with new bone,
and as in this instance the edges are very regular and uniform,
and distinctly beveled, they show that the operation was performed
by scraping. This cannot be said of the first specimen found; the
almost circular form of the opening, and its perpendicular walls,
prove conclusively that in this instance the surgeon did not employ
the simple method of scraping the bone. I have never found among the
Tarahumares any implement with which such an operation could have
been performed. Possibly it was done with a kind of flint wimble with
three teeth, much like the instrument used to-day in trepanning by
the Berbers in L'Aures, who cure even headaches by this method. It
is, of course, impossible to say now whether the ancients performed
the operation simply to relieve the patient of bone splinters, pus,
blood, etc., pressing on the brain, or whether it was done to let
out an evil spirit. It is the first time that cases of trepanning
have been found in Mexico.

Chapter XVI