The Australian aboriginal

by Herbert Basedow

There is no doubt this phenomenon depends to some extent upon the acquisition of the upright attitude by man, since the cartilage between the bone acts as an effective shock-absorber—the percussion produced by the impact of the heel against the ground when walking being reduced before it reaches the brain. When the brain-box does not rest immediately above the point of percussion, as for instance in the semi-erect posture of the apes, the dangers of concussion are not so great.

While we are discussing the vertebral column of the Australian aboriginal, we might draw attention to the comparative smallness of the bones composing it. If we were, for instance, to compare the column of an Australian with that of a European of similar height, we would find that the vertebræ of the former are appreciably the smaller—their volumes being almost in the ratio of one to one-and-a-half. This is the more striking since we shall learn later that the Australian aboriginal often is quite as tall in stature as the European. The skeleton of the African negro, on the other hand, is decidedly more massive than that of the European.

The smallness of the bones composing the vertebral column undoubtedly favours the flexibility and agility which characterize the Australians as a hunting people. There are, it is true, certain variations in the structure of the spinal column of the Australian, which seem to contradict this general rule, as, for instance, a slightly stronger development of the vertebræ of the neck and a greater volume of the lumbar vertebral bones in the female. The former of these features is no doubt a primitive characteristic throwing back to the quadrupedal ancestry of the human species, the latter having to do with the processes of birth.

The sacral bone at the lower end of the vertebral column varies slightly in size, but is, generally speaking, much narrower than that of the European or of any other living race. It is principally on this account that the hip-bones of the Australians seem remarkably close together in both sexes.

The fifth lumbar vertebra of the Australian often exhibits certain sacral characters, which remind one of the orang outang; in that anthropoid the fifth lumbar bone is often fused to the os sacrum and in reality becomes the first sacral body. Occasionally this vertebra is asymmetrical, being normal, i.e. lumbar, on the one side and sacral on the other. Its posterior arch is at times wanting, the spines having failed to join, as ordinarily they do, in a median line behind the main body of the bone. The last named feature is, however, not infrequently observed in the skeletons of other races as well.

Another very striking feature, connected with the anatomy of the Australian, is the great length of his arms and legs. This length of extremities is taken in a conjoint sense, and with regard to the height of the individual. The aboriginal is often said to have very much longer arms than legs. This is incorrect. In point of fact, no human type is known, living or fossil, with such a disproportion in the limbs. All types of mankind, individually considered, have arms and legs more or less equal in length; from this original condition the elongated arms, so typical of apes, have evolved, by secondary processes, in all probability through the acquisition of arboreal habits. There is, of course, no doubt that the length of the extremities, both upper and lower, so characteristic of the Australian, together with the relative slenderness of the vertebræ, points to an early evolutional stage, which was common to the ancestral forms of both man and ape. The monkey has brought tree-climbing to such a degree of perfection that it practically lives in the branches. Primitive man, too, has not neglected the art, and, although the normal proportions of his extremities do not directly suggest tree-climbing, there is another development which does, especially in the Australian; and that is his foot.

When we consider the likely transformations which the human foot has undergone from an original hand-like form, resembling that of certain monkeys and lower primates, to its present condition, we shall find that two processes have been at work in the modelling of this important part of man’s anatomy. Firstly, the big toe (originally a thumb) has taken up a position adjacent to that of the next digit (originally an index finger), and, by lying in the same plane with it, has forfeited its power of opposition. Secondly, the big toe has grown appreciably stronger, while the other digits have become smaller and weaker. That the big toe, in its ancient evolution, once stood in the same relation to the other toes as the thumb does to the fingers of the hand, is evident from the arrangement of the blood-vessels and nerves in this part of the foot, corresponding exactly to that of the hand, even though the gap originally existing between the first and second digits has been filled by fleshy tissue.

It is of considerable scientific interest to note that cases are occasionally observed among the Australian tribes in which indications of this ancestral condition are retained. In the [Fig. 2] we see the feet of an aboriginal of the Berringin tribe in the north of Australia, whose big toes are remarkable for their shortness when compared with the second.

Fig. 2. Peculiar “hand-like” feet of the Berringin tribesmen. Tracing from a photograph.