SPECIAL ARTICLE.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17247, 10 September 1921, Page 7

SPECIAL ARTICLE.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS.. THE WATERS MEET OF PACIFIC RACIAL CURRENTS.

(SPECUtLT WRlfim' TOR "THI PM3S.") (l3r J. MicumuLN Brown, LLJ>.) Wherever two rivers meet, liko the Blue and "White Nile, there is no immediate mingling of their waters; they ran side by side for a considerable distance, the more powerful slowly dominating the colour. Tho meeting place of contrasted races shows the same phenomenon; it is easy to detect the more influential factor, or that which is more favoured by Nature. The ethnologist wakes for it; for it reveals freely the racial secrets of the adjoining regions. The Mystery of the Central Pacific. In the Central Pacific and the southwestern there are two violently contrasted races, one Caucasian, the other negroid. The the Polynesian, occupies the greatest area of free oceanic water on the surface, of the globe; so aparsely-islandedi is it from Hawaii to New Zealand, from Tonga to Easter Island that several of the early voyagers crossed it without seeing a single speck of land. And yet its inhabitants are Btrikingly similar in culture, physique, and character, govern- ! ed by chiefs counting through the father, European-like in face and hair, ■ tall (the tallest race in the world), war- I like and masterful, yet readily civilised. ! Only the boldest of navigators could j have peopled such a region; for the ocean is anything but pacific, and to colonise its far-intervalled island dust there are thousands of miles of sea to j be crossed, uncharted and l unpiloted but by the shifting stats. And yet there is not to be found amongst them a trace of trade or commercial intercourse; there is no currency, not even barter, unless we count as barter the custom of present-offering in expectation of a return. Their household habits belong to the old : stone age, fifteen- thousand years ago; their mas-, culine pursuits, canoe-building, housebuilding, carving, navigation r fishing, are equal'to oiir European yesterday; and their military engineering : iB up-to-date. If the land of this, vast oceanic area,has'always been aa sparse and poor as it is to-day, an :assertion many scientists have r.bieen; accustomed fo.make, then what could have induced this peo. plej., w poweffiil in. physique and so maslieHw'iii'ciitiracter: to. leive the; continents andvtheirVich : adjacent, "archi-v pelagoes sod make for it|P .It jis. the, m^ : niystei7 of: all • tbe;Siceß;:''-' the richest islands on the face of the earthy even yet, under European enterprise. and dominance, but slightly developed. They are occupied from Fiji ..^pfth-iwest, point .of. ;New Guinea, from Bougainville to New » Caledonia, by a 5 Negroid, having '.xiqi^jv'flattened rase,thick wjver jaw spindle .tha>c6l{>ur, is- dark, :s Sometimes' almost_'\hlac^^,"i. : 'TheVpeople ; have no organisation -bejytind tljifl' village or clan. They ( • icount;. • throughv /the iifother, and; So' fait to accumulate pro- • perty or powejr or the, memory of ; the war; yet mido any/failvance in the art ;qf: war, of their , shield, are far thoee offthio Central Pacifis.y tfhey.- ar ® ■ not'., oceanic sailors, though'fioihe of theijr have wellmade and finely Vornamented canoes: find: yet their trade arid riiarketing and ' currency are in parts' considerably developed. They do not easily adopt j th 6 arts and-habits of civilisation as the Polynesians, and yet someof their arts, I like pottery, aro thousands of years in advance of the Central Pacific. j Which Dominates? i - These two so strikingly contrasted races impinge . at one. -point—where Tonga and Fiji approach to within a miles. It is here we may expect to find commingling of the two; here is one of the most interesting spots in the''Pacific for /fche ethnologist; isr® he will find how far .the two races clftn mix, and which,■ is the, dominant. %en themost casual observer who does tHei reuna trip (Auokland-Fiji-Tonga- . Samoft-Fiji-Aucklan£) will, have little difficulty in answering these questions. • Tonga and' Samoa have remained pro- . dominantly Polynesian, whilst Fiji especially on its eastern shores, has been deeply Polynesianised; the stature has ' teen l raised from the primeval negroid pigmy (a specimen of whom is still ocfcjfflionally found in the mountains) to -something not short at times Of the ; tallest race in the world, whilst around, Suva 1 at least the face is often ovalJ .with features' approaching_the Eurc£ pean. But away on the West Coast, the stature has often' been i raised, the faoe and hair haveremained distinctively negroid.

K A- Westward Wentthe Dominating ;■ Influence. ' lb is of course to Tonga this is largely r«ue. We oven know definitely of Tongun expeditions, chiofly to wage war and • ,to get the great canoes that- Fijian forests supplied to a comparatively . , itimbcrless archipelago. ,And the Latf group, the most- southerly- and easter- , ly of the Fijian. islands,', is almost eqjn- ■ plotely Tongaa id ; : physique,. - culture, and speech, where it : stifotctes . out. towards Tofiga.v. vßut it is.iiot merely to .Tonga it Jb due, or even to Samoa or the 1-speaMng islands; -words' have come .in from the x r-speakihg PoJyne- • slan islands to the south-east and - south. The wso of the initial ng shows -Maori influence, and so do,'the use of linga for hand and the elabonite earthwork fortifications - -throughout the 'islands. Although two-thirds of the words in the vocabulary are not Polynesian and a still larger proportion in the dialetts of the .West coast,; th© language follows the Polynesian soundJaw ■ that every - syllable _ and ; word must end in a vowel, in, spite . of 'the range and variety of sounds being fifty per cent, larger than in, the Polynesian language. T° bring about so great a chango in . the Fijian physique, Polynesian warriors and Bettlere must have been pouring in through thousands of years; and to influence the >, phonology so , greatly, thoy must haVe ; often; brought their Polynesian' wives with them, ' for only with their dominance.over the .children, in the. first few yeaxaofJife, -when the ■ organs cof speechare getting moulded, could 7 have produced this , change: in the - language when there was practicallyno change ,o£ latitude in . the migration. - Artificial; Heads and' Nose* ' it wasthe prevalence of the eouthcaet ' wind -throughout' ths . great-. "or part of the year that gave such dominance to the Polynesian influence. And it is this that explains the difference between the eastern: and western regions of New Caledonia, the Aew Hebriwfe. the Solomon Islands, and jfov- QaZatu the WMtem m far the

[more negroid, whilst in tuo east ~ wherever there is a solitary. i s * e , Tikopia Aniwa, and (in tho Lor Islands) Ilea, its language and aie.almost pure Polynesian. • wind blown tho other way, Pacific would have bosn almost completely negroid. As it is, it £>h only sporadicaliy the thick lips of tho negroid; . generally in the chiefly noble fa ; for when Polynesian expeditions retu. - ed from the Polynesian Islands in west, their best plunder would be women, who would all go into the harems of the chiefs ana wainars as slave wives; if they had beconio ruling wives, they would have introduce*! into Polynesia the art of pottery, is a woman's art in the Pacific. xet their half-caste children would otten become the great warriors, and on tne failure of the pure stock fall heir to the chiefships. Hence the frequen broad face and flat nose amongst the aristocracy and the custom of ally flattening the nostrils in babyhood in admiration of the Melanwiau noses of the great warriors. This custom, which originated in Polynesia from the intrusion -into aristocratic households of Melanesian women, reacted on *ij , the most easterly outlier of Melanesia; the head of the Fijian both west and east is so uniformly like the Polvnestan head even where, as in the wvst, the features and hair have remauied negroid, that I could not he-p asking whether the massaging of the infant_s head into the fashionable shapo that is the custom in Polynesia existed \n Inji; old settlers and natives declared it to be universal and ancient. 11113 confirms tho conclusion that women accompanied tho Polynesian expeditions (those for settlement at least) _ Fiji. The origin of the custom in its original hom® was doubtless the eagerness of mothers to have the heads or th 'ir children like thoso of the immigrant warriors that finally mastered them and became their- aristocracy The shape is what is called Arnienoid, short and round, flat-backed, domecrowned, and sloping-browed; it spreads widely in Asia Minor, una m early pre-historic times pushed alwig tho'mountainous centre of Europe between th'e tall long-heads of the plains and north-west, and tho short-statured long-heads of the Mediterranean region; it also pushed eastward _ along t\ie steppes of Central Asia without entering India, and is doubtloss responsible for the ?ast warlike migration into tho Central Pacific, just before the' submergence of most or tne insular stepping-stones mado such intrusions impracticable. Blonde Hair Fashionable in the Pacific. That there was a reflux "therw are a few indications, even beyond the immediate neighbours of Fiji. There 13 a tradition of a dark tribe being settled on the north-west coast ot tl;« North Island of New Zealand; hut it could not have been pure MelaMSian, else the art of pottery would have come, with it. and fragments of would iiavf been found at the district But it may account for . traces outside* of tho tropics *y the east, a slightly, newoid Hc m thc faces of some of -the children m Rapa rnd th > likeness ,of ono t>r_ characters, in ' tho , Easter Island strip* u> 'carwd .fagutos. m mons arid the the hole made m by the Easter Islanders , the winds that carrv canoes easily, to theßO rer-easieriu UjaSL. Bnt it.js,;pf-COurso, ; tfe groups adaacent' to MsaJMßi£; ' sbunw. m ite infiuei^:' to tread Mariner's^wlt'of expeditions that returned frenn thew Melanesian islands brought back no onlv larger and stouter double canoes an^weapons like the bow, but the pasS iorTar arid the taste for cannibalism { and there haro been recently found in the rubbish heaps .of the west of Tonga fragments of Fijian pottery. Eventne to ore distant Samoa reveag. the influence; the .faces of its fixwtooesses of ti»>ast of Fyi havo a strong resemblaii'oe; arid the intercourse beMelanesian, continues to this day, on enqSing m Samoa whaVhad become of Tulua, « beautiful .young . .™f tenDou or professional wgjn and hostess of her village, , fifteen years ago, I.foundthatshe ha married a Fijian chief and gone in Fiji. But tho most, striking intrusion of Melanesian custom Into .these two Polynesian groups is that of hmmg the hair in order to give ife.a folmir • Europeans often state as its the rmm m the hair; but the most watent exhi bition of .Melanesian capture tie live stock in the Presence and pop them into hia moath. ft w&s doubtless an attempt to the hairof a blond oonqumng onstocracv' like th» powdering of tlho hair in And. the romance of« the Polynesian odoptiori of the custom is thatthe Wond •*rarriora must- Have com© froni o\y nesia • ttere are many; indications m Polynesian custom physique, especially tradition, of a primeval immSration of bWs into the Central Pacific, r"-: " Tonga Black in Contrast to the white Pacific. But it was Tonga naturally tbat T most affected by Melonesiamsm. It 19 suggested m a legend coilected by Mariner in tlhe early years of century that it was Melanesian m its complexion unfl spiritual atmosph^ After drawing 'up, the archipelagoiby , hook let-down from Heaven, Tangaloa, the Creator, sent down his to occupy it.- Finding that. Toobo, tne vagabond elder, had waylaid and kil ed Vaoa-acow-ooli, the virtuous trious younger, he sent fw tihe formal and bade h«n bring the family of h s Sin,.whom he addressed thus: your canoes to sea and sail to the e ». to the great land which is there, dwell there. Be your skuw wsiito liKe your minds; for your minds are pure, vou-"shall be wise, malting axes and an inches, and shall have kreat will go myself and oommand the wina -to blow from your land to Tonga, h|it they A the Tonga people) shall not l| aßle to go to you with their baa cjuicies." Then he ,said. W\the others. ."Tou shall be black, because your minds are bad, and shall.be destUutei you shall not be wista m useful things, neither dhall von go to the great low of your brothers: how can you go wim yom* bad cancesi® Bn A y T„K Bhall come to Tonga and trade with yon : as they please " V Polynesia Looks North-east to Asia. But this is evidently « invented during a period.of _ y generacy : the warriors had been away west, «n<i had brought back evil miw ners and morals from Fiji,, idleness and love of revenge and. alangn ter, and a revival of cannibalism . The old Poly ll ®^ , tnes were vanishing, and the pri^te^ that nothing bnt the -plaineflt speaKing could recaT the .yquth to toe ideal that was stUl dominant, in their bretihren away to east. little that is distinctively . Mela^?^^ the phyaiqne or features of tne cans; they are tall, s,tout--linihed», • y a : haired, and . tropical people. And .there t j. thai coulJ:be callrf .^uesiw^jhe people of .Eastern Ocesriia. Polyn with its Caucasian fa°®» - lts . :f!^hiefalightly dyed in the _ ships and feudalism, jta descent, its tendency tb > • megalithism, qnd its absence of po , that sure mark of the tow s Anßan( i whiolv began » tog* years ago, points np MicroAsia aorth-eastwaxds througn_ nesia. with its partiaUy «^ its bkncMng of young women, its kings ana w . snlar. empires, its f tho far south-west F «^ a . g ut Ysp.and its pwt cydope 4o

it 5s to an Asia that was still unflocded by the Mongoloids, an Asia that- was OB jet Caucasoid and in parts blondlv Caucasoid. A Mongolised Pacific. And then the thousands of islands that now lie in the depths, with only a coral buoy to mark their submergence, rbso high above the ocean and by their continuous series tempted early man in his dug-outs far out into -he Pacific. When the Mongol broke out of his higjh Asian home and crowded eastwards on to the coasts of the great ocean lb was too late; the steppingstones into the oceanic unknown nad sunk, and only timidly the insular Japanese groped tlyeir way down the broken line : of islets' into the Mariannes and the northern Now, when steam'has brought the islands again close.to the shores of Asia, tho Pacific is about to 1)6 Mongolised. But it is the'Chmese-that liave longest and most fully felt tho call of tiho ooean; from the coast of Chirfa there has been voluntary migration into the islands of the Pacific for nearly a century 5 and the toloranoa of other manners and ways of thought, and the long discipline of the threat of famine, have fitted them best of all the Oriental races to cross with tho Polynesians; they give the half-castes the virility and industry that a long decaying tropical race needs.