Chapter LI: Munsee: Tibiæ

LEGEND:
A = Length[59]
B = Diameter[60] antero-posterior at middle (a)
C = Diameter[61] lateral at middle (b)
D = Index of shaft at middle (b×100/a)
E = Tibio-femoral index (T×100/F)

MALES
----------+---------------------------------------------------------
| Right
+------+--------+------+-------+-------+-----+------+-----
|Number| |Number| | | |Number|
| of | (A) | of | (B) | (C) | (D) | of | (E)
|bones | |cases | | | |cases |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
----------+------+--------+------+-------+-------+-----+------+-----
Average: | | _cm._ | | _cm._ | _cm._ | | |
Paired | (11) | 38.3 | (14) | 3.28 | 2.14 |65.4 | (19) |84.4
Total | | | | | | | |
present| (12) | 38.5 | (14) | 3.28 | 2.14 |65.4 | (10) |84.6
Minimum | (12) | 36 | (14) | 3.05 | 1.95 |56.3 | (10) |81.1
Maximum | (12) | 40.5 | (14) | 3.55 | 2.4 |69.7 | (10) |86.9
+------+--------+------+-------+-------+-----+------+-----
| Left
+------+--------+------+-------+-------+-----+------+-----
Average: | | | | | | | |
Paired | (11) | 38.6 | (14) | 3.25 | 2.16 |66.6 | (9) |84.5
Total | | | | | | | |
present| (12) | 38.8 | (15) | 3.23 | 2.16 |67.1 | (11) |84.9
Minimum | (12) | 36.7 | (15) | 2.8 | 1.95 |54.9 | (11) |79.4
Maximum | (12) | 40.9 | (15) | 3.55 | 2.4 |80.4 | (11) |90.0
----------+------+--------+------+-------+-------+-----+------+-----
FEMALES
----------+---------------------------------------------------------
| Right
----------+------+--------+------+-------+------+------+------+-----
Average: | | _cm._ | | _cm._ | _cm._| | |
Paired | (13) | 35.3 | (13) | 2.6 | 1.98 | 76.1 | (12) | 83.7
Total | | | | | | | |
present| (14) | 35.3 | (13) | 2.6 | 1.98 | 76.1 | (12) | 83.7
Minimum | (13) | 32.4 | (13) | 2.25 | 1.65 | 70.2 | (12) | 81.4
Maximum | (13) | 37.1 | (13) | 2.85 | 2.3 | 86.7 | (12) | 87.7
+------+--------+------+-------+------+------+------+-----
| Left
+------+--------+------+-------+------+------+------+-----
Average: | | | | | | | |
Paired | (13) | 35.2 | (13) | 2.6 | 1.93 | 74.5 | (12) | 83.7
Total | | | | | | | |
present| (14) | 35.2 | (14) | 2.64 | 1.96 | 74.6 | (12) | 83.7
Minimum | (14) | 32.4 | (14) | 2.25 | 1.5 | 58.8 | (12) | 81.5
Maximum | (14) | 36.7 | (14) | 2.8 | 2.35 | 82.2 | (12) | 86.1
----------+------+--------+------+-------+------+------+------+-----

[59] On Broca’s _planche ostéometrique_, with the spine in the opening of the vertical portion of the instrument and the condyles applied to the board on both sides of the opening, the rest of the bone lying immobile on the horizontal board.

[60] Maximum.

[61] With anterior border of the bone midway between the two branches of the compass that are applied to the sides of the bone.

As to the two sides, the Munsee left tibia averages somewhat longer in the males than the right, which on the whole in slight measure is also the condition among the whites, but to which individual and even group exceptions are not infrequent. In the Munsee females, on the other hand, the average length of the left tibia is slightly less (by 1 mm.) than that of the right.

The percental relation of the length of the tibia with the bicondylar length of the femur, or the _tibio-femoral index_, averages in whites approximately 82 in the males and slightly less in the females. In the Munsee it is somewhat more elevated in both sexes. As in the whites and other racial groups, a moderate excess of the male over the female index is present on both sides, indicating the slightly greater relative shortness of the female leg bones aforementioned. Judging from the available data on the tibio-femoral index among other Indians,[62] that in the Munsee comes very near to the average of the race.

[62] Compare S. Bello y Rodriguez, _Le fémur et le tibia, chez l’homme et les anthropoìdes, Thèse_, Paris, 1909, p. 109.

The strength of the Munsee tibia (and the same is probably true of many other Indian tribes) is surprising, being nearer that of the whites than is the case with either the humerus or the femur. The antero-posterior diameter of the Indian tibia is, in fact, in almost all the Indian groups somewhat greater than in the whites. The index of the shaft is invariably and quite perceptibly lower in the Indians than in the whites, excepting the Munsee females, in whom, curiously enough, the index is relatively quite high, exceeding both that of the other Indians available for comparison and of the whites. No satisfactory explanation of this and other exceptional features of the Munsee tibia can be given. The condition can scarcely be regarded as accidental, for on examining the individual shaft indexes it is observed that in but one of the female bones is the index below 60, giving thus a pronounced platycnemy; in five it is between 60 and 70; in ten between 70 and 80, and in no fewer than eleven it rises to 80 or over. Among the twenty-nine male Munsee tibiæ there is but one that gives a shaft index of slightly above 80.