1 82 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



maintenance of a museum and professorship of American archae- 

 ology and ethnology in connection with Harvard University." 

 Wyman was named one of the original seven trustees and became 

 curator. 



Into this work Wyman entered with all the zeal and enthusiasm 

 of youth. As was his wont, he did all himself: every specimen 

 passed through his hands. Under date of January 2, 1869, his 

 ideas and methods were clearly set forth: 



"I once thought my collection of thigh-bones and other long 

 bones uselessly large; but having just received more or less com- 

 plete skeletons of over fifty ! ! [the exclamation-points are his own] 

 moundbuilders from Kentucky, I find that, for the purposes of 

 comparison there is no such thing as too many, since everything 

 turns on averages. I see six months work ahead, and wish you 

 were here to help me. Just think of measuring fifty skulls, each 

 by twenty-five different measurements." 



His seventh and last report contains an account of Canni- 

 balism among the American Aborigines based upon evidence that 

 he had been accumulating since 1861. This portion of the Report 

 is reproduced entire in the American Naturalist for July, 1874, 

 and there are quoted here only the characteristically judicial sum- 

 mary of the evidence and the grimly humorous comments upon 

 the motives for the origin and maintenance of cannibalism: 



"It would perhaps be going too far to say that the presence of 

 human bones, under the circumstances above described, amounted 

 to absolute proof of cannibalism. The testimony of eye-witnesses 

 would be the only sure evidence of it. There is, however, nothing 

 with regard to them which is inconsistent with^this practice, nor 

 does any other explanation occur to us which accounts for their 

 presence so well. [Surely no professed logician could state that 

 better.] 



"The idea of eating human flesh as ordinary food, may, per- 

 haps, have had its origin in eating it as a necessity. Once tasted 

 and found to be good, as all cannibals aver that it is, under the 

 influence of savage instincts and passions, the conversion of an 

 enemy's flesh into meat to eat would be very natural. . . . The 

 New Zealander loves human flesh as a choice food, and also eats 

 it under the superstitious belief that he thus not only incorporates 



