The Origin of the Maori.

Maori Record : a journal devoted to the advancement of the Maori people, Volume 2, Issue 13, 1 July 1906, Page 9

The Origin of the Maori.

By R. Studholme Thompson. [all rights reserved.] CHAPTER Vll.—Continued. But perhaps it would be better to let Professor Keane speak of the almost inextricable mixtures and confusion which has taken place in Oceanica. In “Man; Past and Present,” p. 230, he says;“ln the Oceanic domain, which for ethnical purposes begins at the neck of the Malay Peninsula, the Mongol peoples range from Madagascar eastwards to Formosa and Mikronesia, but are found in compact masses chiefly on the mainland, in the Sunda Islands (Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lombok, Borneo, Celebes) and in the Philipines. Even here they have mingled in many places with other populations, forming fresh ethnical groups, in which the Mongol element is not always conspicuous. Such fusions have taken place with the Negrito aborigines in the Malay Peninsula and the Philipines, with Papuan in Mikronesia, Flores, and other islands east of Lombok; with Caucasic Indonesians in Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, Halmahera, (Jilolo), parts of the Philipines and perhaps also Timor and Ceram; and with African negroes (Bantus) in Madagascar. To unravel some of these racial entanglements is one of the most difficult tasks in anthropology, and in the absence of detailed information cannot yet be everywhere attempted with a prospect of success.” “The problem has been greatly, though perhaps inevitably, complicated by the indiscriminate extension of the term ‘Malay’ to all these and even to other mixed Oceanic populations farther East, as, for instance, in the expression ‘ MalayoPolynesian,’ applied by many writers not only in a linguistic, but also in an ethnical sense, to most of the insula peoples from Madagascar to Easter Island, and from Hawaii to New Zealand. It is now of course too late to remedy this misuse of terms by proposing fresh nomenclature. But much of the consequent confusion will be avoided by restricting Malayo-Poh/nesian altogether to linguistic matters and carefully distinguishing between Indonesia, the pre-Malay Caucasic element in Oceanica, Malayan or Proto-Malayan, a collective name of all the Oceanic Mongols, and

Malay, a particular branch of the Malayan family.” And in a note:“ Ethnically, Malayo-Polynesian is an impossible expression, because it links together the Malays, who belong to the Mongol, and the Polynesians who belong to the Caucasic division. But as both undoubtedly speak a language of the same linguistic stock, the expression is justified in philology, although even here Indo-Pacific or Inter-Oceanic might be preferential terms.” From what has been said by Keane, it will at once be seen how impossible it would be to pick out the Maori-Polynesian peoples, from the accounts of travellers, who style all natives not pure Papuan or pure Malayan, Indonesian or MalayoPolynesian, applying both terms to identical people in some instances, and almost invariably calling Maori-Polynesians Indonesians, so firmly has the custom been adopted. It is probable that the true Indonesians, who touched, in neolithic times, the ocean in far eastern seas, occupied many more islands than the MaoriPolynesians. The former would make homes as they first travelled west towards Sumatra, and they would make other homes, in other islands, as the wave of wandering humanity receded east, repulsed by impact on intruding tribes. In searching for remnants of the eastward MaoriPolynesian migration, stranded en route, there are three things which may be remembered, and which will save much unnecessary trouble. First, the present domain of the Polynesian as laid down by Keane, second, the route of the migration as traced from tradition by Mr. S. P. Smith, and third, the decision of FI. O. Forbes, investigator and explorer, that the sole remaining remnant of the Eastern Polynesians, is to be found in Mentawei Island, south of Sumatra. Therefore, the term Indonesian, when met with in respect to inhabitants of Indonesia, may be safely concluded to mean the true Indonesians, when used by those who make true discrimination; that is to say, the descendents of the neolithic Caucasian, who entered the Pacific from the Continent east of Burma, and that if those of to-day do contain a strain of MaoriPolynesian blood, it is quite assimilated by the Indonesian. And in respect to the Alfuro, Keane says: “This term, ‘Alfuro,’ is especially confusing. Whatever its origin, whether Portuguese, Arab, or local, it never had any ethnical value, being indifferently applied by the Malays to all rude non-Mohammedan peoples in the eastern parts of Malaysan.” At page 24 I have already given the list of Professor Keane of the inhabitants of many islands. Whatever contact there has been between Malay and Indonesian, it is by no means confined to the contact shown by Maori tradition to have taken place south of Sumatra in the Nias Islands, but it is possible that the chief Malay contact with the Polynesian race which had become established by fusion of the emigrants from Irania with Indonesian and

Papuan, took place in the first Oceanic home of the Maori-Polynesian. But the contact of the Maori-Polynesian with the Malayan tribes, has been probably slight in comparison with that of the Indonesians who lived and travelled in Mongol lands for untold ages, whereas the MaoriPolynesian, reaching the sea in and travelling from lands in which the Caucasic element was predominant, had less opportunity of contact with Mongols. On the general intermixture of Mongol and Caucasic, Keane thus speaks in “Ethnology,” p. 297: —-“After the separation (from the Hmnanidm main stock) T the present stem (Mongol) continued to spread over a great part of the continent, reaching extreme eastern limits, probably in the paloeolithic age, pressing later southwards into Malaysia, and penetrating in neolithic times into Europe, but apparently not into Africa. This early expansion of the Mongol race, of which there is monumental evidence in Mesoptamia, and abundant ethnical proof in Indo-China and the Amur basin, brought about fresh groupings and intermingling, not only with kindred tribes, but also with Caucasic peoples, who had already in remote times spread from their primeval homes in North Africa and Europe, eastwards to Japan, south-east-wards to India and Indo-China, and thence to Malaysia, Australasia, and Polynesia. Thus arose, not only on the confines, but in the very heart of the Mongol country domain, those Mongoloid and Caucasic aberrant groups, such as the Malayan Indonesians, the Mesopatamian Akkads (of the later advanced civilization absorbed by Semitic Chaldea.—R.S.T.) the Dravidians of the Indian Peninsula, the Ugrian-Finns, and the Turki peoples, wrongly called Tartars, all of whom were found fully constituted long before the dawn of history, but whose ethnical affinities have remained an unsolved problem. But, speaking broadly, it may be confidently said that the explanation of these ethnical puzzles will be found in the frank recognition of Mongolic and Caucasic elements, interpenetrating each other at various points of their respective territories from the earliest times. In the presence of distinctly fair types, and regular “European” features in Manchuria, Korea, Yezo, Turkestan, parts of Siberia and Malaysia, the assumption must be abandoned that these regions have always been the exclusive appenage of the yellow race. Meanwhile it will be sufficient to point out that in the accompanying Family Tree of the Mongolic division all those aberrant groups find place; which can be shown to belong fundamentally to the Mongol stock. Here language becomes an important factor, to which appeal may be made in doubtful cases.” In the Battas we have a typical case. Here in the Conspectus of the Oceanic Mongols we find the Battas, but investigation showed that they belong fundamentally to the Caucasic race, and they duly appear in the Caucasic Family Tree. These unfortunate Battas were fated to come into

early contact with civilization, and yet to remain of savage habits. They are even supposed to have learned their alphabet from the Phoenecian sailors of Nearchus, Admiral of the Fleet of Alexander, b.c. 323, or those who made the inscription in South Sumatra, b.c. 450. Speaking of the Javanese stock alphabet in Man; Past and Present,” p. 245, Professor Keane said, “that it has shown extraordinary vitality, persisting under diverse forms down to the present day, not only amongst the semi-civilised Mussulman peoples, such as the Sumatran Rajangs, Korinchi and Lampongs, the Bugis and Mangkassas of Celebes, and the Togels and Bisayans of the Philipines, but even among the somewhat rude pagan Palawan natives, the wild Manguianes of Mindaro, and the cannibal Battas of North Sumatra.” In a note, Professor Keane adds; — “The Rejang, which certainly belongs to the same Indo-Javanese system as all other Malaysain alphabets, has been regarded by Sayce and Renan as ‘pure Phoenecian,’ while Dr. Neubaeur has compared it with that current in the fourth and fifth centuries b.c. The suggestion that it may have been introduced by the Phoenecian crews of Alexander’s admiral, Nearchus, could not have been made by anyone aware of its close connection with the Lampong of South and the Batta of North Sumatra.” I don’t know whether late discoveries in connection with the Battak are calculated to induce Professor Keane to alter his decision, or whether, on the contrary, his allusion to the improbability of the Batta alphabet being connected with the Phcenecian, is owing to the absence of affinity between the two alphabets, but it was the idea that either the Phoenecian sailors, or those who wrote the Phoenecian inscription in Sumatra, would bring such attributes of civilization with them, which impressed me with the necessity of moving the Maori-Polynesians from their Oceanic Horae, prior to the arrival of the Phoenecians, lest they should be burdened with an alphabet and steel swords, in a manner unbecoming to a self-respecting neolithic people. Professor Keane wrote in 1899, to our great enlightenment, but much appears apparently to have been discovered in respect to these Battak since he wrote. The writer in the Encyclopedia Brit., Vol. XXX., p. 487, who says that the Battak expelled the Maori-Polynesians, is Dr. li. O. Forbes, L.L.D., F.R.G.S., Director of Museums, Liverpool, author of “A Nationalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago. He is trusted as authentic by Keane who quotes his decisions. The date when the Battak expelled the MaoriPolynesians is fixed by Maori tradition at b.c. 450-500. The latter date would clear the Maori-Polynesians from all fear of contact with an impending civilization, and leave their enemies, the Battak, to become the cultured cannibals they are.

Finally, to trace the Indonesians linguistically back to Central Asia, the following from Keane (Ethnology, p. 325) should be as decisive as his pronouncements in respect to the ethnical connection:— But agglutinating forms reappear in Karen, while a distinctly polysyllabic group of untoned languages, with Oceanic” (MalayoPolynesian affinities, occupies a great part of Camboja and surrounding uplands—Khmer, Kuy, Gharry, Streng, Cham). These Oceanic affinities have now been traced to the very heart of the continent, and T. de Lacoupene confirms B. H. Hodgson’s suggestions regarding the relations of Gyarungs on the TibetoChinese frontier with Tagalog, the chief Malay language of the Philipine Archipelago.” As an instance of how Caucasic people get spoiled by the evil communications which corrupt good manners as well as, as is the case with the Battak, of the civilization which kills the neolithic type, I may conclude Keane’s paragraph where, speaking of the degeneration of the Gyarungs, he says they are “nothing more or less than one of the disjecta membra (now driven away by the pressure of the Chinese growth, west, south, and also east) of a former nucleus of the native population of China, Indonesian in character at the beginning and gradually diverging from their former standard under the combined influences of their new surroundings, linguistic and others.” The following is a description of the true Indonesian, as he is to-day, by Keane, p. 326: —“The true Indonesians are of tall stature (sft. loin.), muscular frame, rather oval features, high open forehead, large straight or curved nose, large full eyes, always horizontal and with no trace of a third lid, light brown complexion (cinnamon or ruddy brown), long black hair, not lank but often curled or wavy, skull generally brachycephalous like that of the melanchroic Europeans.” In the latter points there is a distinction between them and the MaoriPolynesians, who are long-headed and of the florid type. There is a note which says (qualifying an assertion that the Papuan strain is very noticeable in the Maoris of New Zealand:—“ Yet even in New Zealand, Dr. O. Finsch met some full-blood Maoris with quite European features, eyes mostly beautiful, full, large, brown to deep brown, straight or wellcurved nose, full beard, and well developed calves, as is characteristic of all Polynesians.” Even in New Zealand, indeed! I think that a few pictures of what New Zealand produces in the way of the Polynesian type should be on view in our Agent-General’s office. The female portion have been sufficiently attractive to bind in bonds of wedlock some of Britain’s noblemen, which same may possibly be a skeleton in some aristocratic closets of the Mother Country. Although a colonial lexicographer had found it convenient to go to Madagascar, the land of the Bantu and the Malay, to find the Maori word for ‘ rice,’ I had not

intended to say much concerning Madagascar. But as I have been asked by a most intelligent man if Maori origins were to be found in that South African island, I feel it is necessary to quote authority on the subject. All this confusion probably arose from the fact that that great race of over-sea rovers and traders, the Proto-Malayan, as surely the ocean tramp of the southern as the Phoenecian was of the northern hemiphere, took in pre-historic times the Malayo-Polynesian language to Madagascar. After explaining matters in disarray, between Indonesian and Malay, Professor Keane says:—“ Thus severed from its unnatural Indonesian connection, the Malay problem may have some prospect of a satisfactory solution. In some of the early essays at classification the Malay race found a place amongst the main divisions of mankind. Then the very existence of a Malay type was questioned by scientific systematists, and craniologists especially failed to discover a normal Malay head amid endless discrepancies presented by specimens from the Eastern Archipelago. It could be scarcely otherwise when Indonesian, ‘Alfuro,’ Mikronesian, Polynesian, and true Malay skulls were all ticketed ‘Malay’ in European collections.” Many indices of breadth are given, and the author proceeds:—“ But when the disturbing elements are removed, the true Malays are seen to present remarkably uniform characters, and Dr. Finsch himself was struck by this very uniformity, in the subjects from every parts of Maryland studied by him at Batavia in 1881. Thus there is, after all, a Malay type, and its characters are such as enable it to be at once pronounced distinctly Mongoloid one might almost say Mongolic, without reservation, but for the somewhat straight nose, and large round and generally horizontal, or but slightly oblique eyes. Yet even here is seen the peculiar Mongol fold of the upper lid, ‘just as with the Chinese’ says Finsch. Other marked Mongol features are, very prominent malar bones, a dirty yellow or brownish olive colour, very black lank hair, scant or no beard, low stature, ranging from little over sft. to sft. qin. or 5m., brachy" or sub-brachy-cephalous head. Thus is fully justified the Oceanic Mongol group which in our Family Tree is seen to ramify from the Tibeto-Chinese stem eastwards to Formosa and southwards to Madagascar.” In Professor Keane’s later work, “Man: Past and Present,” and in the section on the first Oceanic immigrants and the Proto-Malayan, he says, p. 250: —“Much of the confusion prevalent regarding the present ethnical relations, is due to failure to distinguish between the historic Malays of Menangkabu and the Malayan aborigines of the Eastern Archipelago. That some of the historic Malays (the Orang-Malayu) have found their way to the island (of Madagascar) from time to time, need not be denied. But it may now be asserted with some confidence that they could

never have been very numerous, that they may almost be regarded in the present connection as une quantile nelu/able, and that the Malayan settlement of Madagascar took place in remote historic times, not only long before the diffusion of the Sumatrian Malays (of Menangkabo) over the Archipelago, but also long before the appearance of Hindu missionaries or colonists in the same region. This is no matter for speculation, but a direct and necessary inference from facts now established, such as the total absence of Sanskrit and largely of late Arabic terms in Malagasy, and the general structure of the language, which is not a Malay dialect, but very much older than Malay—in fact, an independent and somewhat archaic member of the Malayo-Polynesian “Oceanic” linguistic family.” “ Of these two races (Malayan and Negro or Negroid), who have occupied the island from time immemorial, the Malayans probably arrived first, and, the way once found, were afterwards joined at different times by other sea-faring bands from the Eastern Archipelago. The Bantus of the opposite coastlands, not being navigators, could scarcely have themselves crossed the swift-flowing and choppy Mozambique Channel, which is nowhere less than 240 miles wide, and is moreover swept by the great current setting steadily from Madagascar southwards to the Cape. Thus the stream that helped the Oceaninic Mongols would arrest the African Negroes, who were probably brought over in small bands at intervals by the slavers, at all times active in these waters.” Keane shows, however, that the fusion is less complete than has been supposed. Thus Professor Keane proves the ancient date of the migrations of the Proto-Malayan. They were occurring prior to the arrival of the Sanskrit-speaking people from India or Camboga in 300 b.c., and the Maoris met them in Nias Islands before 500 b.c. Ask a Malayan his family home, the land from which his ancestors came, and he will point to the sea. In all probability they inhabited, from very remote times, the various islands south of Sumatra, from whence came the invadors of Java, who made the Javanese nation, and long subsequently those who formed the beginning of the Orang-Malay nation of Sumatra, as well as the great Malayan wave of invasion which swept the MaoriPolynesian from Ceram and Celebes and peopled anew the southern coast-lands of the continent of Asia. In Mr. S. P. Smith’s “Hawaiiki” I find that Pomander quotes a.d. 76 as corresponding with the commencement of the Malay Empire in the Indian Archipelago. Here again confusion is likely to arise. The Malay Empire, I conclude, is the Menangkabu kingdom in Sumatra, which was of much later date. The Javanese may be said to have been the first civilized Malayan kingdom, and the Malayans who founded it were civilized when the Malays were probably savages. After the Maori-

Polynesians left Sumatra, Phoenecians and Hindus arrived, and the latter were missionaries. They would gather into the fold the Malayan people of the isles to the southward, and in 500 years endow them with the amount of civilization they carried to Java, there to meet other Malayans who had been softened down by the Indian missionaries of that island, and the Javanese kingdom would be a fact at the time mentioned by Fornander.