Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

84 RACIAL AFFINITIES hakt
bones offered by ethnology." If, however, by this
expression he intends to convey—which appears to
be the only interpretation possible— that the Jakun
are a dwarf race, one can only reply that any such
conclusion, especially when based upon measurements
taken from a single individual, even if it were other-
wise well founded, would be altogether premature, and
furnishes an example of one of the curious lapses to
which even great intellects appear occasionally liable.
We shall have to await, there is very little doubt, a
considerable body of fresh evidence before any such
conclusion can be either definitely established or
refuted.
On the important subject of the hair-character of
the Jakun, Virchow remarks that in his opinion the
hair of all the Jakuns examined (by Vaughan-Stevens)
belonged to the same type, and that the contrast with
that of the Semang and Sakai was " as sharp as can
be imagined." This was a matter of the more im-
portance "as the relationship of the Jakun to the
other tribes has always been a matter of dispute."
The Jakun hair, then, appears to have been,
generally speaking, black ("glossy black" in the case
of a specimen sent) and straight, and the percentage
of Jakuns with wavy or curly hair seems to have been
extremely small. There can at all events be no
doubt whatever, in spite of the exceptions that
admittedly occur, that the former is the real hair-type
of the Jakun race.
The skin -colour in general was a yellowish or
greyish tint of brown (No. 37 of the Parisian colour-
plate being the commonest shade).
The eyes of the Jakun were usually a dark
shade of brown (Nos. 2-3), and the conjunctiva