The Negritos: the Distribution of the Negritos in the Philippine Islands and Elsewhere

Abstract

DR. A. B. MEYER, the distinguished Director of the Royal Zoological, Anthropological and Ethnographical Museum at Dresden, has issued as a separate volume a translation of two chapters, brought up to date, of his sumptuous folio monograph “Die Philippinen: II. Negritos” (1893). The Negritos of the Philippines are a dwarf, ¹ frizzly-haired people with a black or dull copper-coloured skin. The head is on the lower limit of brachycephaly (average index about 80). The fore-head is retreating, the concave nose is broad and flat, the projecting jaw is provided with thick lips and prominent teeth. The slender body is almost entirely smooth. They are a happy, lively people to whom care seems a stranger, their greatest anxiety being the procuring of food, which consists of all things edible—fruits, roots, honey, snakes, &c. When they have provided for their wants they care for no further exertion, and love to lie in laziness and ease. Their intelligence is stated to be of a low type, and they are not able to count above five. Their songs consist of monotonous, endless unison chants. Tattooing is apparently universal, the patterns being quite simple. They are without exception monogamists.

The Negritos: the Distribution of the Negritos in the Philippine Islands and Elsewhere.

By A. B. Meyer. Pp. 92. (Dresden: Stengel and Co.)