CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 107 



specimens were too few to enable one to draw a general conclusion on the cranial 

 characters of these tribes or castes. 



As already stated, the skulls of the Uriya group presented considerable variations in 

 the cephalic index, and in the configuration of the skull. In the dolichocephalic series 

 about one-third were platyrhine in the nasal index, the others were mesorhine or 

 leptorhine ; in the majority the upper jaw was orthognathous, and no skull was 

 prognathous. In the mesaticephalic series the majority were mesorhine, only two were 

 platyrhine, and one was leptorhine ; the upper jaw was usually orthognathous, and only 

 one was prognathous. The brachycephalic series was represented by only five speci- 

 mens, three of which were mesorhine, one platyrhine, and one leptorhine ; as regards 

 the upper jaw, no specimen was prognathous. 



As many of these crania were derived by the Indian Museum from the Medical 

 School in Calcutta, it may have happened that no proper history of the dead had been 

 obtained, and that, in consequence, the skulls had not been accurately identified. # If 

 we grant that they had all belonged to the Uriya-speaking people, the inference seems 

 obvious that the community of language would by no means express unity of race. 



It would seem, therefore, that in the Uriyas some crania partook of Dravidian, 

 others of Aryan characters, and from the presence of a proportion of brachycephalic 

 skulls, there might also have been a trace of Mongolian or other brachycephalic 

 intermixture. As regards the Uriya group, it is probable that a considerable Dravidian 

 element is contributed through the presence of tribes of Hinduised aborigines, inter- 

 mingled with the people who possess a strain of Aryan blood. 



I will now proceed to the consideration of the Veddahs, the aboriginal hill tribe 

 in Ceylon, of the Mincopies, the aborigines in the Andaman Islands, and of the hill 

 tribes in the Malay peninsula. 



Veddahs. Table IX. 



In the study of the aboriginal dolichocephalic tribes in and near the Indian peninsula, 

 we should not overlook the aborigines known as Veddahs or Weddas, who live in 

 the hill districts of the adjoining island of Ceylon. Various travellers in Ceylon, 

 of whom may be especially mentioned Robert KNOX,t John Davy,J C. Pridham,§ 

 Sir Emerson Tennent,|| B. F. HartshorneJ John Bailey, ## and C. S. V. Stevens, ft 

 have given accounts of these people and the districts in which they live. George 



* The crania marked Uriya, Orissa, in the Tables, are those which had been obtained from the Medical College. 

 It will be seen that specimens so marked occur in each of the three groups tabulated in VI., VII., VIII. 



t Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon. London, 1817. 



% Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of its Inhabitants. London, 1821. 



§ Ceylon and its Dependencies. London, 1849. \\ Ceylon. London, 1859. 



IT Fortnightly Review, London, 1876, vol. xix. 

 ** Trans. Ethnol. Soc, London, 1863. 

 tt Overland Times of Ceylon, Nov. 6th, 1886. 



VOL. XL. PART I. (NO. 6). Q 



