English
Flathead
From flat + head, from the practice of compressing the skull in infancy by artificial means.
The story
However, the Salish tribe never practised this custom, the confusion arising from the fact that the early traders felt compelled to adopt the local Indian classification, which considered the prevailing compressed skull of the neighbouring tribes as pointed and the naturally shaped Salish skull by contrast as flat.
Today it means
noun One of the Salish people of Washington state and British Columbia.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Flathead