Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/172

162 of a bundle of stout bamboos lashed to the projecting ends of three bamboo poles placed across the gunwales of the canoe" (The Solomon Islands and their Natives, 1887, pp. 146, 149). Friederici, in a letter dated July 14, 1913, says, "I have now no doubt that the kop [the Nissan double outrigger canoe] has been brought by a Philippine or sub-Philippine wandering stream to New Ireland and neighbourhood, and that the double outrigger has in course of time been displaced by the Melanesian single outrigger and has stood its ground only in the island of Nissan."

Further support for a Melanesian element in the population of Easter Island is supplied by W. Volz (Arch. f. Anth. xxiii. 1895, p. 97 ff.), who studied a collection of some three dozen adult skulls from that island. Of these 15 are stated to be, without doubt, western Melanesians; 7 are eastern Melanesians; 10 belong to Polynesian races; and 4 represent survivals of a very old population of Australian origin, but more nearly approach other survivals of Australians, especially in New Zealand (with traces elsewhere in Polynesia and in Melanesia), than the actual Australian type. He believes that the last formed the oldest population of the island, but it is uncertain whether they are aboriginal or brought by Melanesians. Next came the Melanesian immigration, how or when is unknown. The last element being the Polynesian migration, for which he estimates an approximate date of 1400 The suggestions of Hamy, Joyce, Pycraft, and Keith alluded to by Balfour thus receive reinforcement.

There can, I think, be no doubt that Melanesian blood and culture are in part responsible for the peculiar culture of this remote island.

my article on this subject in Folk-Lore, December 31st, 1917, there occurs a mistake which I desire to correct. The note on p. 405 has been misplaced; it should appear on p. 407