298 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN xix 



tallest man was 5 feet 4|- inches, the shortest 4 feet 6 inches. 

 The tallest woman 4 feet llj inches, the shortest 4 feet 4 

 inches. Measurements made upon the living subject are 

 always liable to errors, but it is possible that in so large a 

 series these will compensate each other, and that therefore 

 the averages may be relied upon. My own observations, 

 based upon the measurements of the bones alone of as many 

 as twenty -nine skeletons, give smaller averages, viz. 4 feet 

 8J inches for the men, and 4 feet 6^- inches for the women ; 

 but these, it must be recollected, are calculated from the 

 length of the femur, upon a ratio which, though usually 

 correct for Europeans, may not hold good in the case of other 

 races. The hair is fine, and very closely curled woolly, as 

 it is generally called, or rather, frizzly and elliptical in 

 section, as in the negroes. The colour of the skin is very 

 dark, although not absolutely black. The head is of roundish 

 (brachycephalic) form, the cephalic index of the skull being 

 about 82. The other cranial characters are fully described in 

 the papers referred to below. The teeth are large, but the 

 jaws are only slightly prognathous. The features possess 

 little of the negro type at all events, little of the most 

 marked and coarser peculiarities of that type. The projecting 

 jaws, the prominent thick lips, the broad and flattened nose 

 of the genuine negro are so softened down in the Andamanese 

 as scarcely to be recognised ; and yet in the relative proportions 

 of the limb-bones, especially in the shortness of the humerus 

 compared with the forearm, and in the form of the pelvis, 

 negro affinities are most strongly indicated. 1 



In speaking of the culture of the Andamanese, of course I 

 only refer to their condition before the introduction of European 

 civilisation into the islands. They live in small villages or 

 encampments, in dwellings of simple and rude construction, 

 built only of branches and leaves of trees. They are entirely 

 ignorant of agriculture, and keep no poultry or domestic 

 animals. They make rude pots of clay, sun-dried, or partially 



1 See "On the Osteology and Affinities of the Natives of the Andaman Islands" 

 (Journal Anthropological Institute, vol. ix. p. 108, 1879); and "Additional Ob- 

 servations on the Osteology of the Natives of the Andaman Islands " (ibid. vol. 

 xiv. p. 115, 1884). 



