bumpologically

Updated: May 24, 2025

This afternoon examined phrenologically, bumpologically, the heads of many children. There was a considerable variety in the bumps, as well as the configuration, of the cranium. Some of the heads were well flattened on either side, others rounded, and mostly low, depressed foreheads, with "self-esteem" and "love of approbation" ascending appallingly far up at the back of the head. Very few men or children have the frontal regions well developed. Examined a man esteemed a great dervish, who is always reading and writing the Koran. It's strange that the saint had the organ of veneration well developed. The Rais hearing of my cunning in this occult science, which some of the people called a new deen, ("religion,") wished to see me perform; so, on visiting him in the evening, he ordered forth all his understrappers and hangers-on, and made them submit to the fearful ordeal of head pummelling, first begging me to speak out everything, and then calling for fire to light his pipe, that he might muse over the exhibition

James Richardson - Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846