The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

96 THE MISMEASURE OF MAN

Table 2*4 Cranial capacity of Indian groups ordered by
Morton's assessment of body stature

STATURE AND GROUP CRANIAL CAPACITY (IN^3 ) N

LARGE

Seminole-Muskogee 88.3 8

Chippeway and related groups 88.8 4

Dacota and Osage 84.4 7

MIDDLE

Mexicans 80.2 13

Menominee 80.5 8

Mounds 81.7 9

SMALL

Columbia River Flatheads 78.8 10

Peruvians 74.4 33

The correlation of brain and body also resolves a question left

hanging in our previous discussion of the Crania Americana: What

is the basis for differences in average brain size among Indian peo-

ples? (These differences bothered Morton considerably, for he

could not understand how small-brained Incas had built such an

elaborate civilization, though he consoled himself with the fact of

their rapid conquest by the conquistadores). Again, the answer lay

before him, but Morton never saw it. Morton presents subjective

data on bodily statures in his descriptions of the various tribes, and

I present these assessments along with average brain sizes in Table

2.4. The correlation of brain and body size is affirmed without

exception. The low Hindu mean among Caucasians also records a

difference in stature, not another case of dumb Indians.

The case of the shifting black mean

In the Crania Americana, Morton cited 78 cubic inches as the

average cranial capacity for blacks. Five years later, in the Crania

Aegyptiaca, he appended the following footnote to his table of mea-

surements: "I have in my possession 79 crania of Negroes born in

Africa.... Of the whole number, 58 are adult... and give 85 cubic

inches for the average size of the brain" (1844, p. 113).

Since Morton had changed his method of measurement from