INDIAN BOAT DESIGNS. 



235 



face is wide and short, the nose short, moderately small, and depressed very often at 

 the root. No prominent eye-ridges ; the lips moderately thick. The general im- 

 pression given by the features is that of heaviness. 



To anyone familiar with the heavy-featured Malaysian people of Java and the 

 southern Celebes, the approximation of many of these Shanars to the same general 

 type is very striking. Several indications point to a common origin, {a) The coco- 

 nut is not a native of India ; it reached that country by way of Ceylon and the 

 Malay Archipelago ; hence we may infer that the people who live by its cultivation most 

 probably accompanied it from the same region. Local tradition supports this, for 

 the Izhuvans are said to be descendants of Shanar colonists from Ceylon who brought 

 the coconut palm with them.' {b) The Ceylon and the Indian outriggers differ con- 

 siderably and these differences may quite likely be correlated with separate waves of 

 immigrants from Malaysia — the first Polynesian, the second Malaysian. In Madagascar 

 we have distinct evidence of several waves of Malayo- Polynesian immigration; if 

 India and Ceylon were half-way stations between Sumatra and Madagascar as we have 

 reason to believe, from the facts I have adduced in regard to the outrigger design of 

 canoe, evidence of two Malayo-Polynesian waves having broken on the shores of South 

 India is precisely what we should expect. 



But it is vain labour to attempt to go further in the elaboration of the hypotheses 

 stated above, pending the accumulation of much more definite and detailed informa- 

 tion regarding the physical characteristics, customs, habits and superstitions of coastal 

 communities on the sea-board of India and of the surviving Munda-speaking races 

 for correlaton and comparison with corresponding data relating to the peoples of 

 Malaysia, Polynesia and Papuasia respectively. 



MEASUREMENTS OF 50 MEN OF THE PARAWAR CASTE. TINNEVEI.I.Y DISTRICT. 









Skuli,. 







Nose. 





No 



Height. 

















Ivength. 



Breadth. 



Cr. Index. 



I^ength. 



Breadth. 



Index. 





Ft. Ins. 



Cms. 



Cms. 





Cms. 



Cms. 





I 



5 21 



i8-3 



15 



81-96 



5-2 



3-8 



73'07 



2 



5 7i 



207 



15-1 



72-94 



5-6 



3-5 



62-5 



3 



5 8i 



17-3 



14-9 



86-12 



5-3 



3-5 



66-03 



4 



5 3i 



i8-8 • 



14-6 



77-65 



5-1 



4-4 



86-27 



5 



5 9i 



i8-6 



15 



80-64 



4-9 



4-2 



85-71 



6 



5 4f 



19 



15-2 



80 



6 



4';^ 



68-33 



1 The Cochin Tribes and Castes, by 1,. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, Vol. I, p. 277. Madras, 1909. 



