258 PRESENT STATE OF ETHNOLOGY 



occipital protuberance is much developed and a little compressed 

 laterally. The zygomatic arch is not greatly salient, nor is the nose 

 flattened as in the negro; the brow is narrow and low. I hare lately 

 received from Professor Bonsdorff, of Helsingfors, skulls of this form 

 brought from Woahu, in the archipelago of the Sandwich islands. 

 The Danish frigate Galatea has furnished several others from the 

 Nicobar islands, on which Professor Ibsen made an interesting report 

 to the convention of Scandinavian naturalists at Stockholm, in 1851, 

 besides having had the kindness to remit one of the specimens to our 

 anatomical museum. 



Through the kind offices of Dr. R. G. Latham, our museum is also 

 in possession of a skull of the nation of Borneo, which is known by 

 the name of Dayak. This is equally dolichocephalic. The half of 

 another is preserved in the collection of the University of Christiana, 

 and presents the same peculiarities of form. I have seen, moreover, 

 many altogether similar at London. These Dayak skulls are small, but 

 solid; their parietal protuberances are rather smaller than those of 

 .Australian negroes. All the skulls of Dayaks that I have seen are 

 ornamented with figures symmetrically carved on the front, vertex, and 

 •temporal regions as far as the lambdoidal suture; some of which 

 figures are colored a dark brown, with here and there small spots of a 

 bright red or blue. "Before a young man can aspire to matrimony," 

 says Dr. Latham, speaking of these Dayaks, "he must lay at the feet 

 of his betrothed the head of a man of another tribe, slain by his own 

 hand. Every marriage, then, supposes a murder. I suspect, however, 

 that this observance is not so general as the rule exacts. Another 

 ■ characteristic trait of the Dayaks is their passion for possessing skulls; 

 hence skulls form the chief ornament of a Dayak house, and their 

 ipossession is the best proof of virility." 



From all that I can draw from different data, the Dayaks are black 

 of color, like the majority of the Australians. I believe that all the 

 tribes called Alforous, or Haroforous, are prognathic dolichocephala3, 

 like the majority of those to whom we give the name of Papous or Pa- 

 puans,* but who are not to be confounded with the brachy cephalic 

 Papous described by Guoy and Gaimard. A great number of tribes 

 among these Australian negroes construct their habitations on piles 

 reared above the water. M. Troyon has shown that the ancient in- 

 habitants of Switzerland had dwellings of a like construction, as was 

 the case also, according to Herodotus, with the Pasonians of Mace- 

 donia. Most of the Australian negroes occupy the interior of islands, 

 and certain tribes inhabit the mountains. 



Brachyceplialce of Australia. 



Malays, \ 



Polynesians, (Dieffenhacli,) Vail prognathic. 



Papous, (Guoy and Gaimard,) j 



The above are, in my opinion, properly called Oceanic Mongols by 

 Dr. Latham. The Malays, recognizable by their yellow skin, their black 



<* Ethnological Library, conducted by E. Norris, vol. I. 



