FASCICULI MALATENSES 
105 
States appear to represent a population near the lower limits of brachycephaly, 
which is sometimes exaggerated by artificial deformation, not of an extreme 
character, practised on the heads of infants* The skulls are generally broader 
than they are high, the nasal index varies within wide limits ; the face is 
moderately broad, but the lower jaw is small, though strong. Prognathism 
is occasionally present, often absent. It is a remarkable fact that in three skulls 
out of seven, which appear to have reached their permanent condition, the 
third molar is absent on one or both sides of one or both jaws, either because 
the other teeth have been so large, or because the arc of the alveolar border 
has been so short, that outward growth of the wisdom tooth has been inter¬ 
fered with, though it is very possible that a dissection of the bone might 
demonstrate that it has not been entirely suppressed. 
It is very evident, I think, that though these skulls, with the possible 
exception of the Malay specimen from Patani, exhibit certain Mongoloid 
characters, they afford very strong evidence of the existence of a non- 
Mongoloid, primitive element in the settled population of the Patani States. 
The series is too small and the types are too varied within each * race * for it 
to be possible to draw up any definite distinction between 1 Malays * and 
* Siamese/ but the whole of our work in this district goes to prove, as might 
be expected from its geographical position, that we are here dealing with an 
ethnical border-land, where the races of Siam and of Malaya have become 
utterly confounded, and where it is probable that earlier races have been 
almost entirely absorbed ; while the history 1 of Patani, in the seventeenth 
century the chief port of Siam and the adjacent countries, points to further 
admixture in the past with several alien Oriental races : nor must the fact be 
lost sight of, that, even at the present day, the introduction of alien concubines 
from Africa and Arabia has by no means altogether ceased. 
(C) Children’s Skulls 
The juvenile characters in the two skulls described under this heading 
are so strongly marked that they mask the racial characters, as these are 
generally understood, and, therefore, it will be best to describe them 
separately, laying stress on those points in which they differ from the skulls 
of the adults of the same race. Both specimens were obtained in trees, the 
infant’s at Nawngchik and the other at Laropam, the capital of the state of 
Patalung, and both probably represent the victims of smallpox. There is no 
reason to suspect any very great difference between the Siamese of Patalung 
and those of Nawngchik, though certain minor distinctions undoubtedly exist. 
i. Sec Anderson, Engluh Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 42-44, etc. j London, sStjo. 
