VIKINGS OF POLYNESIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

VIKINGS OF POLYNESIA

Books In Review

T r might be considered a gauche A compliment to suggest to one •ibout to travel abroad that he was living his country for his country s Rood; Professor Worley did 40, however, when a few friends wrre farewelling Dr. Peter Buck from New Zealand eleven years fißo, and we had rehictantly to admit the right of it. <>ur <l<"|mi i t injr quest's intended ser vice »,i - In >>i\e mm mi underst undiii;: «if New X■ ■i« In n<l as | hirt of Polyne«ia. I" d"> I his it. was necessary to r>iiil;e i lie Pacific us (lie ancient Polynesian •• \ 11 1"iffr■» hud done : Imt I'e K«n>n 11 m (, i4 s mm In rid could not provide and '•«I<ii|> (lie en iini'i, ho he had to accept Muni ii lint lier country tile opport un i ties and laiilitics tor those joiirrievinjr<, i'' 11 11 * .i ml si ml ies (hut now have, for 'lii- lii-i I inn', made possible t lie pre " '' 1 -I' i■• 11 ■> I a relia 111 <■, clear, historical I• ' i'i.' of tin- peoplinjr 'if Polynesia. I nn i- iindoiilitedlv what Dr. Hiick has ""''ii us in lii-i a ppropriii tel v tilled I* \ik ill mof t lie Sunrine" (Aiiimh I I! In,ID. I In- title siijrjresls adventure. and 1 fieri- i* no lack of it. Those Hho kllou l»r Muck will expect Icycrnl. niytli and, -lni\ interest in>rlv told, and they, too. are licrp, forming the \ ery core and suliMarne of his narrative, and the basis • I' his interpretation of Polynesian hisI tir y. Hut. doe* Dr. Buck reallv lielievo I '"I \ lies in n myth and Maori legend'.' The answer. I think, is "yes" and "no." lie is ii .Maori anil itn Irishman, [s it, then.! 111 ii t. I lie Maori in him is credulous and his Kiiropean side critical? I'erhaps -o; lull I lime all idea that it is I'e Jliroa who knows just how much of a Maori legend in acceptable as his I.Hie and how milch is allusive and picturesque. It. is '|"e Kangi Mi run who knows the language and tile life; the' -iunilica uce of nothing escapes him either in archaic legend or in the daily routine of village life, and it is just I Ills discernment that enable* him to | clear away the later growths, accretions and intrusions and to reveal the I essential elements in Polynesian life nnd ' history. , The hook is simply phinned. The author first seta the stage, the (ireat Ocean, and by way of prologue informs I

■ By--Gilbert Archey

n* briefly vet adequately of the origin I "I lii* intended actors: certain preAryan people from India who. havinjj occupied the East Indian archipelago acquired a "light Mongoloid admixture ii ml became the Indonesians. These were i the people who. two thousand years ago. I hud worked their way through the Kast Indian islands and stood on the western border of the (Jreat Ocean, necking new homes and facing adventure towards the sunrise. VVlmt course did they set? It has been commonly accepted that the chain of large islands extending southeastward from Xew Guinea to Fiji and I Samoa offered the easiest passage to the Central Pacific. We are reminded, howi ever, that these islands were already strongly held bv the negroid Melanesians, and that those who tried to pass that way would pretty certainly be destroyed or absorbed. Through Micromesia I "he alternative route is by wav of the numerous small islands above the equator, the Caroline. Marshall and llilbert Islands, known collectively as Micronesia, and we are given sufficient | evidence, in the Polynesian elements in j Microncsian language and culture, to justify the author's conclusion that these small islands, most of them inhospitable atolls, were the stepping stones by which the vikings of the sunrise ultimately gained the fertile, richly clad "high islands" of the Central • Pacific.

Hero they established themselves and multiplied, and here is the new centre of distribution of the Povnesians. The Maori has always said he came frou. a distant homeland that he railed Hawaiki; so have all the other Poly nesians, though they called it Hawaii, Havai i. 'Avaiki or Navai'i. according to 11 j their dialect. Dr. Buck is able to tell us not only in which group that home ir land is to be found but even the island i itself. It is one in the Society (Iroup now known as Ra'iatea. but anciently ~ called Mavai'i. ' r his. in the author's , j words, is the hub of Polynesia, and his t identification of it is the heart of his n book. v i < ienea logics, and traditions of tnigrae I tions radiating in every direction from I the centre, gave him one line of evi- | deuce; but they had to be used cauti- • ously because there were those among 11 the colonists who had "adjusted"' their j genealogies to derive themselves directly i from the gods, rather than bv way of e powerful central chiefs from whom they had escaped to now lands. 1 But the gods as well as the mortals had had adventures: some became pow--14 | erful. others lost caste, and in the highly p developed pantheon of Central Polynesia. | in the share of it each migrating group I took away, and in their subsequent loca 1 j development. I>r. Buck finds contirma tory o\ idence not only for Havai'i as f the common homeland but also for the ™ approximate dates or periods of the 1 various departures from it. *i This unravelling of the Polynesian t tangle is a high contribution to anthroij pologual science. It is not too much 5 I to say that only one inan could have s made it. !" | Having got the grip of thing* in CVn ' I tral Havai'i. we now gain further enlightenment as we accompany our guide 1 to each island group in turn: North to I Hawaii; north-east to the Marquesas,

whose explorers reached Tern and brought back the kumara; eastward through high islands and atolls to far distant Kaster Island, south-east to New Zealand and westward to Samoa and Tonga. Kach island group had its own peculiarities of environment and climate and the manner in which each colonising • party developed local resources and built up an appropriate culture is admirably told. The enlivening incident and comment are by no means just thrown in to lighten the journey; they illuminate th« narrative and reveal the details

and their meanings in a manner that will delight the general reader and should satisfy the strictest functional anthropologist unless he be too heavvwitted to catch the nuances of the story. The author deals faithfully with the alleged mystery of Easter Island; he liquidates the amazing continent that was floated by earlier theorists to maintain the imagined multitudes who erected its giant stone statues. Here and elsewhere he dissipates the clouds of spurious romance that have bemused our understanding of the Polynesian adventure: but his own boldly-drawn picture of the intrepid voyagers setting their canoes ever towards the sunrise, generation after generation, is romantic enough without the addition of unwarranted fancies. In reading this fascinating story we cannot but feel that A braver choice of dauntless spirits, Never did float uoon t hp swelling tide.