vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 147 



is straight or wavy, and whose skins exhibit various 

 shades of brown. These are the Polynesians, Micro- 

 nesians, Indonesians, whom Latham has grouped together 

 under the common title of AMPHINESIANS. 



The cranial characters of these people, as of the 

 Negritos, are less constant than those of their skin and 

 hair. The Maori has a long skull ; the Sandwich 

 Islander a broad skull. Some, like these, have strong 

 brow ridges ; others, like the Dayaks and many Poly- 

 nesians, have hardly any nasal indentation. 



It is only in the westernmost parts of their area that 

 the Amphinesian nations know anything about bows and 

 arrows as weapons, or are acquainted with the use of 

 metals or with pottery. Everywhere they cultivate the 

 ground, construct houses, and skilfully build and manage 

 outrigger, or double, canoes ; while, almost everywhere, 

 they use some kind of fabric for clothing. 



Between Easter Island, or the Sandwich Islands, and 

 any part of the American coast is a much wider interval 

 than that between Tasmania and New Zealand, but the 

 ethnological interval between the American and the 

 Polynesian is less than that ' between either of the pre- 

 viously named stocks. 



The typical AMERICAN has straight black hair and 

 dark eyes, his skin exhibiting various shades of reddish 

 or yellowish brown, sometimes inclining to olive. The 

 face is broad and scantily bearded ; the skull wide and 

 high. Such people extend from Patagonia to Mexico, 

 and much farther north along the west coast. In the 

 main a race of hunters, they had nevertheless, at the time 

 of the discovery of the Americas, attained a remark- 

 able degree of civilization in some localities. They had 

 domesticated ruminants, and not only practised agri- 

 culture, but had learned the value of irrigation. They 

 manufactured textile fabrics, were masters of the potters' 



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