WAS THE SKULL OF THE MOTIIORI 
AmTFJCIALLY DEFORMED? 
By KARL PEARSON, F.R.S. 
Professor V. GiufFrida-Ruggeri, in a recent paper, has criticised the memoir on 
the Moriori crania published by Eveline Y. Thomson in this Journal*. It is, per- 
haps, needless to say that anything produced by the Biometric School is likely to 
be anathema to an old-fashioned anthropologist of Professor Giutfrida-Ruggeri's 
type. He views the more exact calculations on which a biometrician would lay 
stress in much the same spirit as a biometrician regards the old school anthro- 
pologist who divides data of a character obtained from various sources for 19 or 20 
crania into three groups and thinks a scientific racial differentiation can be based upon 
comparing the percentages thus found with those of another and similar grouping ! 
The questions of different methods of measurement, the influence of random 
sampling, the futility of small samples are not difficulties to this type of anthi'o- 
pologist, they are merely shibboleths of the mathematician. Further he is quite 
sure the mathematician does not look at anything but his figures, and -so overlooks 
the obvious in his material, which he, the old school anthropologist, sees at first 
glance — not because he has handled more material, but because he is the Simon 
pure — the genuine anthropologist. Let us admit for the occasion that the mere 
mathematician might well handle 65 Moriori crania and not find out that that race 
was in the habit of deforming its skull ! But is it not somewhat strange that 
other observers with at least some claim to be genuine anthropologists — i.e. old- 
school anthropologists— should have examined Moriori crania and overlooked this 
deformation ? 
Welckerf was acquainted with two Moriori crania. He does not refer to any 
artificial deformation in them, although he does in the case of Peruvian skulls. 
Flower knew eight Moriori crania and does not refer to their deformation^, although 
he was fully aware of the deformation of New Hebridean skulls. 
De Quatrefages and Hamy§ handled three male crania of the Moriori and 
figured one. They do not note any deformation in these crania. They are quite 
conversant, however, with deformed skulls and figure one. Those who will take 
* " A Study of the Crania of the Moriori, or Aborigines of the Chatham Islands, now in the Museum 
of the Royal College of Surgeons," Biomctrika, Vol. xi. pp. 82 — 135. The writer of the paper was not a 
mathematician but a biologist. 
t Archiv fur Anthropologie, Bd. i. S. 135, 154, 157, etc. 1866. 
X Journal of the Anthropological InHltute, Vol. xxvi. p. 295, 1896, and Catalogue of Royal College of 
Surgeons Museum, Part i. Man, pp. 128 — 130. 
§ Crania ethnica, Text, pp. 460, 461, Atlas, PI. LV. Figs. Ill and IV. 
