DOTS IN THE PACIFIC

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 221, 14 June 1930, Page 29

DOTS IN THE PACIFIC

LITTLE ISLANDS OF MICRONESIA

(By

ARTICLE IX

F.W.C. for “The Dominion.”)

Micronesia, the Sea of the Little Islands, is a remote and very remarkable ocean region lying to the north and the north-west of Melanesia. It is a charmed region of research work for the archaeologist on account of ancient megalithic ruins on the islands of I’onape and Kusaie (Strong’s Island) on its eastern edge, and also owing to the complex admixture of races occupying this far-flung mass of islets, a bewildering “melange” of the brown, the yel-low-brown, the yellow and the black races:—Proto - Polynesian, Malay, Japanese, Indo-Chinese, Melanesian, Papuan and Primitive Negrito. Professor J. Macmillan Brown, in his recent work, “Peoples and Problems of the Pacific,” characterises this region as “an Ocean Alsatia,” the asylum of human flotsam and jetsam, drifted hither from Asia and Oceania for untold centuries, the natural refuge of defeated and fugitive peoples from all quarters. The diversity of dialects is truly extraordinary, 'with some very curious consonantal changes in cognate words running through them all. No less marvellous is the tales they tell, when put into shape and order and carefully analysed. They add a new, highly picturesque chapter to the true story of Oceania. They indicate how closely bound up is the history of the peopling of the Pacific with the ethnology of Pre-Columbian America, as Mr. de Quatrefages, the distinguished French anthropologist, pointed out in 1883. in the 17th and 18th chapters of his great work, “The Human Species.” The analysis of the Micronesian languages proves beyond all reasonable doubt the North-Western origin of the Maori and his Polynesian cousins. Besides this it throws considerable light on the transplanting of several strains of exotic South-Eastern Asiatic cultures on successive waves of migration through the Micronesian area and across the Northern Tropic to the shores of the New World. Desirous of properly classifying the dialects spoken by these fragments of forgotten peoples. I made a visit (1895-98) to Guam (Mariana Islands), to Yap (Western Carolines) and to Ponape, Mokil, Pingclap and Kusaie (Eastern Carolines) and collected a large mass of miscellaneous ethnological material. While on the spot, and when in Hong Kong and New Zealand, and after my return to England in 1599, I was. at great pains to collect and tabulate side by side with Continental Asiatic and Malayan cognates, some 200 simple keywords in some 30 different Micronesian tongues, following the method employed by A. R. Wallace, the naturalist, in his Comparative Table of Malay dialects in the appendix to his work. “The , Malav Archipelago.” Thanks to the enterprise of Messrs. E. Tregear, and the late S. Percy Smith, of the Polynesian Society of New Zealand, this Micronesian Comparative Table was put into type-written form in 1599, and since then has received considerable additions. , , , . It is now at Manila in the hands of Mr. E. Schneider, of the Education Department, an excellent Eastern Malayan sctiolar, who is supplementing it with valuable marginal notes and further additions. When completed and returned in printed book form, this year, it should prove an interesting new footnote to the history of primitive man in Oceania. Not only is Micronesia a fruitful field for the labours of the ethnologist, and the marine zoologist, but a most fascinating study for the statesman and the student of political and commercial geography. ' . . How Guam, the cruising ground ot old-time buccaneers, and the casual “Poste Restant” of wandering whaling captains, and how Yap, in the Western Carolines, the Island of Great Stone-Money-Wheels and of the Mylitta worship of primitive blackmen, suddenly

became great cable stations, marking new highways of commerce and new spheres of political control is, in itself, a romance in these truly epic days of modern progress. How Spain failed to keep order in her portion of Micronesia, how Germany took up her burden, and, in turn, was compelled to hand over the Carolines, the Marshalls, the Pelews and the Northern Marianas to administration under mandate by Japan, are three swiftly-succeeding acts in the great ocean drama still presented to our view to-day in this region, and in the myriad isles scattered over blue immensity beyond. No less dramatically flashes across our view the sudden discovery of Micronesia’s rich little phosphate lands of Nauru and Ocean Island on the edge of the Gilberts, of Angaur in the Pelews, near the arragonite crystal quarries of Kokial on Korror, and, lastly, of Feyis or Trommelin Island in the Central Carolines. Micronesia, moreover, to the South Sea merchant, is an inexhaustible magazine of economic product and of food supply, as it forms practically a three thousand mile stretch of deep lagoons, of shallows teeming with most varied forms of marine sea life, and of natural fish ponds of medium depth—many-colour-ed grottos of Nereus, a paradise for the enthusiastic marine zoologist, and a very Tom-Tiddler’s ground, glittering with prospective gold and silver to the cold, calculating eyes of the commercial speculator. Pearl shell abounds, known in Yap as “Yar-ni-Balau” or the “Shell of the Pelews,” as “Yaro” on Mangareva, and as “Parau“ in Tahiti and other Eastern Pacific islands. And here we find the Holothuria or Sea Cucumber, also styled the Great Sea Slug or “Bechede Mer,” congregated by myriads and myriads in Pm shallow waters around the reefs. Thither, in their breeding season, hie the green turtle (“Kalap”) and the Hawkesbill Turtle (“Chapak”) the “Tabaki” of the Gilbert group, and the “Honu-o-Te-Opunga” or “Turtle of the Westward” of the natives of Eastern Polynesia to feast upon these succulent slugs of the sea. In the larger lagoons, such as one sees at Ruk or Truk, the headquarters of Japanese administration in the Carolines, deep-sea fishermen of the type of Mitchell Hedges and Zane Grey will find glorious sport, and there are rare shells galore, including the “Cyprea aurantia,” or much-prized “Orange Cowry,” and gorgeously-tinted echinoderms, sea-stars, and peculiar zoophytes and rainbow-hued lesser fishes fit to delight the heart of a Beebe. In the Pelews and in the remoter islets of the Carolines, now ably policed by their Japanese rulers, a perfect mine of new, curious, undelved ethnological material awaits the archaeologist. There are now some 4000 Japanese traders and settlers scattered over the mandated ocean territory of the Mikado. Professor Macmillan Brown very properly stresses the probability of very early settlement of Japanese adventurers and shipwrecked mariners in the islands of Micronesia from the northern arc of the islands by way of the Bonins, the Ryu-Kyu, and the Marianas. Japanese bronzes and armour have been found on the limestone uplands of Rota Island, and there can be little doubt that the quaint coconut-fibre protection armour of the Gilbert Islands was modelled upon the iron mail of shipwrecked Japanese “samurai” landing on their coasts. To the undoubted influence of Malay and Japanese sea-rovers we must add also a marked culture-contact with Indo-China by way of Palawan Island and Cebu in the southern Philippines, which has left its traces in many Micronesian dialects, and its peculiar impress of build and feature upon some of the islanders of the Central Carolines. So intricate a matter is the culture-complex of Micronesia, the peopling of which remains a fascinating problem to the antiquarian.