HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
17 
greater than those of the corresponding combinations in a Eui’opean whose stature 
was known to be Gft. 3in. And it will be seen further that it is in the fore-arm 
and leg segments of the limbs that the increase of length is most marked. Further 
osteological details will be found in the same Appendix. 
As is well known, the Australian race presents, in the absence of frizziness of 
the hair, a striking departure from the Negroid type, to which in many respects he 
approximates. In no case did we observe, nor have I ever observed, the existence 
of this essentially negroid characteristic, which has nevertheless been mentioned as 
occurring in Australia.* The most that was noticed was a slight waviness. 
Fy the men the hair is worn rather long and usually caked into thick matted 
rope-like coils, with a mixture of red ochre grease and accumulated dirt. Mr. 
Thornton, of Tempe Downs Station, related to me how that, desiring, in the 
interests of cleanliness, to see the natives about the station with hair worn shorter 
than was their custom, and not wishing to destroy the edges of his shears by 
cutting through such sand-impregnated locks, he induced them to submit con¬ 
fidingly to having these amputated with an axe and block, he being the operator. 
From the forehead, increased in extent by depilation, in the male adults the hair is 
pressed back and retained by a head-ring or by some kind of band; behind, it is 
tied up in a bunch with native string so as to resemble a kind of chignon. At 
Henbury, Tempe Downs and the Mission Station, some of the adult males had this 
chignon surmounted by the appendages mentioned on a previous page, and, subject 
to the doubt raised by a footnote to page 12, it appeared that these individuals 
belonged to the Luritcha tribe. Not unfrequently a tuft of the same feathers or 
of the eagle-hawk {Aquila audax) or of some other bird is worn erect in the hair 
or hangs over the forehead, being retained by the head-band. This decoration was 
most frequently seen at Tempe Downs, where the Luritcha predominate. 
Amongst the women, the hair, as generally worn, barely reaches to the shoulders. 
It is usually less caked into coils, unless by dirt and, though a head band or ring 
is generally worn, the hair is not pressed back from the forehead in the same way 
as amongst the men ; it is not tied up behind in a chignon, nor are feather plumes 
worn. At various localities we observed women with their locks matted into coils 
with gypsum or some white earth as a sign of mourning, and at Oodnadatta a 
man had his beard similarly treated for the same reason. 
Almost in every camp, but most frequently at Tempe Downs, the hair of some 
of the children was, in marked contrast to the usual dark hue, of a very light 
» Introduction a I’Etude des Races Humaines Dc Quatrefaifes. 
i 
