CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 727 



nose is well formed, not so broad and depressed as in the Burmese, and the bridge is 

 usually prominent, almost aquiline. In the higher ranks the features are, he says, 

 decidedly Tartar. The Hill Shans (Poloungs) have darker skins and are shorter than the 

 Shans of the valleys, the average height of the valley men being 5 ft. 8 in. or less. The 

 Chinese Shans are described as resembling Laplanders in their squat figures, broad, short, 

 round, flat faces, arid prominent cheek bones. Like the Nagas, they do not drink milk. 



Mr Scott, in his account of the Keing Tung Shans, says that in stature and com- 

 plexion they do not differ materially from the Western Shans. The nose, though 

 small, is straight and not flattened out or button-shaped, and without a bridge, as in 

 the people west of the Salween river. Of the hill races the Kwi are short in stature, 

 and grow the hair to its full length. The Leu tribe, again, cut the hair short except a 

 short tail. He speaks of a tribe as the wild Was, who treat the hair like the Leus ; 

 whose skins are as dark as negroes or negrittos, and who go naked or nearly naked. 

 They decorate their villages with the skulls of animals, as well as with human skulls, 

 for the people are head-hunters. The wild Wa country is a little to the south of 23° 

 lat., and a little to the east of 19° long. 



As a rule the Shans are civilised. They are Buddhists, and although not so 

 prominent a political power as they were some centuries ago, they are organised into 

 principalities. They are agriculturists and traders, weavers, dyers and expert workers 

 in metals. They are properly clothed, and construct houses, monasteries and temples. 

 Notwithstanding the differences observed amongst the tribes, it is obvious that the 

 Mongolian cast of features is the prevailing type. They have Chinese affinities in 

 both physical characters and language, and it seems probable that they have migrated 

 from Western China. 



The Southern or Siamese Shans have both a political and philological affinity to the 

 kingdom of Siam. The form Siam is a corruption of the French method of writing 

 Shan or Scian, and the original monosyllabic term has been converted by them into a 

 word of two syllables.* 



I have had the opportunity of examining forty -four skulls collected in different parts 

 of Burma, almost the whole of which are in the University Museum. 



In 1889 my friend and former assistant, Surgeon-Major Wm. B. Bannerman, who 

 was attached to the military expedition to Upper Burma, presented me with the skulls 

 of two Dacoits.f The one, an old man, was the leader of a band in the Ye-U district, 

 and was shot by the military police at Mugan ; his head was brought into the village of 

 Ye-U for identification in August 1888. The other, named Pau-dun, was hanged for 

 murder at Ye-U in June of the same year. Dr Bannerman states that the people in the 

 Ye-U district have, as a rule, the bridge of the nose flattened with the point turned up, 

 and with wide nostrils. The eyes have the Mongolian cast, the cheeks are broad, the 

 hair is black, long and straight, the skin yellow, and with scarcely any hair on the face 



* Report on Census of Burma, 1891, p. 201. Rangoon, 1892. 



t The Dacoits were the disbanded troops of King Thebaw's army. They were not hillmen, but Burmese. 



VOL. XXXIX. PART III. (NO. 28). 5 U 



