They may thus wander far from their original type, becoming part of the local ideal of physical beauty prevalent among a primitive people. Only in this way can we explain the almond eyes, flat noses, and high cheek bones of tribes which by their blondness and head form betray unmistakably a Finnic descent.
One objection to our ascription of the name Finn to a long-headed type is bound to arise. We must meet it squarely. If the Finns are of this stock, why is all Finland relatively so broad-headed as our map makes it appear? Here is the largest single aggregation of Finnic-speaking people; ought we not to judge of the original type from their characteristics in this region? By no means, for Finland is the refuge of a great body of aborigines driven forth from Great Russia by the advent of the Slavs, just as also all along the isolated peninsulas of the Baltic and in the Valdai Hills north of Tver. But in Finland, in contradistinction to these other places of refuge, the Finns were crowded in together against the Lapps. Especially in the north we see clear evidence of intermixture. The Russian Lapps are very much less broad-headed than their pure Scandinavian fellows, by reason of such a cross.[1] Can we deny, contrariwise, that a similar rise of index in the case of the Finns must have ensued for the same reason? The Karels, further removed from the Lapps, are somewhat longer-headed; the Baltic Finns, being quite free from their influence, are much more so. Moreover, all along the southwest coast of Finland the heads are much longer. Observations upon twenty-eight Finns in the lumber camps of Michigan by my friend Mr. David L. Wing, yielded an average index of only 78.9, while thirty-nine Swedes were two units lower. A portrait of one of these Finns will be found on our page of Finnic types. Granting that the infusion of Swedish blood all along this coast must be reckoned as a factor, a distinct tendency to this long-headedness among the Finns appears. Coupled with the long-headedness of the Cheremisse, Yogul-Ostiaks, and others, and especially the tendency of the mongrel Bashkirs to dolichoecphaly as we leave the Caspian Mongol influence and approach the Ural Mountains, our affirmation of an original long-headedness of this type seems to be justified.
If our original Finns are proved to be long-headed blondes, oftentimes very tall; if the Letto-Lithuanians, contrasted with the Russian Slavs, betray the same physical tendencies; if, just across the Baltic Sea, the main center of this peculiar racial combination is surely located in Scandinavia; and, finally, if in every direction from the Baltic Sea, whether east across Russia or south into Germany, these traits vanish into the broader-headed, darker-complexioned, mediumstatured, and stocky Alpine (Slavo-Celtic?) type: how can we longer
- ↑ Kelsief, 1886, and Kharuzin, 1890 b.
