Thanks to Moore, Collins, and Stewart, all of the National Museum,
instructed by me and working with the same instruments, we now have
several small to fair series of measurements on the living western
Eskimo of both sexes. They are tabulated below. They are the first made
on these groups and will be of much interest both in general and in
connection with the measurements made on the skulls and bones of most
of the same people. The main points shown are as follows:
_Stature._--The stature of the males ranges from markedly to moderately
submedium. There is a considerable similarity. Only the Yukon group
and that of Togiak reach near or slightly above medium, the general
human medium for males approaching 165 centimeters. The female stature
on the St. Lawrence Island averages 12 centimeters less than that of
the males, which is about the difference found in most other peoples.
At Hooper Bay, and especially at the Nunivak Island, the difference is
less, indicating either that the males are slightly stunted or that the
growth of the females is somewhat favored.
_Height sitting._--The height-sitting-stature index ranges from
slightly to quite notably higher than it is in other races, indicating
a tendency toward a relatively long trunk and somewhat short limbs.
A study of the long bones shows that this is due especially, if not
wholly, to the relative shortness of the tibia; and the subdevelopment
of this bone may, it seems, be ascribed to a great deal of squatting
both at home during the long winters and in the canoes. The male Eskimo
show more difference from other males in this respect than the Eskimo
females show from other females.[128]
_Arm span._--Relatively to the stature the length of the arms in the
Eskimo males is shorter than it is in other racial groups, though there
appears to be some inequality in this respect. This shortness would be
especially marked if we compared the arm span with the height sitting.
It is due essentially to a shortness of the distal half of the upper
limbs. The males once more show this disproportion more as compared
to other males than the females compared with others of their sex.
(See comp. data in Old Americans.) This may be connected in some way
with the male Eskimo work and habits; or it may be an expression of a
correlative subdevelopment with that of the lower limbs. It is a good
point for further study.
_The head._--The head, especially when taken in relation to the
stature, is of good size, particularly on the Nunivak Island and on the
Yukon. This agrees with what is known of the Eskimo head, skull, and
brain elsewhere.
The size of the Eskimo head--which is not caused by a thick skull--will
best be appreciated by contrasting it with that of civilized whites.
In whites in general the mean head diameter or cephalic module ranges
in males from approximately 15.70 to 16.40; in the male western Eskimo
groups the range is 15.87 to 16.08, and 16.11 in the group at Marshall
on the Yukon. The percentage relation of the module to stature in 12
groups of male whites, including the old Americans, averages _9.31_
to _10.11_; in the male Eskimo groups it is from _9.57_ to _9.94_.
In females, the cephalic module is 15.57 in the old Americans, 15.36
to 15.68 in the Eskimo; the relation of the module to stature in the
former being _9.59_, in the latter _10.15_ to _10.25_.
In the western Eskimo woman the head dimensions are particularly
favorable. In the old American whites the mean head diameter in the
female is to that of the male on the average as _95_ to 100; in the two
main groups of the western Eskimo it is as _96.1_ and _96.7_ to 100.
Nothing is known as to the cause of this apparently favorable status of
the Eskimo woman; it is another interesting point for further inquiry.
In shape, the head of the western Eskimo is highly mesocephalic to
moderately brachycephalic and of only fair height, and it seldom
approaches the scaphoid or dome-shaped. It is not the narrow, high,
keeled skull of the northeastern and often the northern Eskimo. The
physiognomy, the characteristics of the body, and the mentality and
behavior, are in general typical Eskimo; but the form of the vault is
substantially different. It is a form which approaches on one side
that of the northwesternmost Indian, and on the other that of the
northeastern and Mongoloid Asiatics. More must be said about this when
we come to consider the skull.
_The forehead._--Anthropometric studies have shown repeatedly[129] that
the height of the forehead is not a safe gauge of intelligence, as
commonly believed, but is controlled by the variable height of the hair
line. Thus the common full-blood American Negro laborer and servant
show a slightly higher forehead than the educated old American whites.
Something of a similar nature is found in the Eskimo. As seen in
the following table, in the males the western Eskimo forehead is
absolutely, and especially relatively to stature, higher than it is
in the whites. In the females the absolute height in the two races is
identical, but relatively to stature the Eskimo again shows a clear
though somewhat lesser advantage. The condition is apparently not due
to the size of the head, for this is not greater than in the whites,
in the males; while in the females, where the Eskimo shows a slightly
larger head than the white in relation to stature, the forehead fails
to correspond.