CHAPTER VII

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.