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Negrito Racial Strain in India

Abstract

IN a short note in NATURE of May 19, 1928 (vol. 121, p. 793), I mentioned the discovery of a truly negrito strain among the Kadars in the extreme interior of the Cochin Hills (S. India). As a result of further investigations in the adjoining hills made this year, I was able to find 10 more individuals showing spirally curved hair, making a total of 16 (a little more than 10 per cent) out of 157 men and women measured. Of the 10 individuals found this year, 8 were Kadars, and the remaining two were a Pulayan and a Malser. The hair of all of these except two, who have very short spirals (Fig. 1a), are of frizzly type similar to that of the Melanesians (Fig. 1b), matching No. ‘g’ in Martin's scheme (“Lehrbuch”, 2nd edition, vol. 1, p. 213). The hair of the two with short spirals would resemble ‘h’ rather than ‘i’ in the same scheme. In appearance they are without exception very dark, the skin colour varying from 29 to 34 in Von Luschan's scale, short, prognathic, having thick everted lips, short broad nose flattened at the root with the tip tilted up. The average cephalic and nasal indices of the 10 are 75·23 and 85·6 respectively, bringing them just within meso-cephaly and platyrhiny.

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GUHA, B. Negrito Racial Strain in India. Nature 123, 942–943 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/123942b0

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