Chapter XLI: Munsee Humeri: Shape of Shaft

---------------------+---------------------++---------------------
| Males || Female
+----------+----------++----------+----------
| Right | Left || Right | Left
+-----+----+-----+----++-----+----+-----+----
|Spec-|Per |Spec-|Per ||Spec-|Per |Spec-|Per
|imens|cent|imens|cent||imens|cent|imens|cent
---------------------+-----+----+-----+----++-----+----+-----+----
pc—plano-convex | 3 | 21 | 2 | 15 || 2 |13.3| 3 | 23
1—ordinary prismatic| | | | || | | |
or near | 6 | 43 | 6 | 46 || 9 |60 | 5 | 39
2—lateral prismatic | 1 | 7 | 2 | 15 || — | — | — | —
4—quadrilateral | 2 | 14 | — | — || 2 |13.3| 3 | 23
Various intermediate| 2 | 14 | 3 | 23 || 2 |13.3| 2 | 15
--------------------+------+----+-----+----++-----+----+-----+----

The most frequent shape is the ordinary prismatic; the next in frequency is the plano-convex; the lateral prismatic is the least common. The significance of these conditions must be left for future consideration, when our data, especially on the American Indians, are more extensive.

_Perforation of the septum._—The septum between the olecranon and coronoid fossæ in Indians often shows a smaller or a larger perforation. The frequency of this developmental anomaly or condition differs from tribe to tribe, and it differs also between the sexes, being as a rule more common in females. In the Munsee male humeri only six instances of such perforation exist, three in right and three in left bones, the total amounting to 22 per cent of the bones. In only one instance is the opening large; in three it is medium; in one small, and in one of pin-point size. In the 29 female humeri which could be examined for this feature the conditions are quite different, the perforation being present in no fewer than 17 cases, or nearly 59 per cent of the bones. Eight of the 17 are right (47 per cent), nine left (53 per cent). As to size of the perforation, one is pin-point, eight small, and eight medium; none is large.

_Supracondyloid process._—This process, which in a more or less rudimentary form, and especially in the form of a ridge, is not rare in whites, is very uncommon in the Indians, though even in this race in the majority of humeri some roughness, or even a slight ridge, can be detected in its position. Among the Munsee humeri no specimen shows more than a trace of the anomaly.

The rarity of this process in the Indian is of additional interest from the fact that it seems to be shared by other branches of the yellow-brown race, and also by the blacks; moreover, the process appears to be absent, or nearly so, in the humeri of all known apes. The problem as to why a feature of this nature, which appears clearly to be reversive, should be more common in modern whites than in the more primitive races and even in the anthropoid apes and the lower primates, offers a fruitful field for investigation.

RADIUS

The total number of radii in condition to be measured is 41, 19 male and 22 female. Taking the paired bones in the males, we find that their length is equal on the two sides, as was very nearly the case with the humeri; in the females the right radius averages slightly longer than the left, again as in the arm bones of this sex. The arms as a whole were therefore of very nearly the same length on the two sides in the males, but the right was generally slightly longer than the left in the females, a condition which in all probability was connected with the relatively greater use of the right hand and arm in the latter sex.

The percental relation between the length of the radius and that of the humerus approximates 79 on both sides in the males and 78 in the females. Indians of other localities show much the same condition, the index approximating in the males 78 on both sides and in the females 77 on both sides. In whites the same index is only 73.6 in the males and 72.8 in the females; while the American negro gave to the writer 77.4 for the male and 76.8 for the female sex. This means that the forearm in the Munsee and in Indians generally is relatively long; it is decidedly longer in relation to the humerus than in the whites, and so far as the Munsee are concerned it is even slightly longer than in the average American negro; and in all the groups it is to a slight extent relatively longer in the males than in the females.

In strength, curvature, and other features the Munsee radii show nothing exceptional. In fact, this bone is of secondary importance in the anthropology of modern races except in its relative proportions.