108 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
certain admixture of Melanesian blood. But, on the hypothesis of a general diffusion of 
the Melanesian stock over the Pacific Islands, it is possible that New Zealand may have 
been inhabited by people of that stock prior to the Polynesian invasion, and in conse- 
quence a still further dilution of the Polynesian characters, either in particular localities 
or pretty generally throughout the island, may have taken place by interbreeding between 
the two races. 
In support of this hypothesis I may refer to the accounts which have been given of 
the external appearance of the Maoris, from which it is clear that considerable differences 
have been observed in their hair and features. The skin varies in colour from a clear 
olive brown to an opaque black-brown. The hair is brown, or black, or even reddish, and 
straight or curly ; the beard is often well-grown and bushy. 1 The features are sometimes 
coarse, with thick lips and broad noses, at others much more delicately moulded. Their 
crania also exhibited many variations from the Polynesian type. As already stated 
(p. 107), but a small percentage were brachycephalic, whilst a large proportion were 
dolichocephalic, and the mean cephalic index of the series of seventy-two skulls was 74, 
which places them just below the mesaticephalic minimum. It is clear therefore that there 
is a strong tendency in the skulls of this people to assume dolichocephalic proportions, 
and thus to depart from a pure Polynesian type, much more strongly than is the case 
with the Samoans, the Marquesas Islanders, or even the Sandwich Islanders. It would 
be interesting to inquire whether marked differences exist in the form of the skull in differ- 
ent districts, and whether there are equally marked variations in skulls from the same dis- 
trict. Unfortunately the collection on which I have reported does not enable me to go very 
completely into such an inquiry, but I may point out that the six crania from Kapiti 
Island, all apparently from one tribe, varied in the cephalic index from 67 to 78 amongst 
the adults, and in a child rose to 82, whilst the vertical index varied from 69 to 76, and 
that considerable differences existed in the nasal, orbital, and palato-maxillary indices. 2 
The skulls from near Auckland also varied in their cephalic index, so that it would seem 
as though considerable differences in this respect may occur in people of one and the same 
tribe. 3 The conclusion therefore to which I have come from the consideration of these 
1 In the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh are four tattooed and preserved heads of New 
Zealanders. In one the hair was jet black, long, closely set, thick and wavy. This man also had a short-ch'pped thin 
moustache and a moderate beard, the hairs of both of which were brown and brownish-black. In the second the hair 
was long, black and straight. He had a short thin brown moustache and a tuft of hair at the chin. In a third the hair 
was reddish-brown and straight, long at the back and short at the front of the head. In the fourth the hair was brown- 
black, and arranged in spiral tufts, the hairs of which, when straightened out, were five or six inches long. These tufts 
were separated from each other by intermediate portions of scalp, from which the hair had been cut quite close to the 
skin. The tufts were therefore isolated from each other by the cutting away of the intermediate patches of hair. 
2 MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy give the mean measurements of two adult male crania from Kapiti, which yield 
the following indices :— Cephalic index, 76-3; vertical index, 751. 
3 In the description of the New Zealand crania in the earlier part of the Report (p. 77), I have omitted to state that 
in the skull from Marlborough the temporal ridge mounted in a remarkable manner to near the vertex, so that on the 
left side its summit was only 20 mm., and on the right side 22 mm. from the sagittal suture. 
