EEPOET ON THE HUMAN CEANIA. 
55 
and the posterior nares. The nasal fossae were also occupied by it, and it had been 
employed to model an artificial nose of a low aquiline form. 1 In seven of the crania a 
hole had been knocked through the squamous part of each temporal bone, and in two of 
the specimens a piece of cane had been passed through the holes for the purpose of 
suspending the skulls. Prof. Moseley states that it is a common practice to stick in the 
thatch of the houses the skulls of animals and of man. He states that — 
“ At D’Entrecasteaux Island one having an ornament in the nose was suspended to the front of a 
house over the doorway, by means of a stick thrust through holes in the two squamous parts of the 
temporal bone. This skull the owner could not be induced to part with, but usually they were sold 
pretty freely, and they were in considerable abundance about the houses, hut often much shattered. 
A dozen only were purchased .” 2 
In each skull, with one exception, one or both zygomatic arches had been broken, 
sometimes so much that the greatest zygomatic diameter could not be measured. Two 
of the crania were tied together by a piece of split cane passed through the spheno- 
maxillary fissure in the wall of the orbit. The cranial characters were those of persons 
who had reached adult life, and in two specimens were inclining to a more advanced age. 
Some of the skulls were undoubtedly males, others females. But it was difficult to 
decide to which of the two sexes others of the crania had belonged. I have, however, 
arranged them in two groups, and am disposed to regard seven as males and five as females. 
The skulls are not large or heavy, and they do not give one the impression of belonging 
to a people either of big stature or great muscular development, which is in accordance 
with Prof. Moseley’s measurements of height and weight (p. 52). 
Norma verticalis. — The crania showed many features in common. They were 
elongated antero-posteriorly. They were neither flattened nor ridge-shaped at the vertex, 
but had a gentle curve across the vertex from one parietal eminence to the other. Below 
the parietal eminences, the sides of the skull approached the vertical, although in the 
majority of the crania the transverse diameter was a little greater near the squamous suture 
than at the parietal eminences. In two specimens the Stephanie and asterionic diameters 
were equal, in three the Stephanie exceeded the asterionic, in seven the asterionic exceeded 
the Stephanie. Only two specimens were phmnozygous, and these but slightly. 
Norma lateralis . — Some of the crania rested behind on the conceptacula, others on 
the mastoid processes and only one on the occipital condyles. With two exceptions the 
1 I may refer to my paper on Two Masks and a Skull from Islands near New Guinea, in Journ. Anat. and Phys., 
vol. xiv. July 1880, for an account of a number of methods of decorating and preserving the crania or heads of the dead 
in use amongst the Aborigines of the Malayo-Polynesian Archipelago. 
2 In a recent letter to me Prof. Moseley states : — “ from what is now known, it is most probable that the crania 
obtained from the roofs of the houses were those of persons who were eaten by Admiralty Islanders; their skulls being 
set up as trophies of the feast, and, according to Miklucho-Maclay, to be used as a bind of chronological record. The skulls 
collected were probably those of inhabitants of the main island of the Admiralty group caught alive, or bought or killed 
for food. But if, as is barely possible, the Admiralty Islanders have any intercourse occasionally with neighbouring 
groups the victims may have come from thence.” 
