The first western Eskimo skull collected for scientific purposes was
apparently that of a female St. Lawrence Islander. It was taken from
the rocks of the island by the Kotzebue party in 1817. It was reported
upon phrenologically in 1822 by Gall.[105]
In 1839 Morton, in his "Crania Americana" (p. 248), gives measurements
and the illustration of a western Eskimo skull from Icy Cape, collected
by Dr. A. Collie, surgeon of H. M. S. _Blossom_. The principal
measurements of this evidently female skull were: Length, 17.02
centimeters; breadth, 12.70; height, 12.70. Cephalic index, _74.6_.
In 1862[106] and 1863[107] Daniel Wilson reports briefly on six
Tchuktchi skulls, which were probably those of Asiatic Eskimo. He says:
My opportunities for examining Esquimaux crania have been
sufficient to furnish me with very satisfactory data for forming
an opinion on the true Arctic skull form. In addition to the
measurements of 38 skulls, * * * I have recently compared and
carefully measured six Tchuktchi [probably Asiatic coast Eskimo]
skulls, in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, exhumed
from the burial place of a village called Tergnyune, on the island
of Arikamcheche, at Glassnappe Harbor, west of Bering Strait, and
during a recent visit to Philadelphia I enjoyed the advantage of
examining, in company with Dr. J. Aitken Meigs, a series of 125
[eastern] Esquimaux crania, obtained by Doctor Hayes during his
Arctic journey of 1860. The comparison between the Tchuktchi and
the true Esquimaux skull is interesting. Without being identical,
the correspondence in form is such as their languages and other
affinities would suggest. Of the former, moreover, the number is
too few, and the derivation of all of them from one cemetery adds
to the chances of exceptional family features; but on carefully
examining the Hayes collection with a view to this comparison, I
found it was quite possible to select an equal number of Esquimaux
crania closely corresponding to the Tchuktchi type, which indeed
presents the most prominent characteristics of the former, only
less strongly marked.
In Prehistoric Man, Volume II, Plate XV, this author gives also the
measurements of the Icy Cape skull recorded by Morton.
The principal mean measurements of the six Tchuktchi skulls (both
sexes) were: Height, 17.60 centimeters; breadth, 13.59; height, 13.77;
cranial index, _77.2_.
The next measurements on western Eskimo crania are those given in 1867
by J. Barnard Davis (_Thes. cran._). This author measured 6 skulls, 3
of which were from Port Clarence (Seward Peninsula), 2 from Kotzebue
Sound, and 1 from Cape Lisburne. The measurements, regrettably, are in
inches. They include the greatest glabello-occipital length, greatest
breadth, height (plane of for. magn. to vertex), height of face
(chin-nasion), and breadth of face (d. bizygom. max.). The cranial
index of the 4 specimens identified as male averaged _75.5_ (75-76),
that of the 2 females _77.5_ (77-78). On page 226 the author mentions
also an artificially deformed skull of a Koniag; this was in all
probability a wrong identification for no such deformations are known
from the island (Kodiak).
In 1868 Jeffries Wyman[108] published measurements of 5 skulls of
"Tsuktshi," the same as those of Daniel Wilson, and of 5 from the Yukon
River, "three of which are Mahlemuts."
The identification of the specimens was partly erroneous. The data with
corrected identification are republished by Dall (q. v.) in 1877. And
the same skulls figure in all future measurements.
In 1875 Topinard[109] gives the Barnard Davis measurements in metric
form without, so far as the western Eskimo are concerned, any additions.
The main measurements of Barnard Davis's western Eskimo skulls,
converted to metric values, follow. The sex identification in some of
the specimens is doubtful.
---------------------------------+--------+---------+----------+---------
| Skull | Breadth |Height (to| Cranial
| length | | vertex) | index
---------------------------------+--------+---------+----------+---------
Port Clarence, male | 17.8 | 13.45 | -14 | _75.7_
Do | 17.8 | 13.45 | 14.2 | _75.7_
Port Clarence, female | -18 | -14 | 13.45 | _77.5_
+--------+---------+----------+---------
Means of the three | 17.86 | 13.64 | 13.59 | _76.4_
+========+=========+==========+=========
Kotzebue Sound, male | 17.55| 13.2 | 13.45 | _75.4_
Kotzebue Sound, female | 17.3 | 13.45 | 13.7 | _77.9_
+--------+---------+----------+---------
Means of the two (probably | | | |
both females) | 17.4 | 13.35 | 13.6 | _76.6_
+========+=========+==========+=========
Cape Lisburne, male | 18.3 | 14.2 | -14 | _77.8_
---------------------------------+--------+---------+----------+---------
The next records are those by George A. Otis, published in 1876 in
the Check List of the Specimens in the Section of Anatomy of the
United States Army Medical Museum, Washington (pp. 13-15). Aside from
those on Greenland crania the author gives here the measurements of 3
presumably Eskimo skulls collected by Dall; of 2 western Eskimo skulls,
no locality; and of 3 Mahlemut skulls, probably from Norton Sound (St.
Michael Island). In his later (1880) catalogue,[110] page 13, Otis adds
to the above three skulls from Prince William Sound, which, however,
were more probably Indian; the three Mahlemuts, on the other hand, are
given with the Alaskan Indians (p. 35). These data are of but little
value. The Eskimo skulls are the same Smithsonian specimens that were
reported upon in 1868 by Jeffries Wyman.
In 1878, Rae[111] mentions some measurements or observations on the
skulls of Western Eskimo by Flower, but no records of these could be
located. Rae says:
I had the privilege of attending the series of admirable lectures
so ably given by Professor Flower at the Royal College of Surgeons
a few weeks ago on the "Comparative Anatomy of Man," from which I
derived much useful information and on one point very considerable
food for thought.
I allude to the wonderful difference in form exhibited between
the skulls of the Eskimos from the neighborhood of Bering
Strait, and of those inhabiting Greenland, the latter being
extremely dolichocephalic, whilst the former are the very
opposite--brachycephalic, the natives of the intermediate coast,
from the Coppermine River eastward, having mesocephalic heads.
In 1879 Lucien Carr, in his "Observations on the Crania from the Santa
Barbara Islands, California"[112] (p. 281), gives erroneously Otis's
measurements of Aleut skulls as those of "Alaskan Eskimo."
Meanwhile W. H. Dall has published (1877) his monograph on the "Tribes
of the Extreme Northwest,"[113] in which he includes Wyman's and also
some of Otis's data on the Eskimo (and Aleut) skulls from Alaska and
Asia. The Tshuktshi are now classed as Asiatic Eskimo, the Mahlemuts as
Eskimo from St. Michael Island. The total number of skulls described in
the former series is 11, in the latter series 6 (of Aleuts the number
of skulls measured is 27 adults and 7 children). The means of the
principal measurements of the Eskimo series, both sexes together, are
as follows: