Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/443

Rh POLYNESIA 423 found nearly seven hundred. He calls attention to the resemblance between the head of a Papuan, with his hair thus dressed, and the conventional representation of the hair in Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures, and to what Dr Livingstone says about the Banyai of South Africa, who dress their hair in a similar manner. When allowed to grow naturally, the hair of a Papuan is always frizzly. Some of the people have a considerable beard. In the features of the Papuans there is considerable difference ; but in a typical specimen the lips are thick, the nose is broad, often arched and high, and the jaws project ; as a rule, the race is prognathous. They are generally small in stature, but in some islands are large. Where, however, they are of large size, we in variably find other evidence of their mixture with another race. Speaking, therefore, of typical Papuans, we may say they are small, with thin limbs, and are physically weak. In their natural condi tion they are a savage people and are cannibals. They are broken up into hostile tribes, holding no intercourse with one another ex cept by warfare. The languages or dialects 1 spoken by them are very numerous, owing, no doubt, to their hostility towards one another, which has produced complete isolation. In grammatical structure there is considerable resemblance between their languages, but owing to long isolation the verbal differences have become very great. Several different dialects are often found on one island. Among them women hold a very low position. Nearly all the hard work falls to their share, the men devoting themselves chiefly to warfare. The women cultivate the plantations, carry the burdens, and wait on the men. They take their food from the leavings of the men. Among most of them family life is not greatly elevated above the relationships existing among the lower animals, the relations between the sexes being of the most degraded character. There is, however, considerable affection often manifested towards their children. The Papuans are impulsive and demonstrative in speech and action. They are generally a wild, noisy, boisterous people, easily pleased and as easily offended. They differ so much in different islands, however, that it is extremely difficult to generalize concerning some of their characteristics. Many of them are decidedly low intellectually. On some islands they appear to be physically and intellectually a weak and worn-out race. Yet this must not be understood as applying to all. On some islands youths and men may be seen who are among the brightest and most intelligent-looking people in the Pacific. A vast difference exists between the natives of parts of the New Hebrides and those of the Loyalty Islands, the latter being much the finer. Mixture of blood may partly account for the difference. Difference of physical surroundings, doubtless, also has something to do with it. The dry, comparatively barren, and cooler islands of the Loyalty group ought to have a finer people upon them than the malarious, hot, and moist islands of the New Hebrides. In Fiji some of the finest men in Polynesia are found, but many of the Fijians are considerably mixed with Sawaiori blood. As a rule, the Papuans lack elaborate historical traditions, poems, and songs, such as are invariably found among the Sawaiori race. They do not naturally possess much religious feeling or reverence, and their religious systems are little more than fetichism. In this respect, too, they present a marked contrast to the lighter race. In arts and manufactures they are comparatively low, although there are marked exceptions. Usually their houses are very poor structures. On many islands their canoes are of inferior construction. As a race they are indifferent navigators. Their arms are, how ever, somewhat elaborately made ; and most of them make a coarse kind of pottery. In some parts of the Solomon Islands the people build much better houses than are usually found among the Papuans, carving some of the woodwork rather elaborately. They also build good canoes or boats. In Fiji the natives build good houses and good boats, but there the people have learned some of their arts from the Sawaioris. It may be so also in the Solomon group. Indeed, throughout the whole of the Papuan region, there is evidence of more or less mixture of the two races. In some places there are pure colonies of Sawaioris, who keep themselves distinct from their darker-coloured neighbours ; but in many other places the lighter immigrants have intermarried with the black race. The following are some broad characteristics of the Papuan languages. Consonants are freely used, some of the consonantal sounds being difficult to represent by Roman characters. Many of the syllables are closed. There does not appear to be any difference between the definite and the indefinite article, except in Fiji. Nouns are divided into two classes, one of which takes a pro nominal suffix, while the other never takes such a suffix. The principle of this division appears to be a near or remote connexion between the possessor and the thing possessed. Those things which belong to a person, as the parts of his body, &c., take the pro nominal suffix ; a thing possessed merely for use would not take 1 Xo great care is here taken to distinguish between the terms languages and dialects. While all the languages of Polynesia may be included under three classes, we cannot speak of them as three languages, each with numerous dialects, any more than we could speak of those language which have grown out of the Latin as several dialects of onu language. it. Thus, in Fijian the word luve means either a sou or a daughter one s own child, and it takes the possessive pronoun suffixed, as luvena ; but the word ngone, a child, but not neces sarily one s own child, takes the possessive pronoun before it, aa nona ngone, his child, i.e., his to look after or bring up. 2 Gender is only sexual. Many words are used indiscriminately, as nouns, adjectives, or verbs, without change ; but sometimes a noun is indicated by its termination. In most of the languages there are no changes in nouns to form the plural, but an added numeral indicates number. Case is shown by particles, which precede the nouns. Adjectives follow their substantives. Pronouns are numer ous, and the personal pronoun includes four numbers singular, dual, trinal, and general plural, also inclusive and exclusive. Almost any word may be made into a verb by using with it a verbal particle. The difference in the verbal particles in the different languages are very great. In the verbs there are causative, intensive or frequentative, and reciprocal forms. II. The Sawaiori Race. The brown people who occupy tLe islands of eastern Polynesia are generally regarded as having affinities with the Malays of the Indian Archipelago, and ate sometimes spoken of as a branch of the Malay race, or family. They cannot, however, with any accuracy be so described. The Malays, as they now exist, are a comparatively modern people, whe have become what they are by the mixture of several elements not found in the more primitive race. The Sawaioris and the Tarapons of Polynesia, the Malagasy (Hovas) of Madagascar, ajid the Malays are allied races, but no one of them can be regarded as the patent of the rest. The parent race has disappeared ; but the Sawaiori, as the earliest offshoot from it, and one which, owing to the conditions under which it has lived, has remained almost free from admixture of blood, may be taken as most nearly representing what the parent was. The relationship which these Malayo-Polynesian 3 races bear to one another is seen from the &quot; tree &quot; on Plate III. The absence of Sanskrit (or Prakrit) roots in the languages appears to indicate that the Sawaiori migration was in pre- Sanskritic times. 4 Whether we can fix anything like a definite date for this may well be questioned. Mr Fornander 5 has, how ever, with great probability, traced back the history of the Hawaiians to the 5th century. He has studied the folk-lore of those islands exhaustively, and from this source coine.s to the con clusion that the Sawaiori migration from the Indian Archipelago may be approximately assigned to the close of the first or to the second century. Most likely Samoa was the first group per manently occupied by them. Owing to the admixture of the Sawaioris with the Papuans in Fiji some authorities have thought the first settlement was in those islands, and that the settlers were eventually driven thence by the Papuan occupiers. We can, how ever, account for the presence of Sawaiori blood in Fiji in another way, viz., by the intercourse that has been kept up between the people of Tonga and Fiji. If the first resting-place of the Sawaioris was in that group, there is good reason to believe that Samoa was the first permanent home of the race, and that from Samoa they have spread to the other islands which they now occupy. It used to be doubted whether these people could have gone from the Indian Archipelago so far eastward, because the prevailing winds and currents are from the east. But it is now well known that at times there are westerly winds in the region over which they would have to travel, and that there would be no insuperable difficulties in the way of such a voyage. The Sawaioris^ are invariably navigators. There is ample evidence that in early times they were much better seamen than they are at present. Indeed their skill in navigation has greatly declined since they have become known to Europeans. They used to construct decked vessels capable of carrying one or two hundred persons, with water and stores sufficient for a voyage of some weeks duration. These vessels were made of planks well fitted and sewn together, the joints being calked and pitched. 6 It is only in recent times that the construc tion of such vessels has ceased. The people had a knowledge of the stars, of the rising and setting of the constellations at different seasons of the year. By this means they determined the favourable season for making a voyage and directed their course. The ancestors of the Sawaioris were by no means a savage people when they entered the Pacific. Indeed their elaborate historical legends show that they possessed a considerable amount of civiliza tion. Those who are familiar with these legends, and who have studied Sawaiori manners and customs, see many unmistakable proofs that they carried with them, at the time of their migration, knowledge and culture which raised them much above the status of savages, and that during their residence iu these islands the 2 Hazlewood s Fijian Grammar, pp. 8 and 9. 3 Baron W. von Hmnboldt s name, Malayo-Polynesian, is here retained as a convenient term to include all these people, from Madagascar to Polynesia. - It is possible to make too much of the absence of Sanskrit (or Prakrit) roots, since, as remarked by Dr Rost, &quot;there may have been no occasion for the intro duction of ready-made terms into the language.&quot; Still the migration may be tentatively put in pre-Sanskritic times. 5 The Polynesian Race, vol. i. p. 168. 6 Cocoa-nut fibre and the gum which exudes from the bread-fruit tree arr generally used for &quot; calking &quot; and &quot;pitching&quot; canoes.