Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/116

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CHINNA
100

slant eyes, flat nose and (in one case) conspicuously prominent cheek-bones.

To have recorded the entire series of measurements of the children would have been useless for the purpose of comparison with those of the parents, and I selected from my repertoire the length and breadth of the head and nose, which plainly indicate the paternal influence on the external anatomy of the offspring. The figures given in the table bring out very clearly the great breadth, as compared with the length, of the heads of all the children, and the resultant high cephalic index. In other words, in one case a mesaticephalic (79), and, in the remaining three cases, a sub-brachycephalic head (8o.1; 8o.1; 82.4) has resulted from the union of a mesaticephalic Chinaman (78.5) with a sub-dolichocephalic Tamil Paraiyan (76.8). How great is the breadth of the head in the children may be emphasised by noting that the average head-breadth of the adult Tamil Paraiyan man is only 13.7 cm., whereas that of the three boys, aged ten, nine, and five only, was 14.3, 14, and 13.7 cm. respectively.

Quite as strongly marked is the effect of paternal influence on the character of the nose; the nasal index, in the case of each child (68.1; 71.772; 7; 68.3), bearing a much closer relation to that of the long-nosed father (71.7) than to the typical Paraiyan nasal index of the broad-nosed mother (78.7).

It will be interesting to note hereafter what is the future of the younger members of this quaint little colony, and to observe the physical characters, temperament, fecundity, and other points relating to the cross breed resulting from the blend of Chinese and Tamil.

Chinna (little). — A sub-division of Bōya, Kunnuvan, Konda Dora, Pattanavan, and Pattapu, and an