REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
109 
various facts is that the study of the crania supports the view that New Zealand had 
been occupied by a dolichocephalic and probably Melanesian race, before the Polynesian 
element was introduced into it. 
The origin of the Chatham Islanders is shrouded in mystery. The massacre of so 
large a portion of these islanders by the Maoris before Europeans had become well 
acquainted with them, has interfered with our obtaining much information on their 
traditions. It is believed, however, that the Morions are the result of an intermixture of 
Polynesians with Melanesians. It is said that they are shorter and stouter than the 
Maoris, darker in the skin, with lank black hair, aquiline noses, and a Jewish cast of 
countenance, 1 and that they can be readily distinguished from the Maoris. From 
the description of their crania in the earlier part of this Report (p. 73), it will be 
seen that they are in the lower term of the mesaticephalic series, and that the vertical 
index is less than the cephalic. Their breadth index was somewhat higher than the New 
Zealanders, and their nasal index was somewhat lower, but in other respects the propor- 
tions of parts in the two series of crania closely corresponded. The slope downwards 
and outwards from the sagittal suture to the parietal eminences, and the vertical direction 
of the wall of the skull below the parietal eminence, gave to the New Zealand skull, though 
in a less degree, that pentagonal outliue in the norma occipitalis which has already been 
referred to (p. 73) as so marked in the Chatham Islanders. The characters of the skulls 
of the Morioris are such as might well be referred to a mixture of the Polynesian with the 
Melanesian race, and it is possible that, as in New Zealand itself, the Polynesian settlers 
may have found this group of islands occupied by a Melanesian people, and have inter- 
mingled with them. 
From this summary of the proportions of the skulls of the people occupying the 
Polynesian area, it would appear that there is great diversity in the relation of the length 
to the breadth of the cranium, so that brachycephalic, mesaticephalic, and dolichocephalic 
crania are found amongst them. In some localities in the Melanesian area, more especially 
in and near New Guinea, a similar diversity was described, though the dolichocephalic type 
predominated, and in such localities as the mountains of Fiji and the Admiralty Islands 
seemed to be the exclusive form. These modifications in the relation of length to breadth 
in the Melanesian area were ascribed to a mixture of other races with the prevailing Papuan 
stock, and the question now arises whether a mixture of some other race or races with the 
proper Polynesian stock has taken place so as to have caused a modification in the form 
of their head. 
If we assume that the type form of the skull in the Polynesians is brachycephalic, 
then, so far as our present material for observation admits of conclusions to be drawn, we 
may say that the Tonga Islanders present this type in its purest form. But if we pass 
from these islands to the groups situated either north, south, east, or west, then along 
1 Mr. E. A. Welch’s account of these people in Anthropological Revierv, vol. viii. p. ei., 1870. 
