Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Before we can attempt to answer these two questions, it will be necessary to give a brief account of the methods and nomenclature of craniometry. Fortunately, a very short. description will serve the present purpose, as we are concerned with only one or two aspects of the subject, and not with craniology as a whole.

On looking at a number of skulls from above, it is seen that they are all longer than broad, though some are less so than others, and that the contour is very varied. Some may have somewhat flat sides, others have gently rounded sides, or the skull may appear narrow in front and swollen behind; indeed, there may be great variation in this respect even in skulls which have the same relation of breadth to length. Skulls must also be looked at from the front, side, back, and underneath, and their peculiarities noted.

The character which is most frequently recorded is the ratio of the breadth of the skull to its length. One speaks loosely of a long or a narrow, or of a short or round skull, but such vague descriptions are of no scientific value. Anthropologists now adopt the plan of calculating indices which accurately express this numerical relation. The extreme length and breadth of a skull are measured, the breadth is multiplied by one hundred, and the total is divided by the length; the result is the cranial index.

[blocks in formation]

In other words the length is reduced to one hundred, and the ratio of the breadth to that is the index.

The altitudinal index is the ratio of the height either to the length or to the breadth.

Height X 100
Length.

= Index.

Height X 100
Breadth.

= Index.

Directions for taking these measurements will be found in the chapter dealing with practical instructions.

There are numerous facial measurements from which various indices are obtained, but these do not concern us at present.

The cranial index is usually grouped into three series; a skull is said to be dolichocephalic when its index does not exceed 75, to be mesaticephalic between 75 and 80, and to be brachycephalic when over 80. Some investigators who aim at great exactness increase the range in the following

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

There is a tendency in some quarters to extend dolichocephaly up to 77.9, so as to reduce mesaticephaly to the narrow range of 78 to 80.

If we take a general survey of the races of mankind, we find that they can be arranged in a manner by taking the mean cranial index of each of the following groups. In all cases the numbers vary about this mean; but where a people is known or presumed to be fairly pure the range of variation is much less than where mixture is known to have. occurred.

At the first glance it appears as if the cranial indices were too generally distributed over the world to prove of much ethnographical or historical value. This is perfectly true if these indices are considered by themselves. It is only when taken into consideration with other physical characters that the cranial index is of any value whatever.

AMERICA.

OCEANIA.

AFRICA.

ASIA.

EUROPE.

[blocks in formation]

Fijians, interior.... 66 Polynesians.... 75-80 Javanese....... 80-82

Australians....

70 Tasmanians..

Admiralty Isl'ds. 70-73 Dyaks....

N. W. Papuans.... 72

76 Polynesians..

77 Tongans..

82-87 84

[blocks in formation]

The inhabitants of large areas of Asia are distinctly brachycephalic, but among the mixed peoples of China and Japan mesaticephalism is prevalent. In the northern parts of the latter country one finds the remarkable Ainus or Ainos, who differ in so many respects from their Japanese neighbours and conquerors. These very interesting people were formerly much more numerous than they are at present;

they probably occupied the whole or the greater part of the Japanese Archipelago, and also considerable tracts of the mainland opposite. They are short-the men range from about 1545 mm. (5 ft. in.), to 1600 mm. (5 ft. 3 in.); the women are some 75 mm. (3 inches) shorter. The colour of their skin, though of various shades of brown, has a reddish tinge, and more resembles that of a Southern European than an Asiatic; the coarse black hair is long and wavy, and is so profusely developed that the Ainus are the hairiest of mankind. From a careful consideration of all the facts, De Quatrefages' comes to the conclusion that "the Ainus are fundamentally a white and dolichocephalic race, more or less altered by other ethnic elements, of which one, at least, is essentially Mongolic."

In India there are two main groups of people-the tall, comparatively fair, dolichocephalic Aryan invaders, and the short, dark, also dolichocephalic aboriginal population. The latter are usually spoken of under the general name of Dravidians (Plate 2, Fig. 1). These dark-skinned people, with abundant black wavy hair, are probably distantly allied to the Melanochroi or dark group of the Southern European (or Mediterranean) stock on the one hand, and to the Australians on the other.

The cousins Sarasin have brought forward evidence to prove that the Veddahs of Ceylon are the least modified descendants of that "Proto-Dravidian" race from which the diverse people just mentioned have diverged.

The typical Asiatic race, the yellow-skinned brachycephals, are scarcely represented in India, and there only at the northern and eastern frontiers of Bengal. In fact, one would scarcely be wrong in saying that, ethnologically

Histoire Générale des Races Humaines, 1889, p. 467.

The mean cephalic index of ninety-five Ainu men was 77.3, and that of seventy-one women was 78.4.

[ocr errors]

speaking, India is more European" and less "Asiatic' than Lapland.

Amongst the brachycephalic Asiatics are to be found the Negritoes. So far as their cranial index is concerned it is practically identical with that of the average Japanese, who may be regarded as very characteristic Mongoloids; but when one compares their other physical traits it is at once apparent that we are dealing with two entirely different races. The Negritoes comprise the Mincopies, or natives. of the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, certain hill tribes of the Malay Peninsula, such as the Semangs, Sakais,' and Senois, and the Aetas of the Philippines. We will take the Andamanese, as they have been most fully studied, and compare them with an average Japanese type.'

[blocks in formation]

The stature, colour of the skin, nature of the hair, and the cranial capacity are all anthropological characters of the first rank, and therefore it is needless to enter more fully into the details of the other external or cranial characters. It is sufficient to state that the Andamanese has an infantile cast of countenance, and though he is related to the African Negro on the one hand, and to the Melanesian on the other, yet the common features of these people are, as it were, blurred and softened in "our little Andamanese fellow

'The Sakais were probably of Negrito origin, but they have since become greatly modified.

* A. de Quatrefages et E. T. Hamy, Crania Ethnica: Les Cranes des Races Humaines, 1882, p. 430.

« ForrigeFortsæt »