Part 41

Important advances have been made in craniometry, as in other branches of anthropology, since Dr. Morton formed the collection which now, with many later additions, constitutes an important department in the collections of the Academy of Science of Philadelphia. Zealous and well-trained labourers are following in his steps; but the value of his services to science are more fully appreciated with every addition to the work he inaugurated. Researches have been prosecuted for some years by a committee of the British Association with a view to securing reliable data relative to the tribes of the Canadian North-West and British Columbia. In following out their instructions, Dr. Franz Boas has prepared valuable tables of measurements, both of living examples of the Haidah, Tsimshian, Kwakintl, and Nootka tribes, and of crania of those and other natives of the Pacific coast; but unfortunately he has omitted the cerebral capacity. But a large collection of crania of tribes lying to the south of British Columbia, now in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, has furnished to Mr. Lucien Carr opportunities for a series of careful measurements showing some very distinctive diversities among tribes of the coast and the islands of Southern California. From those the following table is derived. The capacity is given in cubic centimetres; and shows not only a marked diversity in cerebral capacity distinguishing different island tribes, but also notes the relative difference of the male and female head. Among the Indians of the Pacific coast are the Haidahs and others noted for exceptional ingenuity and skill in their carvings, pottery, and other handiwork. But besides the fair-skinned Haidahs and Tsimshians of the north, there are essentially diverse tribes of Southern California, noticeable for swarthy and almost black colour; and not only inferior, but essentially differing in the style of their arts.

TABLE VIII

CRANIA OF PACIFIC COAST TRIBES _Santa Catalina Island, California._

───────────────┬──────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────── │ │ │ │ No. of Crania. │ Sex. │ Capacity │ Capacity │ Capacity │ │ Average. │ Maximum. │ Minimum. │ │ │ │ ───────────────┼──────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────── │ │ │ │ 26 │ Male │ 1470 │ 1719 │ 1282 12 │ Female │ 1279 │ 1451 │ 1098 │ │ │ │ ───────────────┴──────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────

_San Clementé Island, California._

───────────────┬──────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────── │ │ │ │ No. of Crania. │ Sex. │ Capacity │ Capacity │ Capacity │ │ Average. │ Maximum. │ Minimum. │ │ │ │ ───────────────┼──────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────── │ │ │ │ 9 │ Male │ 1452 │ 1747 │ 1300 6 │ Female │ 1315 │ 1352 │ 1268 │ │ │ │ ───────────────┴──────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────

_Santa Cruz Island, California._

───────────────┬──────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────── │ │ │ │ No. of Crania. │ Sex. │ Capacity │ Capacity │ Capacity │ │ Average. │ Maximum. │ Minimum. │ │ │ │ ───────────────┼──────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────── │ │ │ │ 45 │ Male │ 1365 │ 1625 │ 1144 35 │ Female │ 1219 │ 1528 │ 1040 │ │ │ │ ───────────────┴──────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────

_Santa Barbara Islands and Mainland._

───────────────┬──────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────── │ │ │ │ No. of Crania. │ Sex. │ Capacity │ Capacity │ Capacity │ │ Average. │ Maximum. │ Minimum. │ │ │ │ ───────────────┼──────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────── │ │ │ │ 9 │ Male │ 1324 │ 1441 │ 1167 5 │ Female │ 1247 │ 1316 │ 1175 │ │ │ │ ───────────────┴──────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────

Among exceptional features claimed as more or less a racial characteristic of American crania, the _os Incæ_, or epactal bone in the occiput, has been noted as present in various stages of manifestation in 3.81 per cent; and among ancient Peruvian crania in 6.08 per cent; while it does not apparently exceed 2.65 per cent in the Negro; and only reaches 1.19 per cent in Europeans.[181] In so far as this may be regarded as a sign of arrested development, it is noteworthy as thus occurring in excess in the small-headed, yet highly ingenious and civilised Peruvian race. Dr. Morton noted as a remarkable fact that the skull of the Peruvian child appeared to equal in size that of other races; so that in a much ampler sense than in the perpetuation of a suture of the occiput beyond the stage of fœtal development, the small-sized skull and brain of the adult Peruvian is abnormal. But he followed out his observation of the phenomena no farther than to state, in summing up his investigations “On the internal capacity of the cranium in the different races of men:”[182] “Respecting the American race, I have nothing to add, excepting the striking fact that of all the American nations, the Peruvians had the smallest heads, while those of the Mexicans were something larger, and those of the barbarous tribes the largest of all,” namely:—

{ Peruvians, collectively 75 cubic inches. Toltecan Nations { { Mexicans, „ 79 „ „ Barbarous Tribes 82 „ „

The enlarged tables given in the catalogue of Dr J. Aitken Meigs, increase this inverse ratio of cerebral capacity, thus:—

Peruvians 75.3 Mexicans 81.7 Barbarous Tribes 84.0

“The great American group,” he says, “is, in several respects, well represented in the collection. It includes 490 crania and 13 casts, making a total of 503 from nearly 70 different nations and tribes. Of this large number 256 belong to the Toltecan race (embracing the semi-civilised communities of Mexico, Bogota, and Peru), and 247 to the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent. Of 164 measurements of crania of the barbarous tribes, the largest is 104 cubic inches; the smallest 69; and the mean of all 84. One hundred and fifty-two Peruvian skulls give 101 cubic inches for the largest internal capacity, 58 for the smallest, and 75.3 for the average of all.”[183]

The results which Professor Jeffreys Wyman arrived at from a careful comparative measurement of the Squier collection, were confirmed by his subsequent study of that of Professor Agassiz, and may be quoted as applying to both; for he sums up his later investigations with the remark: “These results agree with all previous conclusions with regard to the diminutive size of the ancient Peruvian brain.”[184] Of the Squier collection he says: “The average capacity of the fifty-six crania measured agrees very closely with that indicated by Morton and Meigs, namely, 1230 centimetres, or 75 cubic inches, which is considerably less than that of the barbarous tribes of America, and almost exactly that of the Australians and Hottentots as given by Morton and Meigs, and smaller than that derived from a larger number of measurements by Davis. Thus we have, in this particular, a race which has established a complex civil and religious polity, and made great progress in the useful and fine arts,—as its pottery, textile fabrics, wrought metals, highways and aqueducts, colossal architectural structures and court of almost imperial splendour prove,—on the same level, as regards the quantity of brain, with a race whose social and religious conditions are among the most degraded exhibited by the human race. All this goes to show, and cannot be too much insisted upon, that the relative capacity of the skull is to be considered merely as an anatomical and not as a physiological characteristic; and unless the quality of the brain can be represented at the same time as the quantity, brain measurement cannot be assumed as an indication of the intellectual position of races any more than of individuals.”[185]

The only definite attempt of Dr. Morton to solve the difficulty thus presented to us, curiously evades its true point. “Something,” he says, “may be attributed to a primitive difference of stock; but more, perhaps, to the contrasted activity of the two races.” Here, however, it is not a case of intellectual activity accompanied by, and seemingly begetting an increased volume of brain; but only the assumption of greater activity in the small-brained race to account for its triumph over larger-brained barbarous tribes in the attainment of numerous elements of a native-born civilisation. The question is, how to account for this intellectual activity, with all its marvellous results, attained by a race with an average brain of no greater volume than that of the Bushman, the Australian, or other lowest types of humanity.

The Nilotic Egyptian race, of composite ethnical character, presents striking elements of comparison, in the ingenious arts and constructive skill of the ancient dwellers in the Nile valley; but whether we take the Egyptian of the Catacombs, the Copt, or the Fellah, we seek in vain for like microcephalous characteristics. Among modern races the Chinese exhibit many analogies in arts and social life to the ancient Peruvians; but their cerebral capacity presents no correspondence to that of the American race. Dr. Morton gives a mean capacity for the Chinese skull of 85, as compared with the Peruvian 75.3, while Dr. Davis derives from nineteen skulls a mean internal capacity of 76.7 oz. av., or 93 cubic inches.

But another Asiatic race, that of the Hindoos—also associated with a remarkable ancient civilisation, and a social and religious organisation not without suggestive analogies both to ancient Egypt and Peru,—is noticeable for like microcephalous characteristics. In completing the anatomical measurements with which Dr. Morton closes his great work, he places the Ethiopian lowest in the scale of internal capacity of cranium; but, while including the Hindoo in his Caucasian group, he adds: “It is proper to mention that but three Hindoos are admitted in the whole number, because the skulls of these people are probably smaller than those of any other existing nation. For example, seventeen Hindoo heads give a mean of but 75 cubic inches.”[186] The Vedahs of Ceylon, the Mincopies, the Negritos, and the Bushmen, appear to vie with the Hindoos in smallness of skull; but all of them are races of diminutive stature. This element, therefore, which has been referred to as important in individual comparisons, is no less necessary to be borne in view in determining such comparative results as those which distinguish the Peruvians from other American races. Certain races are unquestionably distinguished from others by difference of stature. Barrow determined the mean height of the Bushman, from measurements of a whole tribe, to be 4 ft. 3½ in. D’Orbigny, from nearly similar evidence, states that of the Patagonians to be 5 ft. 8 in. The internal capacity of the Peruvian skull, as derived from eighteen male and six female Quichua skulls in Dr. Davis’s collection, is 70, while he states that of the Patagonian skull as 67 and of the Bushman as 65; but it is manifest that the latter figures, if taken without reference to relative stature, furnish a very partial index of the comparative volume of brain.

Professor Goodsir, as already noted, held that symmetry of brain has more to do with the higher faculties than mere bulk. In the case of the Peruvians the systematic distortion of the skull precludes the application of this test. But in the small Hindoo skull the fine proportions have been repeatedly noted. Dr. Davis, in describing one of a Hindoo of unmixed blood, born in Sumatra, says: “His pretty, diminutive skull is singularly contrasted with those of the races by whom, alive, he was surrounded”;[187] and he adds: “The great agreement of the elegant skulls of Hindoos in their types and proportions, although not in dimensions, with those of European races, has afforded some support to that widespread and learned illusion, ‘the Indo-European hypothesis.’ The Hindoo skulls are generally beautiful models of form in miniature.”

Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, in his _Malay Archipelago_, discusses the value of cranial measurements for ethnological purposes; and, employing those furnished by Dr. J. B. Davis in his _Thesaurus Craniorum_ as a “means of determining whether the forms and dimensions of the crania of the eastern races would in any way support or refute his classification of them,” he finally selected as the best tests for his purpose—1. The capacity of the cranium; 2. The proportion of the width to the length taken as 100; 3. The proportion of the height to the length taken as 100. But here again, unfortunately, the systematic distortion of the Peruvian skull limits us to the first of those tests. There are, indeed, the eleven normal Peruvian crania selected as such from the numerous Ancon skulls brought by Professor Agassiz from Peru. But those are stated by Professor Wyman to be on an average less by six inches than the ordinary skull. Some partial results embodied in the following table admit of comparison with those based on the more ample data of Table X. Dr. Lucae, in his _Zur Organischen Formenlehre_, gives the cranial capacity of single skulls of different races, selected as examples of each. In these, as in others already referred to, the capacity was determined with peas; and the results—assumed to be given in Prussian ounces,—are dealt with here, as in the skulls of Heinse and Bünger. The experiments carried on for the purpose of testing the process fully confirmed the results stated by Professor Wyman as to the differences in apparent cubical capacity according to the material employed. Taking a sound Huron Indian skull, a mean internal capacity of 1490 grms. was obtained by repeatedly gauging it with peas, and of 1439.5 with rice. The position of the Negro, heading the list, serves to show the exceptional nature of the evidence; though this is rather due to the inferiority of other examples, such as the Chinese and Greenlander, than to its capacity greatly exceeding the Negro mean. In the first column the unzen, as Prussian ounces, are rendered in grammes. The second column gives the nearer approximation to the true specific gravity, according to the standard referred to, based on a series of experiments carried out under my direction in the laboratory of the University of Toronto, and assuming 82.5 grms. of peas to occupy the space of 100 grms. of water. The third and fourth columns represent the estimated brain-weight, after the requisite deductions, on the basis of s.g. of brain as 1.0408.

TABLE IX

LUCAE

───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬────────── │ │ │ │ │ Internal │ Internal Cap. │ Brain-Weight. │ Brain- │ Capacity. │ Corrected. │ Grms. │ weight. │ Grms. │ Grms. │ │ Oz. Av. │ │ │ │ ───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼────────── │ │ │ │ Negro │ 1169.28 │ 1424.12 │ 1281.71 │ 45.2 Chinese │ 1081.58 │ 1364.48 │ 1228.04 │ 43.4 Nubian │ 1041.24 │ 1313.54 │ 1182.19 │ 41.7 Floris │ 1033.93 │ 1304.38 │ 1173.94 │ 41.4 Papuan │ 1030.42 │ 1299.95 │ 1169.96 │ 41.3 Greenlander │ 1023.12 │ 1290.74 │ 1161.67 │ 41.0 Javanese │ 995.06 │ 1254.54 │ 1129.91 │ 39.8 │ │ │ │ ───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴──────────

In the following table the examples are derived from Dr. J. B. Davis’s tables, with the exception of the Peruvians. For these I have availed myself of Dr. Jeffreys Wyman’s careful observations on the large collection in the Peabody Museum, the results of which confirm Dr. Morton’s earlier data. One further fact, however, may be noted as a result of my own study of Peruvian crania, amply confirmed by the published observations of others, namely, that while the Peruvian head unquestionably ranks among those of the microcephalous races, the range of variation among the Peruvian coast tribes appears to be less than that even of the Australian. Of this there is good evidence, based on the comparison of several hundred crania. But exceptional examples of unusually large skulls may be looked for in all races; and a few of such abnormal Peruvian or other skulls would modify the mean capacities and weights in the following table. Nevertheless the average results, as a whole, are probably a close approximation to the truth:—

TABLE X

COMPARATIVE CEREBRAL CAPACITY OF RACES

────────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────── │ │ │ │ │ Capacity. │ Brain-Weight. Race. │ Number. │ Cubic Inches. │ Oz. Av. │ │ │ ────────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼─────────────── │ │ │ European │ 299 │ 92.3 │ 47.12 English │ 21 │ 93.1 │ 47.50 Asiatic │ 124 │ 87.1 │ 44.44 Chinese │ 25 │ 92.1 │ 47.00 Hindoos │ 35 │ 82.5 │ 42.11 Negroes │ 16 │ 86.4 │ 44.08 Negro Tribes │ 69 │ 85.2 │ 43.47 American Indians │ 52 │ 87.5 │ 44.64 Mexicans │ 25 │ 81.7 │ 41.74 Peruvians │ 56 │ 75.0 │ 38.25 Eskimos │ 13 │ 91.2 │ 46.56 Oceanic │ 210 │ 89.4 │ 45.63 Javans │ 30 │ 87.5 │ 44.64 Australians │ 24 │ 81.1 │ 41.38 │ │ │ ────────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────

Looking for some definite results from the various data here produced, the deductions which they seem to suggest may be thus stated. While Professor Wyman justly remarks that the relative capacity of the skull, and consequently of the encephalon, is to be considered as an anatomical and not as a physiological characteristic, relative largeness of the brain is nevertheless one of the most distinguishing attributes of man. Ample cerebral development is the general accompaniment of intellectual capacity, alike in individuals and races; and microcephaly, when it passes below well-defined limits, is no longer compatible with rational intelligence; though it amply suffices for the requirements of the highest anthropomorpha. Wagner thus definitely refers the special characteristics which separate man from the irrational creation to one member of the encephalon: “The relation of the lobes of the cerebrum to intelligence may, perhaps, be expressed thus: there is a certain development of the mass of the cerebrum, especially of the convolutions, requisite in order to such a development of intelligence as divides man from other animals.”

The important data accumulated by Morton, Meigs, Davis, Tiedemann, Pruner-Bey, Broca, and others, by the process of gauging the skulls of different races, proceeds on the assumption of brain of a uniform density. But it seems by no means improbable that certain marked distinctions in races may be traceable to the very fact of a prevailing difference in the specific gravity of the brain, or of certain of its constituent portions; to the greater or less complexity of its convolutions; and to the relative characteristics of the two hemispheres. Moreover, it may be that some of those sources of difference in races may not lie wholly out of our reach, or even beyond our control. The diversity of food, for example, of the Peruvians and of the American Indian hunter tribes was little less than that which distinguishes the Eskimo from the Hindoo, or the nomad Tartar from the Chinese. The remarkable cerebral capacity characteristic of the Oceanic races is the accompaniment of well-defined peculiarities in food, climate, and other physical conditions; and Australia is even more distinct in its physical specialties than in its variety of race.

Looking then to the unwonted persistency of the Peruvian cranium within such narrow limits, so far at least as the physical characteristics of the predominant population of Peru are illustrated by means of the great Coast cemeteries; and to the striking discrepancy between the volume of brain and the intellectual activity of the race; I am led to the conclusion that, in the remarkable exceptional characteristics thus established by the study of this class of Peruvian crania, we have as marked an indication of a distinctive race-character as anything hitherto noted in anthropology.

[152] _The Descent of Man_, Part I. chap. iv.

[153] _Insanity and its Treatment_, by G. F. Blandford, M.D., p. 10.

[154] _Mr. Darwin’s Critics: Critiques and Addresses._

[155] Vogt, _Lectures on Man_, Lecture III.

[156] _Journal of Mental Science_, vol. xii. p. 23.

[157] _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. clviii. p. 505.

[158] _Proceedings of the Boston Natural History Society_, vol. xl.

[159] The internal capacity of 59 oz. is given here from the _Thesaurus Craniorum_, p. 40, in correction of that of 50 oz. stated in the memoir in _Transactions of the Dutch Society of Sciences_, Haarlem, p. 21, which may be presumed to be a misprint. Dr. Davis adds, in the _Thesaurus Craniorum_: “An early closure of the sutures has occasioned a stunted growth of the brain, especially of its convolutions, and thus prevented the development of those structures and faculties which might have given a different direction to his lower propensities”; and he justly adds his conviction that this was a case rather for timely treatment as a dangerous idiot, than for punishment as a criminal.

[160] _Report of British Association_, 1861.