THE POLYNESIAN RACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16969, 1 October 1918, Page 6

THE POLYNESIAN RACE.

ETHNOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.

PROBABLE ORIGIN IN JAPAN. Important ethnological investigations have been conducted in Hawaii by Professor J. Macraillan Brown, of Christ church, who retrained to Auckland yesterday by the MftkuM. Each winter for several years past Professor Brown has visited a fresh group of islands in the Pacific for the purpose of continuing his studies of the origin of the Polynesian race, of which the Maoris are said to be the most virile branch. The professor stated yesterday that the Hawaiian group had been more Europeanised than any other, but, in spite of this condition, he collected-a great deal of information likely to be of assistance to him in his studies. As the outcome of his present visit to Hawaii, said Professor Macmillan Brown, he had abandoned the idea that the Polynesians originally came from the Malay archipelago and India, He had always doubted the truth of that -generallyaccepted theory. . He was of the opinion that the Polynesians came through Japan. There were elements in Hawaiian culturewhich supported this theory, and he described several native _ characteristics in support of his contentful. In Japan he had seen a large number of men of greatstature, who were a race apart from the Japanese of the present day. These tall men indicated an ancestry that was neither Japanese nor in any way Mongolian. The present- race of Japanese were descendants of the Abu, who camo through Siberia, and drove out the then inhabitants, who spread through the stepping-stone line of iAands through the Mariannes and Carolines into Polynesia. Professor Brown said ; that as a result of his visit to Hawaii he concluded 4hat the' natives of that particular group of i islands were rapidly dying out. As a people they were very decadent. He was ] of the opinion that tho decadence began j prior to European settlement, but had be- 1 come much more rapid since that period. The natives were flocking into the cities) ] and modern civilisation was overwhelming them, morally and physically. In ordej to stem the tide of decadence tho> Hawaiians must resume their; old occupations, the chief of which were agriculture and navigation. In ancient times th«i natives of the Hawaiian group were tin greatest, sailors in the world. Thounndji of years before the compass was known they travelled Into unknown parts, guided by the stars and their knowledge of winds and currents. Tho Maori word, Pipiwhareou-Roa, meaning " the Bird of Long _ Voyages," clearly illustrated the maritime skill of the Hawaiians. The Maoris gave the "name to the shining cuckoo, enormous flocks of which collected! about March every year on the most northern part of the North Island of New Zealand, and flew across the Pacific to Siberia. '