ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK
The study of the physical characters of the various native races of the
human species—that is to say, anthropology, in contradistinction to
ethnology—occupied a very prominent position in Sir William Flower’s
scientific career; and it is difficult to say whether this or the study
of whales was the branch of biology on which his greatest interest was
concentrated. Perhaps we might say that the two together formed his
especially favourite subjects. Whereas, however, as we have seen in the
last chapter, he was studying the Cetacea at least as early as the year
1864, when papers from his pen were published, anthropology does not
appear to have been seriously taken up by him till considerably later
in life; the first papers and lectures by him that have come under the
writer’s notice dating from 1878.
As regards the special departments of this science to which Sir William
devoted a large share of attention, we may mention, in the first place,
the discovery of the best methods of accurately determining the capacity
of the human cranium, and the drawing-up of formulæ for “indexes” to
serve as a basis for comparing the cranial measurements of different
races. Secondly, we may take the classification of these races as one of
his most important lines of investigation. While, in the third place,
may be noticed his partiality for the study of the inferior races of
mankind, more especially those belonging to the black, or Negro, branch
of the species; dwarf races, like the Central African Akkas, and the
Andaman Islanders, or exterminated types, like the Tasmanians, having
apparently a very strong claim on his interest. And here it may be
mentioned that not only is anthropology largely indebted to Flower for
his published works on this subject, but likewise for the energy he
displayed in collecting specimens of the osteology of dwindling races,
while there was yet time. It was at his initiation that Sir Joseph Fayrer
was induced to use his influence with the Indian authorities for the
purpose of securing skulls and skeletons of Andamanese for the Museum of
the Royal College of Surgeons. The result of this was the acquisition of
a fine series of specimens of the osteology of this fast-disappearing
race, at a time when it was still comparatively uncontaminated and
undeteriorated by contact with Europeans. That such contact must
inevitably lead, sooner or later, to the disappearance of the inferior,
or “non-adaptive” races of mankind, was a favourite dictum of Sir
William’s; and its truth has been confirmed by the events of the last few
years.
If not actually the earliest, the first really important contribution to
anthropology on Flower’s part was a Friday Evening lecture “On the Native
Races of the Pacific Ocean,” delivered at the Royal Institution on 31st
May 1878, and published in the _Proceedings_ of that body for the same
year. In this lecture Sir William described the native races of Oceania,
or those inhabiting the islands, inclusive of Australia, scattered
through the great ocean tract bounded on the east and west respectively
by the continents of America and Asia. The subject was treated very
largely upon the basis of the collection of skulls and skeletons in the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons; yet the lecturer was careful to
point out that even this extensive series was wholly insufficient for
the purpose of forming a classification of mankind founded on physical
structure.
“It can only afford certain indications, valuable as far as they go,
from which a provisional, or approximative system may be built up. Very
many, indeed the majority of the islands, are totally unrepresented in
it; others are illustrated by only one or two individuals.” “Were the
collection anything like representative,” it is added later, “it would
probably be found possible to distinguish the natives of each island, or,
at all events, of each group of islands, by cranial characters alone.”
Special attention was in this course directed to the Australians on the
one hand, and to the frizzly-haired Melanesians, or Oceanic Negroes
(as distinct from the straight-haired Polynesians) on the other.
That the Melanesians were the primitive denizens of the greater part
of Oceania, and that the original area they once inhabited has been
much circumscribed by Polynesian invasion, the lecturer was fully
convinced; and the great difficulty of distinguishing in some instances
to what extent this invasion has led, in certain cases, to a mixture
of the two stocks, was earnestly insisted upon. At the conclusion of
his discourse Flower commented very strongly on the urgent need of
making anthropological collections in these islands forthwith; and,
although perhaps his prophecy of impending extermination was a little
exaggerated, it is no less urgent at the present day.
“In another half century,” he said, “the Australians, the Melanesians,
the Maories, and most of the Polynesians will have followed the
Tasmanians to the grave. We shall well merit the reproach of future
generations if we neglect our present opportunities of gathering together
every fragment of knowledge that can still be saved, of their languages,
customs, social polity, manufactures, and arts. The preservation of
tangible evidence of their physical structure is, if possible, still
more important; and surely this may be expected of that nation, above
all others, which by its commercial enterprise and wide-spread maritime
dominion has done, and is doing, far more than any in effecting that
distinctive revolution.”
What are we doing at the present day, it may be asked, to avoid this
reproach? If we may judge by the slowness with which anthropological
specimens came into the national collections (and it is difficult to
select a better test), the answer must surely be, I am afraid, in the
negative.
Of a still more popular type than the preceding was a lecture on the
“Races of Men,” delivered by Flower in the City Hall, Glasgow, on 28th
November 1878, and published as a separate pamphlet.
The third, and perhaps the most interesting lecture given by Flower
during the year under consideration, was the one at Manchester on
November 30th, on the “Aborigines of Tasmania,” which is published in the
tenth series of _Manchester Science Lectures_. In this discourse Flower
traced the sad story of European intercourse with this interesting
people and their final extermination; pointing out that the last male
died in 1869, and the last female in 1876. At the time this lecture was
delivered four complete skeletons of Tasmanians of both sexes had been
obtained and sent to England by the late Mr. Merton Allport, of Hobart.
Of these, two were then in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons,
while the third was in the collection of the late Dr. Barnard Davis,
and the fourth in that of the Anthropological Institute of London. Dr.
Davis’s specimen came to the Museum of the College of Surgeons after
the owner’s death; and it was a great source of satisfaction to Sir
William that, in after years, he obtained the Anthropological Institute’s
specimen (which is remarkable for retaining the inter-frontal suture of
the skull) for the Natural History Museum. Somewhat less than thirty
Tasmanian skulls were at this time known to exist in England, and a few
have been since acquired for public collections. Flower dwelt upon the
close affinity of the Tasmanians to the Melanesians (although the skulls
of the two are perfectly distinguishable), and their wide difference from
their Australian neighbours.
Perhaps, however, the most important contribution made by Flower to
anthropology in 1878 was his paper on the “Methods and Results of
Measurements of the Capacity of Human Crania,” which appeared in the
_Report_ of the British Association for that year and also in _Nature_.
This was paving the way for the first part of the valuable “Catalogue of
Osteological Specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons
of England,” which appeared in the following year, and is entirely
devoted to man. This accurate and laborious work was very far from being
a mere catalogue of the contents of this section of the museum under the
author’s charge, for it is in fact to a great extent a manual of the
methods employed in human craniology; tables and figures being given of
the manner in which the measurement of skulls are made, and the method of
calculating “cranial indexes.” For taking the cubical capacity of skulls
Flower employed mustard-seed, and the “craniometer” invented by Mr. Busk.
In the introduction is given a general sketch of the osteology of man,
followed by a dissertation on his dentition, and this, in turn, by an
account of the special osteological and dental features of the various
native races of the human species.
Earlier in the same year Flower had entered in some degree on the domain
of ethnology by contributing to the _Journal_ of the Anthropological
Institute a paper illustrating the “Mode of Preserving the Dead in
Darnley Island and in South Australia,” figuring the mummified body of a
Melanesian from the above-named island. Another paper of somewhat similar
nature from Flower’s pen was published in the same journal for 1881,
dealing with a collection of monumental heads and artificially deformed
crania of Melanesians from the Island of Mallicollo, in the New Hebrides.
These preserved heads have attracted the attention of Europeans ever
since Cook’s visit to the island in 1774; and appear to be quite unique.
“Whatever the special motive among the Mallicollese,” wrote Flower,
“whether they are the objects of worship or merely of affectionate
regard, it must be very difficult for a passing traveller without
intimate knowledge of the language and of the condition of mind and
thought of the people to ascertain; but the custom is obviously analogous
to many others which have prevailed throughout all historical times and
in many nations, manifesting itself among other forms in the mummified
bodies of the ancient Egyptians, and which has received its most æsthetic
expression in the marble busts placed over the mouldering bones in a
Christian cathedral.”
Reverting to 1879, we find in the _Journal_ of the Anthropological
Institute for that year an important and interesting paper by Flower on
the “Osteology and Affinities of the Natives of the Andaman Islands,”
a subject to which the author made a further contribution in the same
journal for November 1884. In the first of these communications the
author gave the results of the examination of nineteen skeletons and a
large series of skulls, while in the second he was able to amplify these,
and thus to render his averages more trustworthy by the details of no
less than ten additional skeletons. As in all his other papers of this
nature, Sir William first traced in considerable detail the history of
European intercourse with the Andamanese, or “Mincopies,” as they were
often called at one time, and then proceeded to point out the external
and osteological features of these interesting and diminutive people.
Relying to a great extent on the “frizzly,” or “woolly” character of
their hair, Flower was fully convinced that these people belong to the
Negro branch of the human family.
“With the Oceanic Negroes, or Melanesians, as they are now commonly
called, we might naturally suppose they had the most in common. But this
is not the case. Although the Melanesians vary much in stature, none are
so small as the Andamanese, and some are fully equal to the average of
the species. Their crania, whenever they are met with in a pure state,
are remarkably long, narrow, and high.... The pure Fijians are perhaps
the most dolichocephalic [long-headed] race in the world, and the New
Caledonians and the New Hebrideans come near them. In this respect they
are therefore as distinct as possible from the Andamanese.... As is well
known, the African frizzly-haired races are mostly of moderate or tall
stature, but there are among them some, as the Bushmen of the South,
and others less known from the Central regions, as diminutive as the
Andamanese.”
The lecturer then went on to state that although African Negroes were,
as a rule, of the long-headed type, yet there were even then indications
of the existence of round-headed races in the heart of the continent.
In conclusion, it was added that although their very rounded skulls
probably formed a special feature of the Andamanese, yet that he regarded
the “Negritos,” or group of which that race formed a section, “as
representing an infantile, undeveloped or primitive form of the type
from which the African Negroes on the one hand, and the Melanesians on
the other, with all their various modifications, may have sprung. Even
their very geographical position, in the centre of the great area of
distribution of the frizzly-haired races, seems to favour this view.
We may, therefore, regard them as little-modified descendants of an
extremely ancient race, the ancestors of all the Negro tribes.”
On the other hand, it was suggested that long isolation and restriction
to a confined area might have led to physical degeneration, so that the
peculiarities of the Andamanese type might be of comparatively recent
origin.
Another interesting race to which Sir William devoted special attention
was the Fijians, who, as already incidentally mentioned, offer the most
extreme contrast to the round-headed Andamanese, by the extreme length
and narrowness of their skulls. His paper on the “Cranial Characters
of the Natives of the Fiji Islands,” appeared in the _Journal_ of the
Anthropological Institute for 1880; and was illustrated, like the one
on the Andamanese, with carefully drawn figures of typical skulls.
After mentioning that nothing definite was known with regard to the
anthropology of one of the islands of the Fiji, or Viti, group, the
author added that “with regard to Viti Levu, all the evidence we possess
shows that the people who inhabit the interior of the island present
in their cranial conformation a remarkable purity of type, and that
this type conforms in the main with that of the Melanesian islands
generally; indeed they may be regarded as the most characteristic, almost
exaggerated, expressions of this type, for in ‘hypersistenocephaly’
(extreme narrowness of skull), they exceed the natives of Fati, in the
New Hebrides, to which the term was first applied.
“The intermixture of Tongans or other Polynesian blood with the Fijian,
appears to be confined to the smaller islands, and even in these not to
have very greatly modified the prevailing cranial characteristics.”
At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
held at York in the autumn of 1881, Professor Flower, as Chairman of the
Department, read an address to the Anthropological Department on the
study and progress of anthropology, more especially in this country; at
the conclusion of which he urged the strong claim of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland to the support of all interested
in that subject. Three years later (1884) he gave, as President, an
address “On the Aims and Prospects of the Study of Anthropology,” before
the last-named body, at the Anniversary Meeting in January. Here again
the speaker directed attention to the comparatively small degree of
interest taken in this country in this most important science, and urged
that not only scientific students, but wealthy men, ought to do something
towards aiding its progress. “Our insular position, maritime supremacy,
numerous dependencies, and ramifying commerce, have given us,” he
remarked, “unusually favourable opportunities for the formation of such
collections—opportunities which, unfortunately, in past times have not
been used so fully as might be desired.” A change, indeed, it was added,
had of late years come over matters in this respect; but, while fully
admitting this, it can scarcely be maintained that even at the present
day we are doing all that we might in this direction.
Between the years 1879 and 1885 inclusive, Flower appears to have
devoted much of his attention to elaborating a satisfactory biological
classification of the various races of mankind. In the former he drew up
a preliminary scheme of this nature, which was published in the _British
Medical Journal_ for 1879 and 1880, under the title of “Anatomical
Characters of the Races of Man.” Impressed with the importance of
having some well-marked feature, other than those afforded by the
skull, by means of which the skeletons of such races could easily be
distinguished, he turned his attention to the scapula, or shoulder-blade,
and in 1880, with the assistance of Dr. J. G. Garson, published in the
_Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_ a paper “On the Scapular Index
as a Race-Character in Man.” On the whole, although the number of
skeletons examined was confessedly insufficient, the results obtained
were decidedly satisfactory, and agreed fairly well with those of other
observers. The Australians and Andamanese, for instance, accorded in this
respect with the Negro type. On the other hand, Bushman skeletons, as had
been observed in Paris, approached in this respect to the Caucasian type,
while the Tasmanians were unexpectedly found to differ markedly from the
other black races in their scapular index.
In 1884, in a paper published in the _Journal_ of the Anthropological
Society, Sir William recorded the results of a large series of
observations in regard to the value of the size of the teeth as a
race-character, and was enabled, by means of a “dental index,” to
divide the human species into a “Microdont,” or small-toothed group,
a “Mesodont” group and a “Macrodont,” or large-toothed group. In the
first group were included Europeans and other members of the Caucasian
stock, as well as Polynesians, and many of the non-Aryan tribes of
Central and Southern India. In the second group came Chinese, American
Indians, Malays, and African Negroes; while in the third were included
Melanesians, Andamanese, Australians, and Tasmanians. If it be borne
in mind, as explained in the original paper, that the teeth in African
Negroes are actually larger than in Europeans, although the “index” is
reduced by the great length of the base of the cranium (which forms a
factor in the index) in the former, the results accord remarkably well
with the under-mentioned classification of the human species, which is
indeed partly based on the character in question.
“The Classification of the Varieties of the Human Species” is the title
of Flower’s Presidential Address to the Anniversary Meeting of the
Anthropological Institute, held in January 1885. In this scheme the
species was divided into three main stocks, or branches, namely (1) the
Negroid, or black; (2) the Mongolian, or yellow; and (3) the Caucasian,
or white. In the first were included the African or typical Negroes,
the Hottentots and Bushmen, the Oceanic Negroes or Melanesians, and the
Negritos of the Andaman Islands and other parts of Asia; the Australians
being provisionally classed near the Melanesians. The second, or
Mongolian, branch was taken to include the Eskimo, the typical Mongols of
Central and Northern Asia, the brown Polynesians or “Kanakas,” and the
so-called American Indians, from the great lakes of Canada to Patagonia
and Tierra del Fuego. In the third, or Caucasian, group were classed, of
course, all the remaining representatives of the human race, including
Europeans, the ancient Egyptians, and the modern fellahin of the Nile
delta, the natives of India, the Ainu of Japan, and the Veddas of Ceylon.
In the main, this classification has been very generally accepted by
anthropologists, although exception has naturally been taken to some of
the items. The Australians, for instance, which differ markedly from
all the undoubted representatives of the Negroid branch, form a case in
point. Sir William was inclined to think that these people do not form
a distinct race at all, but that they may be derived from a Melanesian
stock, modified by a strong infusion of some other race, probably a low
Caucasian type, more or less nearly allied to the Veddas of Ceylon or
some of the Dravidian races of Southern or Central India. It is added,
however, that the Australians may possibly be mainly sprung from a
very primitive type, from which the frizzly-haired Negroes branched
off; frizzly hair being probably a specialised feature not the common
attribute of the ancestral man; confirmation of this last supposition
being afforded, it may be mentioned, by the straight hair of the man-like
apes.
Neither of the above theories is, however, altogether satisfactory;
and it has been suggested by some writers that the Australians, like
the Veddas of Ceylon, and the Indian Dravidians, are a very primitive
Caucasian type. Against this, is their scapular index, their large teeth,
and projecting jaws (which must not be confused with protrusion of the
lips alone). Until, however, we know which of the three great human
branches was the one which traces its origin back to ape-like creatures,
it is almost impossible to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion on this
puzzling question.
Another point in regard to which Flower’s classification has met with
adverse criticism is the position assigned to the brown Polynesians,
which some authorities believe to be mainly of Caucasian origin, and
accordingly term Indonesians.
Taken as a whole there can, however, be no question but that the
classification proposed by Sir William was an extremely valuable
contribution to systematic anthropology.
The last two really important contributions to anthropology made by
Sir William were both published in 1888: the one, under the title of
“The Pygmy Races of Man,” in the _Proceedings_ of the Royal Institution
(forming an address); and the other, entitled “Description of Two
Skeletons of Akkas, a Pygmy Race from Central Africa,” in the _Journal_
of the Anthropological Institute. The second of these two communications
dealt with two imperfect skeletons—male and female—of the pigmy African
race known as Akkas, obtained by the late Dr. Emin Pasha at Monbotto
during his last expedition. The female specimen, which is the least
imperfect of the two, and is said to be that of a very old individual,
is now mounted in the Natural History Museum. In general character,
the skulls were found to come very close to the Negro type; it is true
they are somewhat less elongated, but the relative breadth proved to
be much less than the describer was led to expect from what had been
previously written with regard to the craniology of this tribe. The whole
skeleton fully confirmed earlier statements that the Akkas are the
most diminutive living people. They are quite distinct from the African
Bushmen (characterised, among other features, by their tawny skins), and
also from the Asiatic Negritos, as represented by the Andamanese; and
they accordingly seem rightly referred to a distinct branch of the Negro
stock, for which the name Negrillo has been suggested.
In the first of the two papers cited above, Sir William gave a general
account of all the races of mankind which can be included under the title
of “pigmies,” such as the Bushmen, Negrillos, and Negritos. As regards
the second group he wrote as follows:—
“The fact now seems clearly demonstrated that at various spots across
the great African Continent, within a few degrees north and south of the
Equator, extending from the Atlantic coast to near the shores of the
Albert Nyanza (30° E. long.) and perhaps ... even further to the east,
south of the Galla land, are still surviving, in scattered districts,
communities of these small Negroes, all much resembling each other in
size, appearance, and habits, and dwelling mostly apart from their
taller neighbours, by whom they are everywhere surrounded.... In many
parts, especially at the west, they are obviously holding their own with
difficulty, if not actually disappearing, and there is much about their
condition of civilisation, and the situations in which they are found,
to induce us to look upon them, as in the case of the Bushmen in the
south and the Negritos in the east, as the remains of a population which
occupied the land before the incoming of the present dominant races. If
the account of the Nasamenians, related by Herodotus, be accepted as
historical, the river they came to, ‘flowing from west to east,’ must
have been the Niger, and the northward range of the dwarfish people far
more extensive twenty-three centuries ago than it is at the present time.”
Sir William’s only remaining anthropological paper of any importance
appears to be one on skulls of the aboriginal natives of Jamaica,
published in the _Journal_ of the Anthropological Institute for 1890.
It should not, however, be forgotten that, as more fully narrated in an
earlier chapter, one of the last acts of Sir William’s scientific career
was to organise the arrangement of the anthropological series in the
Natural History Branch of the British Museum—an undertaking of which he
was not spared to witness the completion (so far as anything of this
nature can be said to be anywhere near “complete”).
If he had left nothing but his anthropological labours to bear testimony
to his zeal for science and his capacity for organisation, Sir William
Flower would have deserved well of posterity. And it should be recorded
to his credit that the majority of naturalists, at all events in this
country, are employing, with some minor modifications, not only his
anthropological classification, but that of mammals in general. It is
true that both these schemes were based on the labours and ideas of his
predecessors, but it was reserved for him to so modify and improve them
as to lead to the almost universal acceptation with which they have been
received.