The skulls of the inhabitants of the Caroline Islands.

  • Joseph Barnard Davis
Date:
[1865?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The skulls of the inhabitants of the Caroline Islands. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Herderschee, who found them, and by others, that they were from the Island of Wolia, Olee, or Oulea, which is in the Caroline Archipelago ; and that they had wandered on the ocean for about one himdred days. There are many reasons to place confidence in this conclusion. Choris, speaking of Kadou, the native of this island met with in Kotzebue's Voyage, and who had visited the Pelew Islands, tells us that they are bold navigators, and undertake great sea voyages, and that they sail annually to the Isle of Guaham, one of the Mariana group. Their peculiar kind of tattooing also, and their mode of distending the lobes of the ears by hoops of tortoise-shell passed through holes in them, exactly agree with the accounts given by voyagers of the Caroline Islanders. By the ddigence of Dr. C. Swaving, who has distinguished himself as a collector of crania, nine of the skulls of these islanders have been sent to Holland. Four of them were first of all placed in the hands of the late Professor Willem Vrolik, with a number of articles of dress and of ornaments, and the alphabet (vocabulary ?) of their language. These are described in the Catalogue of the Vrolik Museum.* In con- sequence of the lamented death of Prefessor Vrolik, these skulls were reclaimed by Dr. Swaving, and presented, with four others, to the Anatomical Museum at Leyden, where a ninth, that of Soejoer, is also placed. Professor van der Hoeven's Memoir consists of a careful description of these skulls, together with measurements and numerous observations, both on the crania and other subjects. It is illustrated with a good wood-cut of the skull of Taralipa, showing its form vertically, and two very neatly executed lithographic plates, giving a front and profile view of the same skull, and profiles of those of Taraloni, and of that of the woman Laepat, all half-size; and followed by a table of measurements, according to Professor van der Hoeven's method. Of the crania entering into this description, -seven are those of men, and two those of women, t The male skulls occupy the attention of the author first. * Musee Vrolik Catalogue de la Collection d'Anatomie, etc., par J. L. Dus- seau, 8vo., 1865, p. 120. t By the kindness of the Leyden professor, the fine skull of Erolimo, No. vi of his table, has passed into the collection of the writer, No. 1260. It is inscribed Erolimo van het eiland Oolea, Carolinen-eilanden. Obiit 14 Dec. 1853. Swaving. It is the cranium of a man of probably forty years of age. The alveoli of some of the incisors of tbe right side, the inner tooth of the upper mandible, and both those of the lower, are entirely absorbed, presenting the appeoranco of those of Kanakas and Australians whose teeth have been punched out in early life, during certain ceremonies. But, in this skull, those of the two last upper molars on the left side are also totally