POLYNESIAN RACES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22194, 22 August 1935, Page 14

POLYNESIAN RACES

MIGRATION IN PACIFIC EARLY TRAVELS FROM ASIA An interesting address on the migrations of the Polynesian races was given by Surgeon-Commander R. Buddie at a meeting of the Anthropological and Maori Race Section of the Auckland Institute and Museum, held in the museum last night. Students now generally agreed that the Polynesians spread into the Pacific by means of their own locomotion, and not by means of any postulated landbridge, stated Surgeon-Commander Buddie. All available evidence tended to show that they came by way of the East Indies, from Asia. Of their ultimate Aryan origin there appeared to be little doubt to anyone who made even a small study of the accumulated evidence. "It was probably during the period of contact with the Malays, on the Asiatic mainland, or Sumatra, or Java, that the Maoris came into contact with snakes and crocodiles, from wMch their stories of taniwha and ngarara derived," ho said. Dealing with the travels of the Polynesians from the Malay Archipelago, tho lecturer said he was not qualified to speak on the much-discussed origins of the race in Asia. The place-names found in various islands marked, with a fair degree of certainty, the route of their migrations. Over a period of centuries, the Polynesians gradually travelled eastward and established themselves tn tho islands of the Pacific, said SurgeonComrnnnder Buddie. They were carried past Australia on account of the rough seas and strong tide rips to the north of the continent. A short address on the technicalities of Maori nomenclature of Tongariro National Park and parts of the east coast also was given by Mr. A. D. Mead.