The ethnography of Garumna and Lettermullen in the County Galway / by Charles R. Browne.

  • Browne, Charles Robert.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ethnography of Garumna and Lettermullen in the County Galway / by Charles R. Browne. 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.

    11/54 (page 227)
    Stature and lulTc,—The inhabitants of these islands are of average stature, or slightly above it; there are very few of the men who can really he termed small, and a good proportion of them are of tall sta- ture. 'J’he mean height of the 65 adult males measured was 1739 mm., or 5 feet 8^ inches. The extremes were 1650 mm. (5 feet 5 inches), and 1855 mm. (6 feet 1 inch). Of these 65 men, 8 were of 1800 mm. (5 feet 11 inches) and upwards. The general build is stout and square, with great depth of chest, and their muscular strength seems to be far above the average. Their lifting power is especially great. They are very hardy, and capable of hearing a great deal of hunger, fatigue, and wet. The women seem to he above the average in height, and are very stout and strong. One young woman of 18 who was measured had a stature of 1780 mm. (5 feet 10 inches). Limbs.—The hands and feet are large and bony, the former being broad, with squarely tipped fingers. In spite of very hard work their hands are well-shaped. The forearm (measured from the styloid pro- cess to the head of the radius) is very long for the stature, and the span of the arms {grand envergue) is also in many cases great. In no case was this last measurement less than the stature. The women’s feet are large and flat, due to their constantly going barefooted and carrying heavy loads. Read.—The head is well-shaped. The forehead is upright, with well-marked frontal eminences ; glabella and superciliary ridges both rather prominent. The vertex is rounded ; the occipital region does not, as a rule, project, hut rises straight in the line of the neck. The eyebrows are thick and level, usually lighter in shade than the hairs of the scalp, and, in a large proportion of cases, meet in the middle line. The mean cephalic index of the 65 men measured was 76'9 (or, de- ducting two units to reduce to the cranial standard, 74-9). It thus lies on the borderland between dolichocephaly and mesaticephaly. In 17 instances the men measured were brachycephalic, in 37 mesati- cephalic, and in 9 dolichocephalic. Face.—The face is of medium length, with prominent cheek-bones. It narrows in the bigouial region as in the case of the Aran Islanders. The angles of the jaws project somewhat, and are apparently everted. The nose is straight, and generally long and sharply pointed; in many cases it is aquiline. The mean nasial index is 63'4. The mouth is not large, and the lips are of medium thickness ; the heavy hanging lower lip so commonly seen in the west of Ireland is not so noticeable a feature among these people as it is among the inhabitants of the E.I.A. PliOC., SEE. UI., VOL. V. E