The People of the Faroes

Extract

The physical anthropology of the Faroes has recently been described in a very elaborate manner, as far as the island of Suderoe is concerned, by Dr F. Jørgensen (1), who was resident there as a medical man for some years. While pointing out, however, that the people of Suderoe differ considerably from those of the ‘northern islands,’ he only gives a comparatively small series of data regarding the latter, nor does he state to which of the northern islands the men he examined belonged, or even whether they came from one island or from several. Apart from Suderoe, there are sixteen inhabited islands (fig. 1) in the group, and between some of them very little communication exists even at the present day. In historical accounts of the Faroes the six following islands are usually called the ‘northern isles,’—viz., Kalsoe, Kunoe, Boroe, Wideroe, Fugloe, and Svinoe,—but I take it that Dr Jørgensen would include at least Osteroe, Stromoe, and “Waagoe also. His elaborate, laborious, and presumably accurate tables serve so well to point the moral that until a uniform method, a uniform standard, and a uniform set of anthropometrical instruments are adopted by anthropometrists of all nationalities final work in this branch of science will be impossible, that I have thought it well to put on record a small series of measurements taken by myself in the Faroes recently, and at the same time to point out wherein some of the data pretty generally adopted fail in accuracy, differing with the observer as well as the observed.