Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

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APPENDIX
bodily structure. When all other " lower" races had been successively stripped
of their conjectured resemblance to apes, all our hopes of discovering at least
some kind of a Proanthropos were directed to the obscurity of the forests of
Malacca. Even these hopes, however, now appear to be futile. At least this
first specimen of a Semang skull possesses (beyond its prognathy and the simple
formation of its lower jaw) nothing specially pithekoid. There is present
neither platy- nor katarhiny, nor a processus frontalis squamae temporalis, nor a
processus lemurianus. With its capacity of 1370 ccm., its minimal frontal
width of 91 mm., its well-developed temporal region, it may be ranked with the
skulls of civilised peoples, than many of which it is certainly less pithekoid.
Now it is indeed not improbable that, if Vaughan-Stevens should fulfil
his promise and my hopes and send us more skulls of E. Semang (Pangan)
people, a few less well-formed and perhaps much smaller specimens may be
found among them. But to this kind of variation we have been long accustomed.
In discussing the skulls of the Philippine Negritos {cf. F. Jagor, A'eisen hi
d. Philip, p. 374, plate II. figs. 4-6 : Berlin, 1873) I have already demonstrated
this by figures. The capacity of four specially selected Negrito skulls
varied between 11 50 and 13 10 ccm., on the other hand they were all hysibrachy-
cephalic, like the E. Semang (Pangan) skulls.
The similarity of the two races, which has so often been conjectured,
can now be looked upon as established. The most important factor which
Vaughan-Stevens has brought forward as bearing on this point is the hair. Unfortunately
in this respect the fates have not been auspicious to us. In the box
of which he speaks there are only a few quite small remnants of single hairs
left. But they are black, fine, and spiral. Moreover, all doubt must disappear
on examining the top-knot (" Bag-i ") which he took from the head of a man and
sent here. It shows the same tendency to the formation of entangled spirals
that is known to us in the Negrito hair, and it is diametrically opposite in character
to the Sakai ("Blandas") hair which I also received from Vaughan-Stevens,
and which I described in detail at an earlier meeting {Fer/i. 1891, p. 844).
This top-knot consists of an extremely elegant combination of a great number
of black spirals, which when slightly relaxed and held against the light form a loose
web of " screw-like" (i.e. spiral) hairs isolated throughout their entire length. The
diameter of the spirals reaches to as much as 2 mm. [sic, ? 2 cm.]. Under the
microscope each separate hair appears thin and of a blackish-brown colour ; the
pigment, however, lies so thick that the interior cannot be very clearly seen from
the outside. From cross-sections it is apparent that this pigment is chiefly accumu-
lated in the outer layers of the hair (" Haarschaft "), and is almost entirely
wanting from the inner part, which sometimes occupies almost half the cross-section.
The cuticle is very delicate and pale. In almost every case there is no medulla ;
when it appears it is discontinuous, weak, and but slightly coloured. The pigment,
in thin layers, appears of a pure brown colour, one might almost say light
brown. It consists of very fine brown grains, which, when not quite sharply
focussed, almost give the impression of a diffused " infiltration." In reality,
however, they form narrow spindle-shaped figures. The form of the cross-section
is mostly an elongated oval, which is frequently flattened or laterally compressed. ^
Page 46.
Note on Specimen ok E. Semang (Pangan) Haik, by
W. L. n. Duckworth.
Provenance, Kelantan Province, I\falay Peninsula.
Native described by the collector (Mr. F. Laidlaw) as a Pangan, " father of
Kepar." See Laidlaw 's notes, Skeat Expedition, 1899.
The hair is in the form of a ringlet which forms curls of a diameter from 9
mm. to about 20 mm.
1 V. B. G. A. xxiv. (V.-St.) 442-444.