NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 413 



or less flattened. No. 1032 exhibits a perpendicular or wall-like flatness of 

 the hind-head. Nos. 1034 and 931 are asymmetrical. In the first the occiput 

 is flattened, chiefly to the right of the median line ; in the other mainly to 

 the left. No. 930, the skull of a Pueblo Indian, taken from the church-yard 

 of the village of Laguna, and 1035, the skull of Jose Largo, a Mescalero chief, 

 who was killed in an affray near Bosque Redondo, not far from the Pecos 

 river, New Mexico, are both dolichocephalic heads. The occiput of the first is 

 shelving ; that of the second, rounded. 



The Academy's collection contains three other New Mexican heads, which 

 were procured and forwarded by Mr. Geo. Gibbs to Dr. J. H. B. McClellan, 

 who placed them in the Museum of the Academy. One, of them (No. 935), 

 is the skull of a chief of the Mogoyon Apache Indians, who was killed by the 

 Navajo Indians, in a little ravine leading up the side of the Mesa de los Lobos, 

 to the right of the Port Defiance road, and at the head of Canon del Gallo, 

 New Mexico. The occiput of this skull is prominent, and somewhat inclined 

 from above downwards and backwards. No. 936 is the skull of a Navajo* 

 Indian, picked up on the road leading from Albuquerque to Fort Defiance, at 

 a place called the "Lake," situated on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, six miles from the summit. In the cranium, the occipital region is 

 flatly round. No. 937, the skull of a Pueblof Indian, of Laguna, New 

 Mexico, possesses a vertically flattened occiput. 



The negro crania in the Museum of the Academy exhibit a remarkable 

 agreement in the shape of the occipital region. Of the group marked "Ameri- 

 can born," in the Catalogue, Nos. 1, 2, 69, 74, 421, 548, 1301, 1302, 1318, 

 1320, 235, and 236, are all oblong heads, with prominent, and more or less 

 shelving occiputs. In Nos. 74 and 548 the basal portion of the occipital bone 

 is very much compressed or flattened, like some of the Malay skulls. Nos. 

 549, 900, and 984 of this group have the occiputs more or less rounded. 

 With the exception of Nos. 580, 1098, and 1101, in which the occiput is flat- 

 tened at the base, and No. 1093, the occipital region of which is full and 

 rounded, all the skulls of the native African group in the collection are long 

 heads with prominent occiputs, which in form are sometimes shelving or in- 

 clined, sometimes oval, and occasionally narrow, and somewhat acuminated. 

 The same statement applies in great measure to the two Hovah, and all the 

 Australian skulls in the collection. No. 435, an Oceanic negro, is a short 

 head, with the occiput inferiorly flattened. No. 1343, a Tasmanian from Van 

 Diemen's Land, has a protuberant occipital region. 



In table 6, 7, and 8 of Blumenbach's Decades Craniorum, the protuberant 

 occiput of the negro is very well shown. In tables 17, 18, and 19, the form 

 varies in several respects. The normal form of the negro occiput, and that to 

 which the great majority of the African skulls in the Academy's collection 

 conforms, is well illustrated in plates 2 and 3 of Prof. Van der Hoeven's 

 valuable treatise entitled " Bijdrageu tot de Natuurlijke Geschiedenis van den 

 Negerstam. ' ' The protuberant occiput of the Ethiopian is also exhibited in 



*"This tribe," writes a valued correspondent, Mr. Geo. Gibbs, "is said to number 

 1,200 souls, and to be a decidedly pastoral people, having in their possession at the pre- 

 sent time (July, 1857), 60,000 horses, and 350,000 sheep. They can bring 2500 war- 

 riors into the field at one time. Their skulls are exceedingly difficult to procure, on 

 account of their habit of stowing the dead away in hidden places." 



t '* These Indians," says Mr. Gibbs, " get their name from the Spanish word pueblo, 

 because they live in little towns or villages, cultivating the soil in the neighborhood of 

 the same. It is said that New Mexico boasts of twenty-seven of these pueblos at the 

 present time, differing in population from 40 to 2,500 souls. Some of the principal 

 pueblos are named Pugblo of Taos, Zuni, Laguna, San Felipe, Santa Domingo, Sandia, 

 Isleta, and Acoma. With but few exceptions, the inhabitants speak different languages, 

 though all of lhem use the Spanish. Nominally they are Catholics, having chapels in 

 their midst, yet they continue to worship Montezuma (whom they believe to be residing 

 in the sun), day and night, by means of never ceasing religious dances." 



I860.] 29 



