POLYNESIAN PEOPLES

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 102, 16 January 1923, Page 2

POLYNESIAN PEOPLES

MARKED RACIAL DIVERSITIES.

“The Racial Diversity of the Polynesian Peoples” was dealt with in a paper forwarded to the Science Congress yesterday l.iy x Mr. Louis R. Sullivan, Ph. D., Assistant Curator of Physical Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History. It was generally held, ho said, that the Polynesians were a mixed people. The majority of students felt that the mixture took place before migration into Polynesia. Professor Dixon, of Harvard Univer(>ity, from a detailed study of the available data on Polynesia, proposed four types which were tentatively identified as Negrito, Melanesian, .Caucasian, and Malay. As the result of further .investigations. two types had been isolated^'which were tentatively called Polynesian and Indonesian. The characteristics of these two types were described. The Polynesian was strikingly Caucasian in appearance. At present it was impossible to determine their exact place in tho human family. Available data seemed to indicate that the Polynesian was intermediate between the Caucasians and Mongols. Tho two types entered the Pacific at different times, and possibly by different routes. There was a Melanesian element in certain parts of Polynesian's in Toima, Now Zealand, and Isastei Island. The influence of the Polynesians on Melanesia had been greater than that of the Melanesians on Polynesia. There was a short-headed type in Tonga, Samoa. Tahiti, Hawaii, and the Marquesas which was not- Indonesian. Tho writer considered them as a Polynesian t-vpo,- with artifically flattoned occiput. There had been recognised four tvnes, called Indonesia, Melanesian, Polynesian, and Polynesians with deformed heads. However, much work had still to be done.