CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 91 



and east it is apparently restricted to one of its divisions, the entire caste being named 

 Goala. The Ahir or Goala, whose duty it is to look after the cattle, is, according to Mr 

 Kisley, one of the recognised officials of a Kol village community. Colonel Dalton 

 groups the Ahirs as Aryans, but in the mountainous districts of Orissa and Chuta 

 Nagpur, they seem to have had incorporated with them a proportion of the abori- 

 ginal inhabitants, who have become Hinduised. In consequence of this intermixture, 

 the physical characters of the caste vary in different localities. Dalton states that the 

 Mathurabasis have high, sharp and delicate features, and light brown skins quite of the 

 Aryan type ; whilst the Magadhas have coarse features, the skin is dark in colour, the 

 hands and feet are large, and the difference between them and the Kol-speaking people 

 of Singbhiim is not distinguishable. The intermixture also affects the customs of the 

 caste. Marriage usually takes place in infancy, though in Chiita Nagpur adult marriage 

 is permitted, and in the hill districts the marriage of widows is sanctioned. Kisley 

 states that in Chuta Nagpur a man may not marry a woman of his own totem. Cre- 

 mation is practised on the dead bodies of married persons, but not on those of children. 

 In religion they are Hindus, and observe the usual festivals. The Ahirs and Goalas 

 together numbered, in 1891, about eleven and a half millions of people. 



In the Indian Museum is a skull, No. 27, marked Ahir, Goala caste, which was 

 presented in 1863 by Lieut. -Col. Dalton; the man, Teetoo, from Puttea, was hanged 

 in Ranchi jail. He is said to have been 25 years old, 5 feet 2 inches high ; hair black, 

 long, coarse ; eyes black, set straight in the face ; food, rice, vegetables, and flesh. 



The cranium, seen in the norma verticalis, was a very elongated ovoid, the sides 

 vertical, with a slight sagittal ridge, and a slope outwards to the parietal eminences. 

 The length-breadth index was 68*3, and the skull was hyper-dolichocephalic ; the parietal 

 longitudinal arc was much longer than either the frontal or occipital ; the basi-bregmatic 

 height exceeded considerably the breadth, and the vertical index was 7 3 '8. The 

 glabella and supra-orbital ridges were moderate ; the forehead was somewhat retreating ; 

 the parietooccipital region sloped gently backwards, and was flattened from side to side ; 

 the occipital squama was not prominent, and projected very little behind the inion. The 

 nasion was slightly depressed ; the bridge of the nose was not prominent, and was con- 

 cave from above downwards. The nasal spine of the superior maxillae was distinct, and 

 a sharp ridge separated the floor of the nose from the incisive region. The nasal 

 index was 53*2, i.e., platyrhine ; the gnathic index, 90'6, markedly orthognathous ; the 

 orbital index, 87*2, was mesoseme ; the palato-maxillary index, 121*1, was brachyuranic ; 

 the complete facial index was 85, so that the face was chamaeprosopic. The teeth were 

 all erupted and a little worn ; the incisive fossae in the upper jaw were deep, and the 

 canine fossae were well marked. The cranial sutures were simple, and showed signs of 

 commencing ossification. No Wormian bones were present, but a large epipteric bone 

 was seen in each pterion. The jugal processes were tuberculated. The lower jaw was 

 well developed. The skull was phsenozygous and rested behind on the mastoid-temporals. 

 The cubic capacity of the cranium, 1328 c.c, placed it in the microcephalic group. 



VOL. XL. PAET I. (NO. 6). 



