524 



THE CHANGING GENERATIONS 



always formed the central track of migration for peoples moving to the Pacific, 

 and along it have passed Negritos, Australoids, and Polynesians. But the basic 

 population is Negro. Such differences as the Melanesians show from African 

 Negroes are apparently the results of mixture — chiefly with Australoids and 



Negritos. 



Along the north coast of New Guinea 

 and on many of the smaller islands are 

 people who speak Melanesian tongues 

 (Fig. 31.11, left). They have hair that 

 is usually frizzled into a mop, much 

 more beard and body hair than in 

 African Negroes, and a nose that is 

 deeply depressed at the root and broad, 

 with low bridge, thick elevated tip, and 

 circular nostrils directed forward. In 

 the rest of coastal and interior New 

 Guinea and in a few of the smaller 

 islands the people speak Papuan 

 tongues. They show a strong admixture 

 of Negrito and Australoid (Fig. 31.11, 

 right), the product often being what 

 Howells describes as " a stumpy, heavy- 

 nosed, broad-mouthed, beetle-browed 

 form of incredible ugliness." The nose 

 is often aquiline and sometimes hook- 

 tipped, suggesting the Armenoid type 

 except for its greater width and 

 depressed root. 



The Negritos or Pygmy Negroids are 

 the smallest of men. In some tribes 

 males average only 4 feet 8 inches in 

 height. Negritos are in no sense mal- 

 formed dwarfs, but simply small, well- 

 proportioned people. In most ways they 

 resemble Negroes, from whom they 

 were almost certainly derived. Some of 

 their traits suggest infantilism (preco- 

 cious maturity) . These include narrow 

 shoulders, short legs, bulbous fore- 

 heads, and infantile features, the nose being broader than it is long. This 

 race has only a few surviving remnants with widely discontinuous distribu- 

 tion. It occurs in the Congo Basin of Africa, the Andaman Islands in the Indian 

 Ocean, the Malay Peninsula, the Philippines, and New Guinea. All the Negritos 

 are forest-dwelling hunters without fixed habitations; they have been forced by 

 peoples with higher cultures to live in the most inaccessible and least desirable 

 environments. 



Fig. 31.10. A Negro warrior from central 

 Africa, modeled by Malvina Hoffman. 

 (Courtesy Chicago Natural History Museum.) 



