The Lapps, according to Karonzine,[A] one of their most recent describers,
are divisible into two groups, Scandinavian and Russian, the former being
purer than the latter race. The average male stature is five feet, a
figure which corresponds closely with that obtained by Mantegazza and
quoted by Topinard. The extremes obtained by this observer amongst men
were, on the one hand, five feet eight inches, and on the other four feet
four inches. As, however, in a matter of this kind we have to deal with
averages and not with extremes, we must conclude that the Lapps, though a
stunted race, are not pigmies, in the sense in which the word is
scientifically employed.
[Footnote A: _L'Anthropologie_, ii. 80.]
The Innuit or Eskimo were called by the original Norse explorers
"Skraelingjar," or dwarfs, a name now converted by the Innuit into
"karalit," which is the nearest approach that they are able to make
phonetically to the former term. They are certainly, on the average, a
people of less than middle stature, yet they can in no sense be described
as Pigmies.
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