PACIFIC OCEAN

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1924, Page 8

PACIFIC OCEAN

AND ITS PEOPLES DR. MACMILLAN BROWN'S RESEARCHES VISIT TO NORTH-WEST AMERICAN COAST. Dr. J. Macmillan Brown, Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, was a passenger by the Tahiti, which arrived from San Francisco to-day. For some twenty years past Professor Macmillan Brown has been studying the Pacific Ocean and its peoples, and especially the problem how it has been peopled. In pursuance of that research work he has just completed a visit to the North-west coast of America. He left New Zealand at the end of May last.

"I have visited nearly all the other groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean; also the coasts of China.and Japan; and I have gone all through South and Central America," said Dr. Macmillan Brown to a "Post" representative today. "I have made these visits with the view of seeing what could be made out : of these lands as to the peopling of the Pacific Ocean. This trip to the North-west Coast of America was'to-see whether there was any warrant for thinking that there is an affinity 'between those peoples and the Polynesians. The voyagers Cook, Vancouver, Portlock, and Mears seemed all to report a likeness between' the culture of these north-west coastal Indians and the Polynesians, and also indicated that they were, when their faces were washed, white or almost white. MONGOLOID ELEMENT. "I went to see them personally, and was disappointed to find that they were almost as Mongoloid as the Indians of the interior —broad and high cheekbones and black, lank hair. These were especially in the Haidas and the Queen Charlotte Group (off Prince Rupert, British Columbia). I made two visits to them; and the natives undoubtedly have much more of the European look in their faces than those to the north, in Alaska—the Thlinkeets. The Thlinkeets extend all ;along the coast of United States Alaska. Then, again, there are in Vancouver Island another section, commonly called Nootkas—although that was a mere mistake of Cook in calling them Nootkas. They are intermediate between the Haidas and Thlinkeets in their features. But there is a reason for all these coastal Indians being Mongbloid. The defeated tribes from the interior broke through frequently to the coast. It was the great refuge, of defeated tribes, and hence there are an immense number of dialects and languages amongst the coastal peoples. SOME CUSTOMS LIKE THE MAORIS. Secondly, there was a custom of slave traffic from the South to the North. Those in Vancouver Island and on the adjourning coast, after defeating the less warlike. Indians inland, sold their captives in the North-west to the Haidas and Thlinkeeto. It would, of course, be the chiefs that would get the captive women into their; households, and hence there would be a Mongolising of the posterity of those chiefs.

"I found a preat deal of culture very much akin to the Polynesian culture, as the voyagers in the 18th and 19th Centuries pointed out. There were 'pas' or villages all along the coast, generally on precipices, and in defensible situations. Hence there is one island called 'Hippah' Island, and the early voyagers noted that it waa like the New Zealand 'pas,' on the coast. I saw a good many weapons and implements that wero very like the Maori ; one especially, a club of bone, was quite tho same shape as the Maori mere. There was one curious phenomenon all along the coast. Whenever I brought my camera to bear, tho natives hid their faces, or went off. Two experts in Alaska, \the Rev. Mr. Corse, in Wrangell, arid Father Kashevaroff, a Russian born in Alaska, and now curator of the Juneau Museum, held that this timidity towards the camera was due to fear of being laughed at, or an expectation of money. I offered them money, and yet they refused to stand to tho camera; and I do not think they were specially sensitive to criticism or laughter. My explanation is that the shadow, like the name, is considered pa).-t of the life, and that by the taking of photographs you take the shadow from them. This is confirmed by a sentence in 'Kano's Discoveries.' He was along that coast in the last century and he says : 'I took a portrait of a chief, and offered him a plug of tobacco, and he said : "Is this all you give me for risking my life?" I gene £i ly held my camera behind me, and brought it forward,' said. Professor Macmillan Brown. "It was exactly as if I had taken a revolver from my hip pocket. -The result, m that I have not very many photographs of the natives. The best I took were snapshots during a ceremony i n Noouc Sound, on the North«est Coast of Vancouver Island. Tho Lieu tenant-Governor and a J,,dgo were unveibiip a memorial to Cook and Van! ng the North-west Coast there more NaDoL Ccl« lry as °\ Wllilst tho =hi=f, replying to the Lieutenant-Governor ai d ionZ h I 31 SPn Ch t' ra"slated =^