Contributions to the Craniology of the People of the Empire of India. Part I.—The Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier and the People of Burma

Abstract

The author contributes the first of a series of memoirs on the craniology of the natives of the countries comprising the Empire of India. The skulls of the hill tribes were from the Lushai-Chin hill tracts, the Nágá Mountains near Manipur, and Nepaul. The author was indebted for the majority of the specimens to former pupils engaged in the public service in India. A short account of the geographical position and of the external characters of the tribes is given, compiled from the writings more especially of Captain Butler, Colonel Lewin, Colonel Woodthorpe, Surgeon-Colonel Reid, General Sir James Johnstone, and from notes furnished to the author by Surgeon-Captain D. Macbeth Moir, Dr C. L. Williams, Surgeon-Major D. H. Graves, Surgeon-Major Bannerman, and Surgeon-Colonel F. W. Wright.

Eleven adult skulls from the Lushai-Chin hill tracts were examined—nine of which were those of men, two of women. Their characters and measurements were described in detail. Four specimens were dolichocephalic, index below 75; five were between 75 and 77·5, and two from the South Lushai hill tracts were above 80; the mean of the series was 76·l. When the two brachycephalic skulls are excluded the mean index was 74·6, so that the people are in the main dolichocephalic. As regards the relation of length to height the mean of the series was 73·8, and as a rule the breadth exceeded the height. Generally speaking the face was orthognathous and chamæprosopic, the nose was mesorhine, the orbit was megaseme, and the palato-alveolar arch was brachyuranic. The mean cubic capacity of the skulls of nine men was 1353 c.cm., the range being from 1270 to 1480.