CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 125 



thought from the locality that it was the former. Although there is a doubt as to 

 the race, I have thought well to give a brief description of it. 



The skull had been injured, and there was no lower jaw; it was obviously that of 

 a man ; the loss of teeth and the absorption of the sockets gave the impression of an 

 aged person, but the cranial sutures were unossified and scarcely denticulated. In the 

 right coronal were two sutural bones, in the left pterion a small epipteric, and in the 

 lambdoidal suture several small Wormian bones. In the norma verticalis the cranium 

 was broadly ovoid, raised along the sagittal line, and sloping rapidly down to the 

 parietal eminences, below which the sides were somewhat convex. Its length-breadth 

 index was 79*4, a little below the brachycephalic numerical limit, and the vertical 

 index was only 76*6, — so that in the proportions of length and breadth to height, it 

 had the brachycephalic rather than the dolichocephalic character. The parietal was the 

 longest of the longitudinal arcs. The actual length of this skull was 6 mm. more than 

 the one just described, but its breadth was 13 mm. greater, which accounted for the 

 higher length-breadth index. The parieto-occipital slope was gradual, and not more or 

 less abrupt than one sees in the more characteristic brachycephalic crania ; the occipital 

 squama did not project much behind the inion. 



The glabella and supra-orbital ridges were feeble ; the frontal eminences were 

 scarcely marked ; the forehead receded a little ; the nasion was not depressed ; the 

 nasal bones slightly projected, and the bridge was shallow ; the anterior nares were 

 wide, but the height of the nose, 51 mm., brought the index into the mesorhine 

 group ; the nasal spine of the superior maxillae was feeble. The absorption of the 

 incisive alveoli made it impossible to determine the original projection of the jaw, and 

 the gnathic index, 94*9, is only approximative. The broken zygomata prevented the 

 width of the face from being taken. The cranial capacity was mesocephalic. 



Although much remains to be done to complete our knowledge of the inhabitants 

 •of the Malay peninsula, it is obvious that in addition to the Malays, who dwell on the 

 sea-coast, and the Siamese invaders in the northern provinces, whose appearance in 

 the peninsula is probably of relatively recent date, the hill-districts are peopled by 

 tribes who, in their external characters and cranial configuration, differ from each 

 other. From the preceding narrative it will be seen, that whilst some tribes named 

 Semangs and Panghans have the black skin and frizzly hair characteristic of the 

 Negritos, in other tribes the skin is not so dark, and the hair, though black, is not 

 frizzly or woolly, but is relatively straight and several inches long. Travellers do 

 not always differentiate by descriptive names the straighter-haired from the frizzly- 

 haired people, and by some the name Sakai is employed to designate both varieties 

 of aborigines who dwell in the hilly and jungly districts. If the frizzly-haired, 

 black-skinned Negrito people are the aboriginal inhabitants, those with straighter hair 

 doubtless also represent an ancient race. The question, however, naturally arises, 

 whether there may not have been in the course of centuries an intermixture and 

 cohabitation of the Negrito race with the straight-haired Malays from the sea-board, 



