REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
97 
mangans are a kindred race to the Tannese ; a Samoan colony had settled on the 
island Fate". Up to this time two crania only, from Erromanga, the largest of the 
southern New Hebrides, have been described, both in the Barnard Davis collection. I 
have had the fortune to examine four additional specimens from that island, three in the 
Museum of the Free Church College, Edinburgh, 1 and one from the collection of the 
late Dr. Handyside, now in the Edinburgh University Anatomical Museum. Their 
measurements are given in Table XVII. Three of these crania were decidedly doli- 
chocephalic, like those in the Barnard Davis collection, and in each specimen the vertical 
index exceeded the cephalic. The gnathic index was mesognathous, the nasal index 
mesorhine, the orbital index microseme. The male skull, Kowiowi, may be taken as 
typical of these dolichocephalic Erromangans. It was beyond the adult stage, as the 
sockets of the majority of the teeth were absorbed. It was very massive, for without 
the lower jaw it weighed 1 lb. 14^ oz. avoir. The glabella, supraciliary and occipital 
ridges were projecting, and the temporal ridges were double. The anteroposterior 
diameter of the temporal fossa was 132 mm., and its depth 96 mm. The vertex was 
roof- shaped. In this and the other Erromangans the frontal diameters were greater than 
in the Loyalty Islanders. The skull from the Handyside collection was the only one 
with a lower jaw ; the chin was massive and projected forwards, the anteroposterior 
diameter of the ramus was much less than in the Loyalty Islanders, the coronoid was 
pointed and with a narrow base, the sigmoid notch was deep, and the gonio-symphysial 
length was much less than the intergonial width. This skull had also a remarkably long 
vaginal process ensheathing the styloid. The fourth skull, No. 3 in the Free Church 
College Museum, had a cephalic index 78, and approached therefore brachycephalic 
proportions. It belonged obviously to a different type from the others ; it was not ridge- 
like on the summit but well filled, so that the cranial vault was relatively flattened, and 
the norma verticalis was rounded. The glabella was projecting. There was no evidence 
of artificial flattening either in the frontal or occipital regions. 
Three crania from Tanna are in the Barnard Davis collection and one in the Museum 
of the Royal College of Surgeons. Their respective cephalic and vertical indices are 
C.I. 85, V.I. 83; 77, 85: 72, 72; 75, 75. 2 The Barnard Davis collection also contains 
a skull from Aneitum, C.I. 68, V.I. 73. The Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons 
has a skull from Ambrym, C.I. 70*2, V.I. 75'1 ; one from Cherry Island, C.I. 77"7, 
1 I am indebted to Prof. Duns, D.D., for the opportunity of studying these crania, as well as the one from 
Hudson Island, Ellice group, in the same museum, referred to on p. 103. One of the three Erromangan skulls 
is especially interesting. It is that of Kowiowi, the leading actor in clubbing to death the Bev. John Williams. 
Kowiowi was under chief at Bunker on Dillons Bay at the time of the murder in November 1839. Accompanying 
the skull was a letter to Dr. Duns from the donor stating how and by whom the skull was obtained. The 
Erromangan skull from Dr. Handyside's collection is also said to have belonged to one of the men who killed 
Williams. This skull has, however, some feminine characters, which make its sex doubtful. A slice had been 
taken out of the parietal bone as if with a tomahawk. 
2 For further measurements and indices see the Thesaurus Craniorum and Prof. Flower's Catalogue so often cited. 
(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. — PART XXIX.— 1884.) Ff 13 
