What is the origin of these Mafulu people, with their short stature, small and somewhat rounded heads, slight but active build, sooty brown skin, and frizzly hair, predominantly brown in colour, and with their comparatively primitive ideas of organisation, and simple arts and crafts?

The question is one of no mere local interest, as the answer to it will probably be the answer to a similar question concerning most, and perhaps all, of the other Papuan-speaking people of the mountainous interior of the Central District of British New Guinea, and may even be a key to the past early history of the entire island.

It has, I think, been hitherto believed that all these mountain people had a mixed Papuan and Melanesian ancestry; but it was impossible to be among them, as I was, for some time without being impressed by the difference in appearance between them and the people of the adjacent coast and plains, and suspecting that, though they had Papuan and Melanesian blood in their veins, there was also some third element there. And the name which obtruded itself upon my mind, whilst in Mafulu, was Negrito.

The dark skin and the comparatively rounded heads, and, I think, some shortness of stature are found elsewhere in British New Guinea; though shortness of stature and rounded heads are unusual, and, I believe, only local, and I do not know whether even the Papuan skin is ever quite so dark as that of the Mafulu people. But the almost universal shortness of stature, the comparatively slight, but strong and active, build and the brown colour of the hair seemed entirely different from anything that I had ever seen or read of as regards either the Papuans or the Melanesians; and all of these, coupled with the tendency to roundness of head, were consistent with a partial negrito ancestry.

Then on my return to England I learnt that dwarf people had been found by the recent expedition into Dutch New Guinea organised by the British Ornithologists’ Union. Dr. Haddon has expressed the opinion that these dwarf people and some dwarf people previously found by Dr. Rudolph Poch in German New Guinea are all negritoes, or negritoes crossed with Papuans.1

Dr. Keith, to whom I submitted all my notes upon the measurements and physique of the Mafulu people, and who measured and examined the three skulls which I brought home, wrote to me as follows:—

“I have examined the observations you have made on the Mafulu. From your paper one can form, for the first time, a picture of the physical characters of this tribe; but, when I proceed to assign the tribe to its proper race, I am at once met by difficulties. In my opinion the short stature, the pigmented skin, and the small heads inclined to brachycephaly indicate a strong negrito element, which we know is widely distributed in the far east, and certainly, as we should expect, occurs in certain districts of New Guinea. In the three crania there were characters which one could assign to Papuan, as well as to a Melanesian stock.... A brown or reddish tinge is seen not infrequently in the hair of negritoes. You will see that I am inclined to look on the Mafulu as showing a very considerable degree of negrito blood, and to regard the more primitive tribes of New Guinea as being of this nature. If that were so, the Mafulu might be regarded as belonging to the older population of New Guinea, both Papuan and Melanesian having added something to their civilisation, as well as their physical characters.”

Dr. Keith then is inclined to agree with my suggestion concerning the origin of the Mafulu; and Dr. Haddon, having seen my notes upon physique, said that he endorsed the views expressed by Dr. Keith. And if the view suggested be correct as regards the Mafulu or Fuyuge people, I am prepared to say that from what I have heard of the other mountain Papuan-speaking people of that part of New Guinea, including the Oru Lopiku (Kovio), Boboi and Ambo people, I am convinced that it must be correct as regards them also, though the relative predominance of the three strains may well vary with these different people.

I am hardly qualified to enter into the discussion as to the relationship, if any, existing between the principal hitherto known dwarf races, the Pygmies of Central Africa, the Semang of the Malay Peninsula, the Andamanese and the Aetas of the Philippine Islands, or to deal with the question whether or not all or some of them are to be grouped together as forming a distinct and related type, or are to be regarded as unconnected in the sense that each of them is merely a local variation, sharing a common ancestry with some other taller negroid race.

As, however, my suggestion of a partial negrito origin of the Mafulu people necessarily brings me into contact with this wider question, and the latter is still one upon which opinions differ, I may perhaps briefly tabulate some of the chief physical characters of the Andamanese, the Semang, the Aetas, the dwarf people recently found in Dutch New Guinea and the Mafulu. I think I may omit the African pygmies from my tables.

Stature.

General Physique.

Cephalic Index.

Nasal Index.

Colour of Skin.

Descriptions of this are so general, and so much depends in each case upon the relative meanings attached by each writer to the terms used by him, that I prefer to depend as regards the Andamanese, Semang, and Aetas upon Dr. Haddon’s descriptions, which are doubtless based upon his comparison of those given in previous literature.

Texture of Hair.

This is frizzly in all cases, as with other negroids, the word “woolly” often used being, I imagine, intended to imply frizzly.

Colour of Hair.

This being a point which seems to me to be rather interesting, I propose to quote various descriptions.

I think that the above tables indicate that, though there are differences, there are elements of similarity between (i) the Mafulu people, (2) the Dutch New Guinea dwarfs, and (3) one or more of the Andamanese, Semang and Aetas; but in my comparison of the Mafulu and the dwarfs of Dutch New Guinea with the other previously known dwarf races I would specially draw attention to their similarity in shortness of stature and (as regards most of the Mafulu and a few of the Dutch New Guinea people) colour of hair; and this impels me to venture to say a few words on the larger question.

I have searched through much existing literature concerning the various hitherto discovered dwarf races of the world with reference to the question whether, even assuming that these people have an original primary ancestry from which the taller negroid races also are descended, they must be regarded as having become a related type, separate and distinct from the latter, as now existing, or whether they must all be treated as merely separate local variations, each of them having failed to develop, or retrograded, and in other respects become different in type from taller negroid races among or near to whom they are found. And I am struck by the fact that, though the natural tendency to local variation in stature, shape of head, colour and other matters is brought forward in support of the latter theory, no one seems, in connection with the general question, to have noted the fact that, whilst the hair colour of negroes, Papuans and Melanesians is black, the hair of all these various dwarf people seems to be predominantly brown, and that this variation explanation, if regarded as applying to these dwarf races separately and independently of one another, involves a remarkable coinciding double variation (in stature and predominant colour of hair) exhibited by all these dwarf people as compared with the taller negroids.

On the other hand, if there has been an original separation of descendants of common primary ancestors of all the negroid races, which, through variation, has resulted in two main types, one predominantly full-sized and always black-haired, and the other always short and predominantly brown-haired, and the pygmies (negritoes and negrilloes) are to be regarded as being all descendants of the latter type, who have since for some reason become geographically separated, there would appear to be nothing remarkable in the double variation.

But in that case we are, I take it, justified in regarding the dwarf races as being a separate type, to be distinguished from the taller races; and, if that be so, there appears to be substantial ground for thinking that the Dutch New Guinea dwarf people and the Mafulu people are in part descended from people of that type.

I may also draw attention (for what they are worth as points of detail) to the facts already noted, that the Semang and Andamanese, who bury their ordinary folk under ground, adopt tree burial, and apparently, as regards the Semang, platform burial not on trees also, as a more honourable method of disposing of the bodies of important people and chiefs; and that as regards these matters the Mafulu custom is similar.

Also the very simple ideas of the Mafulu, as compared with Papuans and Melanesians, in matters of social organization, implements, arts and crafts, religion and other things may well, I think, be associated with a primitive negrito origin.

If the Mafulu people may be properly regarded as having a negrito ancestry, distinct in type from that of either the Papuans or the Melanesians, the negrito element would presumably be the earlier one, Papuan and Melanesian infusion having occurred subsequently. Indeed it may well be believed that the negrito element is derived from an original ancestry who were probably the earlier inhabitants of New Guinea.