REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
87 
New Guinea and the adjacent islets, as far apart as Waigiou and Rawak on tlie west, 
Warrior Island on the south, and apparently D’Entrecasteaux Island on the east. At 
the same time there can he no doubt that this practice does not prevail generally in all 
the people of New Guinea, as numerous crania of dolichocephalic proportions have been 
examined in which there is no evidence of artificial parieto-oecipital flattening. It should 
also be stated that many of the skulls possessing high cephalic indices have also been 
characterised by distinct parieto-oecipital or frontal flattening, and the influence which 
artificial pressure, applied during infancy to the frontal and occipital regions, has exercised 
either in producing nr exaggerating brachycephalie proportions is a factor which should 
not be left out of consideration in the study of these crania. 
The evidence of the presence of a dolichocephalic people in New Guinea is also very 
complete. MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy have critically examined the older literature 
on this subject. In the north-west, Port Dorey, Mansinam, Salwatti, the Wandessa 
tribe of Geelvink Bay, the island of J obie at the mouth of the same bay, have all furnished 
crania of these proportions. Dr. Meyer’s collection from Rubi, although, as already 
stated, containing three mesaticephali, had twenty skulls with a length-breadth index 
below 75. The collection formed by the same energetic naturalist in Kordo, Mysore, had 
a very large proportion of the skulls dolichocephalic. In his analysis of the eighty-six 
“ normal ” adult skulls, Dr. Meyer states that, of the fifty-four males, forty-three were 
below 75, and of the thirty-two females, thirty were below 75. In the mountains of 
Arfak also a dolichocephalic people reside, and MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy give, in 
their twenty-fifth table, 69'3 as the length-breadth index of five males, and 73‘9 as the 
corresponding index of two females. Even on the small Warrior Island dolichocephalic 
skulls were obtained by the naturalists on board the “Astrolabe” and “ Zelee.” MM. de 
Quatrefages and Hamy state (p. 254) that eight crania from this island exhibited purely 
Papuan characters ; seven of these were males, and they have a mean cephalic index of 
71 ‘8 and a mean vertical index of 73'3. A ninth skull again gave a mixture of Papuan 
and Negrito-Papuan characters. The majority of the crania collected by Dr. Comrie 
during the voyage of the “ Basilisk ” on the south-east coast of New Guinea were markedly 
dolichocephalic. Dolichocephalic skulls from Erroob or Darnley Island and from 
Wallis Island, Endeavour Strait, are in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
The D’ Albertis collection of crania, measured by MM. Mantegazza and Regalia, contains 
twenty-one skulls, thirteen males and eight females, from the interior of New Guinea, 
collected from houses on the banks of the Fly River ; the maximum cephalic index in 
these specimens was 77 and the minimum 67 ‘7, and both were males; the mean of the 
series of males was 71 '9, that of the females was 72*5. Two male crania from. 
Baduhubere, an inland place to the west of the mouth of the Ely River, had the cephalic 
index of 66’1 and 75 '8. Of the Kiwai group of skulls already referred to (p. 86), only two 
had a cephalic index below 7 5, and the lowest index of the Canoe Island group was 7 6. 
