Book Reviews 1343

values.” The terms in this principle are not sufficiently defined to serve as a basis for beginning to determine the timing and circumstances under which fertility will decline in societies currently in transition to industrialization.

Each of the four empirical studies of fertility in the second part of this book is a significant contribution to the demography of nonindustrial societies. Despite their concern for kinship systems, social anthropologists have rarely collected data on the size and growth patterns of family and kinship units. The three studies of African so- cieties (the Agogo by Meyer Fortes; Gold Coast towns within the Ashanti and the ‘LCcdony” by K. A. Busia; and the Buganda and Buhaya by Audrey I. Richards and Priscilla Reining) demonstrate that sample field surveys can yield valuable demo- graphic data when they are collected and interpreted by investigators aware of the particular effects of local kinship structure on the accuracy and meaning of responses to questions about fertility.

G. Mortara’s final analysis of Brazilian fertility trends is based on a skilled use of imperfect census data rather than on anthropological field work. It is probably the best existing analysis of fertility in a South American society.

‘This volume represents an important step in bringing together the work of demogra- phers and anthropologists. It demonstrates important common interests between cross- cultural analyses of family organization and the demographic study of fertility.

RONALD FREEDMAN, University of Michigan

Man’s Capacity to Reproduce: The Demography of a Unique Population. JOSEPH W. EATON and ALBERT J. MAYER. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1954. 59 pp. $2.00.

How many children will the women in a population bear if the only factor limiting reproduction is their fecundity (biological capacity to reproduce)? The answer to this question is relevant to the work of many students of demography and family organiza- tion who want to assess the fertility (actual reproductive performance) under particu- lar cultural limitations in any society against some standard of the maximum potential fecundity.

Eaton and Mayer have now provided such a standard in their excellent study of the ethnic Hutterite communities of the Dakotas and Canada. These are communities hav- ing a demographically unique combination of characteristics: (1) very low death rates, (2) values opposing use of family limitation methods, (3) values favoring large families, (4) t.he use of modern technology with a relatively high standard of living, (5) excellent vital. statistics and other records.

This combination of characteristics has resulted in the highest known level of repro- duction for any significant population. The average completed family size of women reaching the age of 45 has been between 9 and 10 for thirty years. Eaton and Mayer have done an excellent job of utilizing their data to provide an estimate of “maximum” fertility and to show in detail the demographic structure of a population with almost unrestricted fertility under modern technological conditions.

A concluding section labeled “A Social Psychological Theory of Population Growth” is mislabeled since it does little more than assert that population growth is influenced by social-psychological factors within biological limits.

RONALD FREEDMAN, University of Michigan

The Altcieltt Inhabitants o j Jebel Moya. R. MUKHERJEE, C. R. RAO and J. C. TREVOR. New York: Cambridge University Press, n.d. xi, 123 pp., 3 plates. $7.50.

This is about the best book on craniometry and:allied subjects that has appeared

1344 American A nlhropologist [57, 19551

for a long time. It is, in the mind of the reviewer, a must for every physical anthropolo- gist.

The first chapter reports on the work in the field. It was done in the early part of the century; the last (and fourth) season was in 1913/14. A t the end of the chapter the anthropological problems to be treated are succinctly stated thus: (a) Is the sexing which was done in the field correct? (b) How far were the techniques of measurement identical (4 different seasons and different people in each season)? (c) How far is the material internally consistent? (There is a suggestion that about 1000 B.C. a small number of immigrants settled in the area.) (d) What is the relation of this group to other groups in Africa? It is difficult in many cases to answer all these questions in full, for much of the material has been destroyed; only a tithe of what was originally ex- cavated has remained.

The people were just dolichocephalic (74.9 for males and 74.7 for females), their heads were high, they were mesoprosopic and moderately platyrrhine. They were un- doubtedly tall (175.6 for males and 163.2 for females). They were neither platymeric nor platycnemic. The details can be read in the book; we are not here to rewrite it. ’

The most interesting chapter is the fifth, which deals with the racial affinities of the Jebel Yoya. It is carried through by the methods based on the work of Sir Ronald Fisher (R. A. Fisher) and seems much superior to the method of the coefficient of racial likeness of Karl Pearson, which that author himself characterized as “a stopgap.’’ It revolves around the computation of a discriminant function. From these a “distance function” can be worked out in a way shown some years ago by Mahalanobis. The result is a scheme that is depicted on p. 85. The figure is not completely accurate, since it should be given in a space of (in this case) seven dimensions, and a two-dimensional compression can not do it full justice. The Jebel Moya is closer to the Ibo and the Cameroons than to the non-Negro Egyptians and the Nubians. A similar analysis is carried through for the mandibular characters, on a smaller scale, which in general confirms the results of the cranial comparisons.

To state definitely the relation of the Jebel Moya to the present-day Negroid in the Sudan is impossible at present for lack of adequate data. So the monograph ends with a query, as it were. But in the meantime i t is clear that Trevor and his associates have extracted from the material all that could be got out of it a t this late date.

The book has 6 short appendices, 4 pages of literature, but no index. In view of its shortness and its clear arrangement, this does not seem to be a shortcoming.

Once more: the book can be thoroughly recommended as a model study of skeletal remains.

GERHARDT VON BONIN, Universily of Illinois

The Aboriginal Races of India. Y. S. SARKAR. Calcutta: Bookland Ltd., 1954. v, 145 pp., 11 plates. 12 rupees. The chief aim of this book is an attempt to assess the anthropological position of

the aboriginal races in the vast Indian country, It is divided into two parts: the first is comprised only of the reprint of two articles by Eugen Fischer and Sir Arthur Keith, both of which are intended as “a prelude to the understanding not only of the second part of the book but also of the complicated phenomenon of the inter-relationship of the human races in India” (p. 1). To date very little basic extensive work in the field of Indian anthropology has been achieved; a thorough investigation of the Negrito racial strain in India is urgently needed, as is evidenced in chapter IV (pp. 70-90). Other chapters deal with the Autochthones of India, with the Munda, finally with