No. 33. — 1886.] the veddas of ceylon. 



489 



Ambrosius even translates the Greek fiaicpopioi, " Beati." How- 

 ever, climatic and outward circumstances favour the Veddas 

 too, and if in their peculiar conditions of life they in some 

 degree approach the Rodiyas, still, as already mentioned, 

 the latter have nowhere sunk to a physical degradation 

 compared with that of the Veddas. But no one will deny 

 that with good care both might attain to an incomparably 

 more complete bodily development.* 



In spite of this possibility of a more perfect growth, the 

 Vedda race is still in reality, as in ancient days, of small 

 stature — in fact one may even count it among the smallest 

 of the living human tribes, and in a not very strict sense 

 speak of it as a tribe of dwarfs. As a further corroboration 

 of this, such tribes were scattered all over India. I have 

 already referred to the Naya-Kurumbas. But beside these, 

 people of small stature and little heads are not uncommon. 

 Even the Sinhalese and Tamils of Ceylon have already 

 afforded us examples of this. Herr von Bischofft speaks of 

 the brain of an Indian from Bukkur of 1,660 mm. in height, 

 which weighed only 973 grams : he quotes at the same time 

 an observation of Peacock's, who found in a native of mixed 

 origin from Bombay a brain of 1,006 grams, whilst Mr. Clap- 

 ham ascertains the weight of brain of a Bengalese to be 1,531 

 grams. In the collection of the Berlin Anthropological 

 Society is the skull of a Poleyar, with a capacity of only 

 1,040 cub. cm. ; that of a young native of further India, 

 belonging to the caste of the oil merchants, having a capacity 

 of 1,150, and his mother's of 1,100 cub. cm. Of the skulls 

 from Tanjore which I mentioned one has 1,200 the other 

 1,255 cub. cm. 



The nannocephaly of the Veddas, however little patholo- 

 gical it may be, compels us in nowise to go beyond the 

 province of Indian ethnology to seek out analogies. Possibly 



* Davy (l. c, p. 107) states that among the Si7 o ihalese there are moft 

 men than women ; in the fishing- towns, where the food is better, we find, 

 however, as in Europe, that the case is exactly the reverse. 



f Von Bischoff, a. a. O. S. 83. 



