Contributions to the craniology of the people of the empire of India / by Sir Wm. Turner.

  • William Turner
Date:
1899-1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Contributions to the craniology of the people of the empire of India / by Sir Wm. Turner. 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.

    116/136 (page 118)
    brachycephalic proportions in some of the existing aboriginal Dravidian tribes, but the direct evidence of either a past or a present Negrito population in India has yet to be obtained.* Sakai. Table X. The name Sakai is given to aboriginal people dwelling in the hill regions in the Malay peninsula. Since the early part of the century certain tribes called Semangs have been described in Kedah to the north of Pinang and in Tringanu on the east coast. Anderson speaks of a native of Kedah as 4 ft. 6 in. in height, the hair woolly and tufted, the skin jet black, the lips thick, the nose flat, the belly protuberant as in the Andaman Islanders. J. R. Logan states that a tribe of Semangs in the hills opposite Pinang have a stature from 4 ft. 8 in. to 4 ft. 10 in., the nose with depressed root and spreading alse, the skin dark brown though sometimes lighter, but black where most exposed.! The Russian traveller, v. Miklucho-Maclay, became acquainted with people named Orang Sakai in his journey through Johore in 1874-75. He stated that the hair consisted of very fine curls, arranged in a compact mass projecting for a short distance from the head, and formed a good guide to the purity of the race, j He re- garded the people as Melanesians, though they approached the Negritos of the Philip- pines. The height of the men varied from 1450 to 1650 mm. (4 ft. 7 in. to 5 ft. 4 in.), and the heads were mesocephalic to bracli3’cephalic. M. de Quatrefages figured § from photographs natives, said to be Sakais from Perak, in one of whom the hair was smooth and in two others was frizzled. Mr Abraham Hale has seen the Sakai people in the Kintah district of Perak, and has given an account |1 of many of their customs. He states that an ancient race the Semangs are also found in Perak, on the right bank of the Perak river, whilst the Sakais inhabit the left bank. Hale did not describe the physical characters of the Sakai, but stated that their primitive dress consisted of bark cloth twisted round the waist and drawn between the thighs. The nasal septum was pierced to wear a porcupine quill or a bone, and the ears were often pierced. The women had the hair standing out from the head in a great mop ; they wore bracelets, and ornamented the face and breast with red figures. The Kelantan Sakais from the north-east were finer-lookiim men than those in the Kintah O district. At the instigation of Professor Virchow, Mr Vaughan Stevens travelled in the eastern * After this Memoir was in type I received, through the courtesy of Major Bannerman, M.D., the Madras Christian College Magazine for September and October ] 900, in which is an article by Mr C. Hayavadawa Rau, B.A., on the origin of the Servile Classes and Hill Tribes of South India. In this article Mr Rau discusses, from the physical, social, linguistic and intellectual points of view, the Negrito theory of the origin of the Dravidians, and regards the theory as untenable. He draws the inference that all the indigenous tribes found by the Aryan immigrants in Southern India belonged substantially to one and the same Dravidian race. t These accounts are abstracted in G. W. Earl’s work on the Native Races of the Indian Archipelago, London, 1853. X Verh. der Berliner Ges.fiir Anth., etc., 1876 and 1891, p. 837 ; Journ. of Straits Branch of Royal Asiatic Soc., 1878. § Les Pygme'es, Paris, 1887, pp. 54, 55. II Journal of Anth. Institute, vol. xv. j). 285, 1886.