24 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL COM PARISION OF THE TAMILS 

 WITH THE VEDDAS AND SINHALESE. 



It is necessary to take the Tamils next into comparision, 

 chiefly because the historical accounts, going backward as far 

 as the time of Wijeya, inform us of numerous marriages, 

 not merely of the kings, but of their retainers, with the 

 Malabar women, not to mention the very early invasions and 

 settlements made on the island by Tamil hordes. 



In spite of the meagre reports with regard to the physical 

 characteristics of the Tamils, we cannot doubt that they, 

 likewise, are very dark, more or less black, and have long black 

 hair. For the rest, observers lay stress on their greater strength 

 and activity — nothing more. Hence there remains only the 

 scant eraniological material found in Mr. Davis' and the Author's 

 own collections. As these are all insufficient for a final 

 authoritative answer to the question of the ethnological relation 

 of the Tamils to the two other (Sinhalese) tribes, the Author 

 wishes his conclusions only to be accepted with great reserve, 



All these Tamil skulls are comparatively small ; the 

 average capacity being only 1,247 cub 8 cm. which is even less 

 than the average of the Yeddas (1,261 cub. cm.) and of the 

 Sinhalese (1,406 cub. cm.) It is scarcely possible to look upon this 

 number as the typical one for the race, and it is only interest- 

 ing as showing that small skulls may be found among all the 

 races in the island. Still, none of them reach the minimum 

 figure for the Yeddas. More important, however, is the 

 difference in the form of the head. The Tamil skull, judging 

 from these specimens, is hypsi-meso-cephalic — [i. e. the 

 height index exceeds the breadth index ; while the relation of 

 the breadth to the length approaches the medium] — in fact 

 wholly different from the Sinhalese and the Veddd skulL Corres- 

 ponding to this its transverse vertical length is greater than 

 its sagittal circumference length. In the share of the separate 

 bones of the skull in forming the roof of the skull we also find 

 a great difference and radical contrast ; the squama occipitalis 

 [i. e., the flat portion of the occipital bone] is much smaller, and 

 the frontal bone considerably larger than with the Sinhalese, 

 and still more emphatically so than with the Veddas. While 



