Part 29

Until recently collections of skeletal remains of the western Eskimo were confined largely to skulls. The material in our own institutions comprised a small collection of Mahlemut (St. Michael Island) and "Chukchee" (Asiatic Eskimo) crania made in the early sixties by W. H. Dall; a larger series of crania gathered in 1881 on St. Michael and St. Lawrence Islands by E. W. Nelson; 28 skulls with 3 skeletons brought in 1898 by E. A. McIlheny from Point Barrow; a valuable lot of skulls from Indian Point, Siberia, with a few from St. Lawrence Island, collected by W. Bogoras; and some scattered specimens by other explorers. To this were added in 1912 an important collection of skulls, with a few skeletons, made by Riley D. Moore, at that time my aide, on St. Lawrence Island; an important lot of crania gathered a few years later by V. Stefánsson at Point Barrow; and a third large and highly interesting lot, this time of both skulls and skeletons, collected near Barrow for the University Museum at Philadelphia in 1917-1919 by W. B. Van Valin. But none of the later material was described excepting the McIlheny collection which, in 1916, was reported upon by E. W. Hawkes.[142]

During the survey which is the subject of this report a special effort was made to collect all the older skeletal material along the Bering Sea and Arctic coasts that could be reached, and the result was the bringing back of some 450 crania, nearly 50 with skeletons, and many separate parts of the skeleton; nearly all of the specimens proceeding from localities thus far not represented in the collections. To which were added in 1927 nearly 200 skulls with a good number of skeletons gathered by H. B. Collins, jr., assistant curator in the Department of Anthropology, United States National Museum, and my aide, T. D. Stewart, on Nunivak Island and along the west coast of Alaska from Bristol Bay to near the Yukon delta.[143]

We thus have now a relatively vast amount of skeletal material on the western Eskimo; it is essentially a virginal material; it is well identified as to locality; and the specimens are mostly in very good condition.

Aside from Hawkes's thesis, nothing of note had been published on these collections until 1924, when the first number of my Catalogue of Human Crania in the United States National Museum Collections appeared, which includes the principal measurements on 290 skulls of the western Eskimo. Since then, in view of the growing importance of the subject, I have remeasured every specimen reported before; have measured personally all the new collections; and thanks to the kindness of those in charge have been enabled to extend the measurements to all the collections of Eskimo crania, both from Alaska and elsewhere, that were preserved up to the spring of 1928 at the National Museum at Ottawa, the American Museum of Natural History of New York, and the Wistar Institute of Philadelphia, which now contains the University Museum collections. The total records reach now to 1,283 adult skulls from practically all important parts of the total Eskimo area, besides a considerable quantity of other bones of the skeleton. The main results of the work will be given here, the detailed measurements being reserved for another number of the Catalogue.

To save repetitions and possible confusion and to show more clearly the status of the southwestern and midwestern Eskimo, the entire cranial material will be dealt with in this section, and previous records on the northeastern and a few other groups of the Eskimo will not be drawn upon to preserve the advantage of dealing with data obtained by the same methods, instruments, and observer.

In presenting the records it is found expedient, both on geographical and anthropological grounds, to make but three groupings. The first of these comprises the Eskimo from their southernmost limit to Norton Sound and the Bering Sea islands; the second group takes in Seward Peninsula (or the larger part of it) and the Arctic coast to Point Barrow; while the third embraces all the Eskimo east of Point Barrow. The first of these three groups is remarkably homogeneous, the second and third show each some exceptional units. It may be said at once that the dialectic subdivisions of Dall, Nelson, and others, in a large majority of cases are not found to be accompanied by corresponding physical differences, so that in a somatological classification they become submerged.

FOOTNOTES:

[142] Skeletal Measurements and Observations of the Point Barrow Eskimo, Amer. Anthrop., n. s. XVIII, pp. 203-244, Lancaster, 1916.

[143] In 1928 Mr. Collins brought another important accession to these collections.

SKULL SIZE

The external size of the skull is best expressed by the cranial module or mean of the three principal diameters; the internal size, respectively the volume of the brain, by the "cranial capacity."

The module among the southwestern and midwestern Eskimo averages 15.44 centimeters in the males and 14.77 centimeters in the females. For people of submedium stature these are good dimensions. Fifty-two male and 40 female skulls of the much taller Sioux (writer's unpublished data) give the modules of only 15.25 and 14.27 centimeters; while 6 male and 9 female Munsee Indians, also tall,[144] give practically the same values as these Eskimos, namely 15.48 centimeters for the males and 14.75 centimeters for the females.

Not all the western groups, however, give equally favorable proportions. In general, the coast people below Norton Sound, and especially below the Yukon, give, so far as the males are concerned, the lowest values. It is interesting to note that it is precisely these people who among the western Eskimo are reputed to be about the lowest also in culture. The Togiak and near-by Kulukak males showed, as seen before, also about the smallest head in the living. The St. Lawrence Island males stand just about the middle, but the females of this island, as, interestingly, also in the living, show markedly less favorably. The Nunivak skulls, as with the living, are somewhat above the average, while in the small Pilot Station (Yukon) group, just as in the near-by contingent of Marshall among the living, the males have the largest heads in this western territory. The lower Yukon Eskimo were also shown, it may be recalled, to be of a higher stature than the majority of the coast people. It is a group that deserves further attention.

The module of the female skull does not evidently stand always in harmony with that of the male. The most striking example of this is shown, as already mentioned, by the St. Lawrence Island females, both skulls and the living. The females of this isolated island are also unduly short, but their small head is not entirely due to the defective stature. There must exist on this island, it would seem, some conditions that are disadvantageous to the female. In the small groups, such as that from the Little Diomede, the disharmonies are doubtless partly due to small numbers of specimens, but there may also be other factors, such as the bringing in of women from other places.[145]

Taking the mean of all the groups equalizes conditions, and it is seen that the module in both sexes is almost identical with that of the more northern groups, to Point Barrow. But the north Arctic and northeastern groups give a cranial module that in both sexes is somewhat higher, though their stature, according to the available data (Deniker, Boas, Duckworth, Steensby, Thalbitzer), is not superior.

A very remarkable showing is that of the percentage relation of the female to male skull size in the three large groupings. In the first two it is identical, in the third it differs less than could confidently be expected among the closest relatives. Another remarkable fact is that this important relation is found to be much like that in the Eskimo in various groups of Indians; thus it was _96_ in the Indians of Arkansas and Louisiana,[4] _95.5_ in the Munsee of New Jersey,[146] and _96.4_ in the Indian skulls of California.[147] But it is only _93.6_ in the Sioux (52 male, 40 female skulls) and differs more or less also in other tribes and peoples. A comprehensive study of this relation, with due respect to age, will some day well repay the effort.

ESKIMO: CRANIAL MODULE ((L+B+H)/3)

MALES IN ASCENDING ORDER

_Southwestern and midwestern_

Males Females (5) (7) Togiak 15.21 14.73 (4) (6) Mumtrak 15.22 14.68 (3) (2) Southwestern Alaska 15.25 14.90 (9) (4) Hooper Bay 15.30 14.68 (8) (6) St. Michael Island 15.30 14.72 (5) (7) Little Diomede Island 15.33 15.09 Pastolik and Yukon (14) (20) Delta 15.34 14.83 (145) (128) St. Lawrence Island 15.42 14.27 Golovnin Bay to Cape (4) (2) Nome 15.52 14.65 (46) (70) Nunivak Island 15.53 14.90 (13) (16) Indian Point (Siberia) 15.54 14.88 (3) (2) Chukchee 15.56 15.05 (4) (1) Port Clarence 15.57 (14.57) (9) (16) Nelson Island 15.59 14.64 (3) (3) Pilot Station, Yukon 15.91 15 General averages, (275) (290) approximately _15.44_ _14.77_ Females vs. males (M = 100) _95.7_

_Northwestern_

(2) (1) Kotzebue Sound 15.05 (14.67) (12) (8) Shishmaref 15.19 14.71 (132) (84) Point Hope 15.37 14.72 (47) (52) Point Barrow 15.45 14.75 (35) (34) Barrow and vicinity 15.46 14.66 (27) (24) Old Igloos near Barrow 15.52 14.72 (19) (14) Wales 15.66 14.86 General averages, (274) (217) approximately _15.39_ _14.73_ Females vs. males (M = 100) _95.7_

_Northern and northeastern_

(49) (52) Greenland 15.51 14.72 Hudson Bay and (5) (2) vicinity 15.55 14.57 Baffin Land and (16) (17) vicinity 15.55 15.04 (6) (10) Northern Arctic 15.63 14.85 (9) (6) Southampton Island 15.65 15.18 (7) (2) Smith Sound 15.81 15.15 General averages, (92) (89) approximately _15.62_ _14.92_ Females vs. males (M = 100) _95.5_

FOOTNOTES:

[144] Bull. 62, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 22, Nos. 326-313.

[145] More or less danger in such cases as these lies in erroneous sexing of the skulls. Due to experience, care, and especially to the relatively numerous accompanying bones or skeletons, this danger in the present series has been reduced to the minimum.

[146] Bull. 62, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 23.

[147] Cat. Crania, U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 2.

MODULE AND CAPACITY

A comparison of considerable interest is also that of the cranial module or mean diameter, to the capacity of the same skulls. This comparison reveals an important sex factor.[148] Relatively to the module, the capacity is very appreciably smaller in the female than it is in the male. This is a universal condition to which, so far as known, there are occasional individual but no group exceptions. It appears very clearly in the Eskimo. In 283 western male Eskimo skulls in which we have so far measured the capacity,[149] the module averages 15.38 centimeters, the capacity 1,490 cubic centimeters; while in 382 female skulls thus far gauged the former averages 14.82 centimeters, the latter 1,337 cubic centimeters. The percentage relation of the capacity to the module, the numbers taken as a whole, is _96.8_ in the males but only _90.2_ in the females. This means that relatively to the external size of the skull the female Eskimo brain is 6.66 per cent smaller. Similar sex disproportion exists in other American groups as well as elsewhere. Some day when suitable data accumulate it will be of much interest to study this condition on a wider scale.

FOOTNOTES:

[148] See writer's "Relation of the Size of the Head and Skull to Capacity in the Two Sexes," Am. J. Phys. Anthrop., 1925, VIII, No. 3.

[149] All measured de novo by my aide, T. D. Stewart; for procedure see my "Anthropometry."

ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON CRANIAL MODULE

Before we leave this subject, it may be well to point out two noteworthy facts apparent from the data on the northwestern and northeastern groups. The first is that the figures on both sexes from Barrow and Point Barrow are very nearly the same, suggesting strongly the identity of the people of the two settlements; and the Point Hope group is in close relation. The second fact is the curious identity of the old Igloo group, 8 miles southwest of Barrow, with the Greenlanders. The import of this will be seen later.

SKULL SHAPE

Utilizing the materials of the Otis and Barnard Davis Catalogues and with measurements taken for him on additional specimens in several of our museums, Boas, in 1895 (Verh. Berl. anthrop. Ges., 398), as already mentioned, reported the cranial index of 37 "western Eskimo" skulls of both sexes (without giving localities or details) as _77_. He also reports in the same place (p. 391) the cephalic index of 61 probably male living "Alaska Eskimo," again without locality, as _79.2_. These rather high indices and the relatively elevated stature (61 subjects, 165.8 centimeters) lead him to believe (p. 376) that both are probably due to an admixture with the Alaskan Indian, though the report contains no measurements of the latter.

The data that it is now possible to present may perhaps throw a new light on the matter. As was already seen in part from the data on the living, the head resp. the skull tends to relative shortness and broadness throughout the southwestern, midwestern, and Bering Sea region (excepting parts of the Seward Peninsula). Important groups in this region, particularly those on some of the islands, had little or no contact with the Indian. The cranial index in most of the groups of the southwestern and midwestern Eskimo equals or even exceeds that of the Indian. And Eskimo groups with a relatively elevated cranial index are met with even in the far north, as at Point Hope, Hudson Bay, and Smith Sound.[150] Finally, the shorter and broader head connects with that of the Asiatic Eskimo and that of the Chukchee, as well as other northeastern Asiatics.[151]

The records now available show the highest cranial indices to occur on the coast between Bristol Bay and the Yukon and on lower Yukon itself, while the lowest indices of the midwest area, though still mesocranic, occur in the aggregate of Nunivak Island and the mouths of the Yukon. Another geographical as well as somatological aggregate is that of the people of the St. Lawrence and Diomede Islands and of Indian Point, Siberia, the cranial index in these three localities being identical.

ESKIMO: CRANIAL INDEX

Mean of both sexes ((Male+Female index)/2) on 1,281 adult skulls.

IN DESCENDING ORDER

_Southwestern and midwestern_

(11) Togiak 80.1 (13) Hooper Bay 79.7 (10) Mumtrak 79.6 (6) Pilot Station, Lower Yukon 79.3 (5) Chukchee (Siberia) 78.6 (26) Nelson Island 78 (6) Southwestern Alaska 77.7 (32) Indian Point (Siberia) 77.4 (12) Little Diomede Island 77.4 (299) St. Lawrence Island 77.2 (5) Port Clarence 76.6 (34) Pastolik and Yukon Delta 76.1 (14) St. Michael Island 75.7 (116) Nunivak Island 75.6

_Northwestern_

(222) Point Hope 76.0 Kotzebue Sound and Kobuk (3) River 75.4 (22) Shishmaref 74.5 (101) Point Barrow 74.1 (73) Barrow 73.5 (33) Wales 73.5 (7) Golovnin Bay [152]72.6 (52) Igloos, southwest of Barrow 69.7

_Northern and northeastern_

(7) Hudson Bay and vicinity 76.3 (9) Smith Sound 76.2 (15) Southampton Island 74.8 (15) Northern Arctic 73.6 (33) Baffin Land and vicinity 73.2 (101) Greenland 71.9

The Seward Peninsula shows sudden differences. There are a few localities along its southern coast where the cranial type belongs apparently to the Bering Sea and southern area. One site at Port Clarence was one of these. But already at Golovnin Bay, which is not far from Norton Sound and St. Michael Island, and according to the evidence of the most recent collections (Collins 1928), also at Sledge Island, there is a sudden appearance of marked dolichocrany, which is repeated at Wales, on the western extremity of the peninsula, approached at Shishmaref, the main Eskimo settlement on its northern shore, and, judging from some fragmentary material seen at the eastern end of the Salt Lake, also in the interior. The cause of this distinctive feature in the Seward Peninsula is for the present elusive. The little known territory urgently needs a thorough exploration.

The distribution of the cranial index farther north along the western coast shows several points of interest. The first is the exceptional position of Point Hope, one of the oldest and most populous settlements in these regions, which by its cranial index seems to connect with the Bering Sea groups. The second is the closeness, once more, of Barrow and Point Barrow. The third and greatest is the presence, in a small cluster of old igloos 8 miles down the coast from Barrow, of a group of people that finds no counterpart in its cranial index and, as will be seen later, also in some other characteristics, in the entire western region; in fact, in the whole Eskimo territory outside of Greenland. As noted before, the size of the head in this group is also closest to that of Greenland. These peculiar facts indicate a problem that will call for separate consideration.

The northern and northeastern groups, with the exception of the mesocranic Hudson Bay and Smith Sound contingents, and the very dolichocranic Greenlanders, show dolichocrany much the same as that of Barrow and Point Barrow.

FOOTNOTES:

[150] Compare writer's "An Eskimo Brain," Amer. Anthrop. n. s., vol. III, pp. 454-500, New York, 1901; and his "Contribution to the Anthropology of Central and Smith Sound Eskimo," Anthrop. Papers, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., V, pt. 2, New York, 1910.

[151] Compare, besides present data, measurements by Bogoras in his report on "The Chukchee," Mem. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 1904-9, XI, 33; 148 male and 49 female adults gave him the mean stature of 162.2 and -152, the mean cephalic index of _82_ and _81.8_.

[152] Including 4 female skulls collected by Collins in 1928 and received too late for general inclusion into these series.

HEIGHT OF THE SKULL

This is a measurement of much value, both alone and as a supplement to the cranial index, for skulls with the same index may be high or low and thus really of a radically distinct type.

The height of the vault is best studied in its relation to the other cranial dimensions, particularly to the mean of the length and breadth, with both of which it correlates. But in the Eskimo it is also of interest to compare the height with the breadth of the skull alone. The former relation is known as the mean height index and the latter as the height-breadth index. Both mean the percentage value of the basion-bregma height as compared to the other dimensions.

The mean height index H/(Mean of L+B), advocated independently by the writer since 1916 (Bull. 62, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 116), is proving of much value in differentiation of types and has already become a permanent feature in all writers' work on the skull. There is a corresponding index also on the living.

In the American Indian the averages of the index range from approximately 76 to 90. (See Catalogue of Crania, U. S. Nat. Mus., Nos. I and II.) Where the series of specimens are sufficiently large the index does not differ materially in the two sexes. Indices below 80 may be regarded as low, those between 80 and 84 as medium, and those above 84 as high.[153]

The southwestern and midwestern Eskimo skulls show mean height indices that may be characterized as moderate to slightly above medium. In general the broader and shorter skulls show lower indices, approaching thus in all the characters of the vault the Mongolian skulls of Asia. (Compare Catalogue Crania, U. S. Nat. Mus., No. I.) The Indian Point, St. Lawrence Island, and Little Diomede Island skulls are again, as with the cranial index, very close together, strengthening the evidence that the three constitute the same group of people. (Pls. 59, 60.)

The northwestern Eskimo and most of those of the northeast have relatively high vault. Barrow and Point Barrow are once more almost the same. The Point Hope group shows a high vault, though also rather broad. The somewhat broad Hudson Bay crania are but moderately high, like those of the southwestern Eskimo. The northern Arctic skulls give smaller height than would be expected with their type; the Southampton Island specimens give higher. The old Igloo group from near Barrow stands again close to Greenland; its skull is even a trace narrower and higher, standing in both respects at the limits of the Eskimo. The whole, as with the cranial index, shows evidently a rich field of evolutionary conditions.

ESKIMO: CRANIAL MEAN HEIGHT INDEX

(H-FLOOR-LINE OF AUD. MEATUS TO BG×100) --------------------------------------- MEAN OF L+B

MEAN OF BOTH SEXES IN ASCENDING ORDER

_Southwestern and midwestern_