406 TWO REMARKABLE SKULLS 



more care. This manner of treating the corpse is not prac- 

 tised anywhere else in the New Hebrides group. On Aneit- 

 yum (in the South) the bodies of all the common people were 

 thrown into the sea. On some other islands burial was 

 practised, but sometimes in very shallow graves. In other 

 places bodies were put upon a kind of stage and left to decay 

 away, and then the bones were used for tipping spears and 

 arrows. The bodies of those killed were generally eaten. 

 "The New Hebrides are Melanesian with a very few 

 traces of Polynesian tribes among them. A few canoes 

 drifted at different times from the Eastern Islands (Tonga 

 and Samoa) and never returned home against the prevaihng 

 east winds. On Malekula there is no trace of any Polynesian 

 influence. The Maoris never have had any intercourse 

 with the New Ilebrideans. 



"I should say that all or nearly all the different methods 

 of disposing of the dead bodies arose from their belief regarding 

 the future Ufe. They appear in the Spirit World as they 

 leave this, so ornamentation and ceremony must correspond 

 with a man's social position. 



"I am sorry that I cannot give you all the information 

 desired." 



The Sex of the Stalls. — Both skulls belong definitely to 

 the male sex. The lines of muscular and ligamentous attach- 

 ment in each are excessively developed, much more so> 

 indeed, than in the average European skull. For example 

 the curved lines of the occipital bone stand out prominently 

 in the form of rough ridges. The external occipital protub- 

 erance projects markedly while the external occipital crest 

 forms a thin obtrusive blade of bone. Qne would gather 

 that they belonged to very muscular warriors. At any rate 

 the owners must have led very strenuous active lives. Other 

 sexual features prominently displayed are the large mastoid 

 processes and the strongly projecting superciliary ridges, 

 indicating of course an enormous degree of development 



