CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 267 



Coorg, Burma, Cochin, and Travancore. Their language is Tamil, and they are Hindus 

 in religion. Two classes have been distinguished amongst them,* (a) a primitive 

 Dravidian people, who were perhaps the original inhabitants of the country, and in course 

 of time lost their independence and became servile ; Bishop Caldwell states that they 

 are t a well-defined, ancient caste which has its own subdivisions, usages, and traditions, 

 and is jealous of the encroachments of the castes which are above and below it ; (b) 

 people who, or whose ancestors, had belonged to other and higher castes and had 

 become degraded into a servile caste. 



The collection formed by the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh, now part of the 

 Henderson Trust, contains three skulls marked Pariah, Nos. 103-5. They were 

 presented in 1828 by Sir G. S. Mackenzie of Coul, and were procured at Madras by 

 his son through the aid of a native, who took them from the burying-place of the caste. j 

 They were all males, and had reached adult life. Some years ago the Rev. J. M. Strachan, 

 M.D., of Madras, presented me with the skull of a Pariah which is now in the Ana- 

 tomical Museum of the University. As the basi-cranial synchondrosis has barely 

 completed its ossification, and the wisdom teeth are not erupted, the age was probably 

 from 20 to 23. The lower jaw was absent in all the specimens, and the face was 

 broken away in No. 104. The characters of the crania are summarised in the following 

 description. 



Norma oerticalis. — The cranial outline was an elongated ovoid ; the sagittal line 

 was not ridged ; the parietal eminences were well marked for male skulls ; the slope 

 downwards to them was steep in Nos. 103 and 104 but not in the others. In only one 

 was the squamous region wider than the parietal. The parieto-occipital slope was 

 gradual, there was no sign of artificial flattening, and the occipital squama bulged 

 behind the inion. The crania were cryptozygous (PL VIII. , figs. 40-42). 



Norma lateralis. — The forehead was not retreating, the glabella and supraorbital 

 ridges were moderate, though in Nos. 103 and 105 somewhat more projecting than in the 

 others, and in them the nasion was depressed. The bridge of the nose was short, concave, 

 and not flattened or rounded from side to side. In all the occipital longitudinal arc 

 was the shortest, and in three the frontal longitudinal arc was longer than the parietal. 

 Two skulls rested behind on the mastoids, and two on the cerebellar fossae. 



Norma facialis. — The nose was widely platyrhine, 61 '9, in No. 103, but mesorhine 

 in the other two. The floor of the nose was separated from the incisive region by a sharp 

 ridge and the maxillo-nasal spine was moderate. The upper jaw was orthognathous in 

 Nos. 103 and 48a, mesognathous in No. 105. The maxillo-facial index was lepto- 

 prosopic in No. 105, and mesoprosopic in Nos. 103 and 48a, the former of which had the 

 platyrhine nose. In the aged skull, No. 105, the canine fossae were deep. The orbital 

 borders in No. 105 were thick, and the index of the aperture was microseme. The 



* "Ueber die Indischen Parias," Von G. Oppert, Archiv fur Anthropologic, Bd. iv. Heft 2/3, p. 149, 1906. 

 t Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, p. 540, 2nd edition, London, 1875. 

 X Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, vol. v. p. 479, 1829. 



