Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/275

Rh have, on various occasions, mentioned this probable pre-Malayan, or at least proto-Malayan, population which stands in nearest relation to the settling of Polynesia. Here I will merely mention that the Polynesian sagas bring the progenitor from the west, and that the passage between Halmahera (Gilolo) and the Philippines is pointed out as the course of invasion.

At any rate, it is quite probable that the skulls from Lanang, Cragaray and other Philippine islands are the remains of a very old, if not autochthonous, prehistoric layer of population. The present mountain tribes have furnished no close analogies. As to the Igorrotes, which Blumentritt attributes to the first invasion, I refer to my description given on the ground of chronological investigations; according to the account given by Hans Meyer the disposal of the dead in log coffins and in caves still goes on. Of the skulls themselves, none were brachycephalous; on the contrary, they exhibit platyrrhine and in part decidedly pithecoid noses. On the whole, I came to the conclusion, as did earlier Quatrefages and Hamy, that ‘they stand next in comparison with the Dayaks of Borneo,’ but I hold yet the impression that they belong to a very old, probably pre-Malay, immigration.