88 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



OBSEEVATIONS ON FOUETEEN NEW GUINEA SKULLS. 



By R. H. SPITTAL, M.B., Ch.B., Junior Assistant to the Professor of 

 Anatomy, University of Aberdeen. 



(Bead 9th December, 1905.) 



These skulls were presented to the Anatomy Museum of the 

 University by Mr. Allan Jas. Craigen, M.B., Ch.B., Port Moresby, 

 New Guinea, a graduate of this University, recently Chief Medical 

 Officer and Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils, British 

 New Guinea. I desire to thank Professor Reid for permitting me to 

 examine them and to make these observations. 



Of the fourteen skulls the three elaborately decorated ones came 

 from the region of the Bamu River, other nine from Goaribari Island, 

 one from Orokoio, one from the Fly River, and all were obtained by 

 Mr. Robinson, when Acting-Governor of British New Guinea. In a 

 letter to Professor Reid, written in June of this year, Mr. Craigen 

 says, " I will not be able to give you much information regarding them 

 (i.e., the skulls), as the village on the Bamu River, where the decorated 

 ones were got from, has only been visited twice, once by Sir Win. 

 MacGregor, and again- by Judge Robinson with a Government party 

 last year, when these were obtained ". 



New Guinea is a large island situated to the north of Australia, 

 and the portion nearest that continent is under British rule. On 

 the south coast there is a large bay, the Gulf of Papua, and the 

 Bamu and Fly Rivers flow into the western part of this gulf near 

 each other. The island of Goaribari lies a little further east, close 

 to the coast, and it was in a village on this island that James Chalmers, 



