316 FORMS OF THE SKULL. 



The skull of the Carib, in the Hunterian Collection now 

 belonging to the College Museum, presents no evidences of 

 any artificial change of figure. The developement of the 

 anterior cerebral lobes must have been more imperfect in 

 this individual, than in any other example which I have seen. 

 Setting aside what we should term this natural defect, the 

 organization is perfect. The bony substance is dense, com- 

 pact, and hard ; and the entire skull consequently very 

 heavy. The size of the head, and the strong muscular im- 

 pressions, correspond, as well as the hardness of the bone, 

 with the accounts, which eye-witnesses have furnished, of 

 the colossal stature and great strength of this race *. The 

 frontal bone is rather prominent at the glabella ; it con- 

 tinues, nearly horizontally, backwards from the orbits, rising 

 a little towards the vertex. A slight convex protuberance 

 on each side marks the situation of the anterior cerebral 

 lobes. The temporal fossa is large, and the skull conse- 

 quently not wide in its lateral measurement. Although 

 thus contracted at its upper and fore part, the bony re- 

 ceptacle of the brain swells out below and behind, into its 

 usual size : the fossae cerebelli are large. 



This singular formation is attended with a change in 

 the distribution and support of the weight. I have already 

 mentioned, that in the human head the parts in front of the 

 occipital condyles are heavier than those behind ; so that 

 the head falls forwards when left to itself, and is only re- 

 tained in equilibrio, in the erect posture, by muscular con- 

 traction. (See page 164.) In this Carib skull, however, 

 the parts behind preponderate, and that very decidedly ; so 



* " The Caribbees, properly speaking;, those who inhabit the Missions of 

 the Cari, in the Llanos of Cumana, the banks of the Caura, and the plains to 

 the north-CKst of the sources of the Orinoco, are distinguished by their 

 almost gigantic stature from all the other nations I have seen in the New Con- 

 tinent." Humboldt, Personal Narraiive ; v. iii. p. 286. 



These people were called Caribbees (Carives) by the first navigators, and 

 are still known by that name throughout Spanish America; although the 

 French and Germans have transformed it into Caraibes, and the English have 

 shortened it into Caribs. Ibid^ 2S4. 



