Physique.

The Mafulu people are of short stature, though perhaps a trifle taller than the Kuni.

They are as a rule fairly strong and muscular in build, the women in particular having very strongly developed thighs; but, speaking generally, their limbs are more slender, and their general development is slighter, than is usually the case among the Roro and Mekeo people.

They appear to be usually mesaticephalic, but to have a very marked tendency to brachycephaly.

Their noses seemed to me to be generally strong, and of prominent size, varying considerably in width of bridge, but usually having rather widely distending nostrils; and sometimes the width of the nose was equal to its length, or nearly so.

Referring to the above matters, the following are the results of twenty measurements of Mafulu men. These were obtained from men of upwards of six different communities or groups of villages, so as to avoid the possible misleading character of measurements made in only one village or group of villages, in which some family relationship between the persons measured might militate against the true average character of the figures obtained.

Analysing these figures, we get the following results:—

There are a few points in connection with these figures to which I would draw attention. The very short man (No. 20—height, 147 cm.) has a cranial index of 75.1, on the border line between dolichocephaly and mesaticephaly. He has also a short nose (4.6 cm.), and is one of the two with the narrowest noses (3.8 c.m.). The very tall man (No. 8—height, 163 cm.) has a long head (19.4 cm.), and the lowest dolichocephalic cranial index of 72.7, and is one of two with the longest noses (5.6 cm.). The other very tall man (No. 10—height, 163 cm.) has one of the two shortest heads (17.4 cm.), and the highest brachycephalic cranial index of 84.8, and has a long nose (5.5 cm.) The man (No. 2) whose nasal index is 100 has the mesaticephalic cranial index of 78.3 (almost the average index). The other man (No. 4) whose nasal index is 100 has a head of exactly the average length (18.5 cm.) and the greatest breadth (15.4 cm.), and the brachycephalic cranial index of 81.2. The man (No. 17) with the lowest nasal index of 71.4 has a very short head (17.7 cm.), and the brachycephalic cranial index of 82.2.

The following tables, however, illustrate the fact that the measurements of these twenty men do not appear to indicate, as regards them, any marked connection between stature, cranial index, and nasal index.

Order in stature (beginning with the shortest):

20—1—19—6—7—17—5—15—18—2—3—11—16—4—12—13—14—9—8—10.

Order in progress upwards of cranial indices:

8—13—3—6–20—5—ll—7—1—16—18—2—14—9—15—4—12—17—19—10.

Order in progress upwards of nasal indices:

17—9—6—8—15—19—3—13—7—16—20—11—10—14—18—12—1—5—2—4.

I brought home three Mafulu skulls, which Dr. Keith kindly had measured at the Royal College of Surgeons, with the following results3:—

It will be observed that the lowest of these three cranial indices is a trifle higher than the lowest of those of the head measurements, that the highest of them is much lower than the highest of those of the head measurements, and that their average (76.8) is a little below the average of those of the head measurements.

Dr. Keith had further measurements made of these skulls from the point of view of prognathism and characters of noses and orbits, with the following results:

Dr. Keith, referring to these skulls, says that they disclose relatively small brains, the cranial capacity of A being 1,230 c.c., that of B being 1,330 c.c., and that of C being 1,130 c.c. He compares these figures with the average cranial capacity of the male European, which he puts at 1,500 c.c.

The eyes of the Mafulu people are dark brown and very bright. I never saw among them those oblique eyes, almost recalling the Mongolian, which, according to Dr. Seligmann, are found, though rarely only, on the coast,4 and of which I saw many instances among the Kuni people.

Their lips are usually not so thick as are those of the Mekeo and Roro people, and are generally finer and more delicate in shape.

In view of their Papuan language I kept a sharp look out for the curious backward sloping foreheads and projecting brow ridges and Jewish-looking noses which are so often found among the Western Papuans; but, although I saw a few examples of these, they were rare, and I did not observe any noticeable tendency in these directions in the faces of the people generally.5

A curious characteristic with them is the big toe, which is usually much developed, and projects outwards at a larger angle than is the case with the Roro and Mekeo people, and is much used for holding on to roots, &c., whilst travelling along their rough mountain paths.

Their general colour is a dark sooty brown, a trifle darker, perhaps, than that of the Kuni people, and contrasting forcibly with the varying shades of chocolate which you find among the Roro and Mekeo people. They are smooth-skinned.

Their hair is frizzly, and generally dark brown, often quite dark, almost even approaching to black, and sometimes perhaps quite black. But it is frequently lighter; and indeed I was often, when observing men’s hair lit up by sunshine, impressed by the fact that its brown colour was not even what we should in Europe call dark.6 I often saw marked variations in the depth of hair colour on the head of the same individual. I saw no examples of the comparatively straight or curly type of hair which is found in the Pokau district and elsewhere.7

Plate 3 gives front and side views of the mesaticephalic (almost brachycephalic) skull A and Plate 4 gives similar views of the dolichocephalic skull C. All the photographs were made as nearly as possible exactly half the sizes of the originals; but the photographer has made the front view of skull A about an eighth of an inch too narrow (with, of course, a corresponding deficiency in height), so that the tendency to roundness of this skull is not quite sufficiently shown, and the proportion of its height to its length is reduced, in the plate. I am not a craniologist, and so I do not attempt to discuss the more detailed points of interest which arise in connection with these skulls.

A good idea of the somewhat varying characters of the general physiques and features of the people will be obtained from my plates; but there are a few of these plates which I may mention here.

The people shown in Plates 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 16 may, I think, be regarded as fairly typical, and I would draw attention to the somewhat Melanesian tendency of feature which is disclosed by the faces of the man in Plate 6, the young man in the middle in Plate 7 and the fourth and sixth men from the left in Plate 9; also to the great diversity shown in Plate 9. The man shown in Plate 10, with his thick and strong muscular development, is of a type which is occasionally seen, but which is, I believe, unusual. The two men figured in Plates 11 and 12 are, I think, specially interesting. The one to the right, with his somewhat backward sloping forehead, and slightly arched nose, shows a distinct tendency towards the type of the Western Papuan, to which I have already referred. The other one is in general shape of head and appearance of features not unlike some of the dwarf people found by the recent expedition into Dutch New Guinea (see the man to the left in Plate 4 of the page of illustrations in The Illustrated London News for September 2, 1911), and indeed there is almost an Australian tendency in his face. It is noticeable that he has a beard and moustache, which is quite unusual among the Mafulu. A somewhat similar type of face may be noticed in one or two of the other plates.

Character and Temperament.

It is difficult to speak with any degree of definiteness on this question. It must be borne in mind that the Mafulu people have been very little in touch with white people, the missionaries, who have only been there since 1905, and on rare occasions a Government official or scientific traveller, being almost the only white men whom the bulk of them have ever seen; and they have been but slightly affected by the outside influences which for some years past have been constantly brought to bear upon the natives of the adjoining coast line and the people of the Mekeo plains; so that comparisons of these people with their more up-to-date neighbours as regards their relative natural characters may well be in some respects misleading.

Subject, however, to this caution I would say that they are lazy and easy-going (though not so much so as the Roro and Mekeo people), lively, excitable, cheerful, merry, fairly intelligent (this being judged rather from the young people), very superstitious, brave, with much power of enduring pain, cruel, not more revengeful perhaps than is usual among uncivilised natives, friendly one with another, not quarrelsome, but untrustworthy and not over-faithful even in their dealings with one another, though honest as regards boundaries and property rights and in the sense of not stealing from one another within their own communities (this being regarded as a most shameful offence), and of very loose sexual morality.

A difference between them and the Mekeo and Roro natives is that they appear to be not so conservative as the latter, being more ready to abandon old traditions and adopt new ideas; though this characteristic is one which shows itself in the young people rather than in the elders with their formed habits.