Chapter LIV: Comparison of Munsee and Other Indian with White and Negro

TIBIÆ WITH REFERENCE TO SHAPE OF SHAFT AT MIDDLE[67]

----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----
Types | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | I
----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----
|_Per_ |_Per_ |_Per_ |_Per_ |_Per_ |_Per_ |_Per_
|_cent_|_cent_|_cent_|_cent_|_cent_|_cent_|_cent_
Munsee (all—56) | 27 | 12 | 3.5 | 20 | 3.5 | — | 34
Arkansas and Louisiana| — | — | — | — | — | — | —
Miscellaneous whites | | | | | | |
(1975) | 18 | 15 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 45
United States negroes | | | | | | | 45
(55) | 20 | 9 | — | 7 | 7 | 11 | 45
----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----

[67] For the significance of the denominations see the note to the preceding table.

FIBULA

While of secondary importance, the fibula often presents interesting features which make it worthy of closer attention than it usually receives. One of these features concerns its length on the two sides of the body, which, in some Indians at least, is more uniform than that of its companion bone, the tibia. It was found so by the writer in the skeletal collections from Arkansas and Louisiana mounds, and the feature appears again in the Munsee. The slight differences presented by the Munsee fibulæ in this particular harmonize with those of the tibiæ.

The percental relation of the female to the male fibula averages 93.5 (the male bone = 100), while in the tibia it was only as 91.7 to 100.[68] This anomaly is due to the unexplained relative shortness of the female Munsee tibiæ.

[68] Taking only cases where all four bones of one body are available for measurement, we obtain 92 for the relation of female to male tibiæ and 94.6 for that of the fibulæ, numbers which stand to each other very much as do those above given.

As to the shape of the shaft, which in the fibula differs more than in any other bone, the prevalent tendency, as in the Arkansas and Louisiana specimens, is toward type 2, or the lateral prismatic; a good many of the bones, however, show also a more or less marked fluting of one or two of the surfaces. The details are given in the following table: