Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

I RACE-CHARACTERS OF NEGRITOS 45
collected by Grubauer, which means an index of about
87 in the living person.^
Martin again states that all the Mendi' ( = Semang)
measured by him were mesaticephalic, with a strong
tendency to dolichocephaly.
The following notes on a male skeleton found by
myself in Kedah, and averages of measurements taken
from living Semang (Pangan) in Kelantan and Patani,
may be of interest. I am indebted for them to Dr.
W. L. H. Duckworth, of Jesus College, Cambridge,
Vv'ho has also described a Semang skull recently
collected by Dr. Grubauer.^
The skull viewed in norma verticalis is ellipsoid and mesaticephalic. The
glabellar prominences are very moderate in amount. Muscular ridges are feebly
developed, and the zygomatic arch is slender. The nasal profile is comparatively
flat, but the nasal spine is large. Prognathism of the subnasal and dental type
is well marked. The nasal bones are large and rather flat, the aperture pyriformis
is cordate in outline. The palate is hypsiloid, the teeth large and
blackened. The anterior surfaces of the upper incisors and canines have been
filed. Chin-prominence slight, ascending ramus of mandible short. The skull
should be described as mesaticephalic, metriocephalic, mesognathous, chamie-
prosopic, microsemic, platyrhine, mesoprosopic, and niesocephalic, and on the
whole probably represents an intermediate form between the dolichocephalic and
brachycephalic types.
The vertebral column shows no particular marks of inferiority. The scapula;
are small and relatively very broad, the coracoid is large, and the upper border
very straight. The clavicles show signs of disease, but have a very remarkable form
which can hardly be altogether pathological. The peculiarity consists in the
exaggeration of the normal curve (with concavity directed forward) of the outer
part of the bone ; the two portions of the bone meet at about a quarter of its
length from the outer end, at an angle which in the right clavicle is nearly 90°.
The pelvis aflbrds the best indication of the sex of the skeleton. The crests
of the ilia are not so much incurved anteriorly as in the European pelvis. The
femurs are rather straight in the shaft, with distinct accessory adductor tubercles.
Generally speaking, the characters of the skull are not such as to enable us
to refer it to any well - recognised type without hesitation. Certain marks of
inferiority, which may be regarded not as racial peculiarities, but as constituting
retentions of conditions normal in infancy, .should be noticed. These, which
often occur in lower or primitive races, and are spoken of, with others, as
"infantile" features, are the rotund contour of norma occipitalis, and the short-
ness of the ascending ramus of the mandible. The conditions of the cranial
suture leave no doubt as to the skull having reached maturity.
The conformation of the skeleton of the nose, and the type of prognathism,
constitute resemblances to skulls met with not unfrequently amongst the negro
races, especially the races of Central Africa, rather than amongst Oceanic negroes.
1 In mesaticephalic subjects the possibility of Sakai admixture should, I think,
be discounted. - See Appendix.