Polynesia

“ The inhabitants of Polynesia, are, like all those whose faith is primitive and simple, devoted to the worship of the Sun, which they regard as a divinity; and which they imagine at one time to have been a human being: they believe he married his sister, who, when all the rest of her family came upon earth, remained by herself in the skies, and from their union sprang the months. ”

“ The isles of the Pacific give evidence that, long before the dawn of authentic history, man lived there. Indeed, as the islands which gem that ocean, from their configuration and position, seem to be but the elevated plateaus and mountain peaks of a continent that has gone down beneath the blue wave of the Pacific, so, throughout Polynesia can be traced the fragmentary remains of a civilization, the greater portion of which has been completely buried by the waters of oblivion, leaving only here and there a trace to reconstruct, if we can, the entire structure. ”

“ That they are of the same race that now inhabit the eastern and southern parts of Polynesia is beyond a doubt. That that race was settled in the Asiatic Archipelago centuries before the Christian era, I believe to be equally certain; but whether the emigration into Polynesia took place before the Christian era, or was occasioned by the invasion of the forefathers of the Malay family from India about the commencement of that era, there is nothing, that I am aware of, either in Polynesian, Malayan or Hindu traditions to throw any light upon. ”

“ The Hawaii group is quite distinct from any other, and has never been joined to a continent. Finally, there remains the division of Polynesia, which likewise, in all probability, has never been continental, and which includes the separate archipelagoes of Marquezas, Tuamotu, Tubuai, Tahiti (the Society Islands) , the Palmyra, Phœnix, and Malden groups, and the remote Easter Island, only 2374 miles from South America. The term "Polynesia" often covers the Samoa and the Tonga Islands, because they are peopled by the Polynesian race ”

“ The principal groups of islands included in Polynesia are New Zealand, the Friendly or Tonga Islands, the Samoan or Navigators Islands, the Hervey or Cook Islands, the Society Islands, including Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands. ”

“ The complete absence of these primary evidences of civilisation amongst the islanders gives us the right to assume that they came into the South Seas before man had acquired any knowledge of the metallic arts, and that their migration ceased before pottery and the weaving spindle were known.
Polynesia must, therefore, have been occupied during the Palæolithic and Neolithic periods of the world's history. ”

“ As among their conveners in Madagascar, so also in parts of Polynesia, there may be a queen or a chieftainess in her own right; and a woman in high position will command as much respect, and will exercise as great authority, as a man would in the same position. Everywhere infanticide prevailed; in some of the smaller islands it was regulated by law in order to prevent over-population. ”

“ Rupe's heart filled with the desire to find and protect the frenzied sister who had probably taken a canoe and floated away, out of the horizon, seen from New Zealand coasts, into new horizons. During the Viking age of the Pacific, when many chiefs sailed long distances, visiting the most remote islands of Polynesia, they frequently spoke of breaking through from the home land into new heavens—or of climbing up the path of the sun on the waters into a new heaven. ”

“ Though no trace of their blood is left, New Guinea must at one time have been a halting place in the migration. Papua it is called, and one finds the word current in Polynesia, meaning a garden, a rich land. The natives of New Guinea are as unlike the people of the eastern Pacific, I should say, as the average American or Englishman, and yet throughout New Guinea there is a most curious cropping out of Polynesian words, pointing to a very ancient intercourse between the races. Consider the word for woman among the Polynesians. ”

“ Neither is it, in general, much easier to escape pursuit at the isles of Polynesia. Those of them which have felt a civilizing influence present the same difficulty to the runaway with the Peruvian ports, the advanced natives being quite as mercenary and keen of knife and scent as the retrograde Spaniards; while, owing to the bad odor in which all Europeans lie, in the minds of aboriginal savages who have chanced to hear aught of them, to desert the ship among primitive Polynesians, is, in most cases, a hope not unforlorn. ”

“ They are handsomer, and lighter in color than those islanders we have left behind; and they are also more intelligent and ingenious. The women, especially, are more delicate, with good figures; some of them are really pretty. Then, in place of the gibberish of uncouth sounds spoken in most parts of Polynesia, these people have a musical language, full of soft liquids and ringing consonants, that seems more like Chinese than like anything we are accustomed to recognize as a 'Kanaka language.'"
"Are they safe people to deal with?" I asked.
"Well, no more so than the generality of savages. ”

“ Polynesia, the many eastern islands between 180 degrees and South America; Melanesia, the black islands, from the dark-brown color of their inhabitants—they include Fiji and all the islands west, with New Guinea; Micronesia, all the small islands north of the line from Hawaii on the east to China on the west. The South Sea islands are inhabited by only two races, the Malay Polynesian and the Papuan. The Malays appear to be of Asiatic origin, and are the superior race, with well-developed, powerful persons, yellow in color, and with straight, glossy, black hair. ”

“ Sometimes women cover the shoulders, and on great occasions the men robe themselves in tapa, bark-cloth. The men are usually tattooed in elaborate designs from the navel to the thigh, and often around mouth and eyes.
As a race the Polynesians are somewhat apathetic. An enervating climate and lavish natural resources incline them to lead easy lives. On the more barren islands, and on those more distant from the equator, they show more energy. ”

“ It is unfortunate that we are driven to this loose estimate of time for so important a national event, because it was this final migration which led to the actual entry into Polynesia of these dark-blooded wanderers, and if our first hypothesis be correct, to their ultimate fusion with the fair-skinned, stone-building people who had preceded them by many centuries. ”

“ In fact, from all we saw and heard, we came to the conclusion that the inhabitants of the islands of Polynesia are generally as capable of a high state of education and civilisation as the people of any other race, while their minds are peculiarly susceptible of religious instruction. ”

“ Those who are familiar with these legends, and have studied native manners and customs, see many unmistakable proofs that the Polynesians had, at their migration, considerable knowledge and culture, and that the race has greatly deteriorated.
The Polynesians are physically a very fine race. On some islands they average 5 ft. 10 in. in height. De Quatrefages, in a table giving the stature of different races of men, [3] puts the natives of Samoa and Tonga as the tallest people in the world. ”

“ FREE-WILL ISLAND.
Locality.—Fifty minutes north of line, to the west (or north-west) of New Guinea.
Natives.—Copper-coloured, with long black hair.—Carteret from Prichard.
The natives of Free-will Island require further description. It is nearly certain that they are Amphinesian—but whether Protonesian or Micronesian is uncertain. Laying aside, for the present, Madagascar, and the Fiji Islands, we shall find that the more important questions connected with the ethnology of Polynesia are as follows—
1. The affinities with Protonesia.
2. The differences between Polynesia Proper and Micronesia. ”

“ But in Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia,—in all the distant land-specks of the Pacific,—contact was impossible in the larger sense. Though canoes did slide into strange harbors or drift or row in and about the atolls, they afforded at most romantic stimuli to these isolated groups. Infusion of culture was very difficult. ”

“ The new comer turned out to be a Portuguese deserter, who had abandoned his ship twenty years before, and had married the daughter of a chief of the island on which he now was. At the present moment, he filled the part of prime minister to the king, an office be could not have held in his own ungrateful country, since he could neither read nor write. These accomplishments, it appeared, were not, however, absolutely indispensable in Polynesia. It has been found that when a savage is transferred to Europe, he readily acquires the habits of civilized life. ”

“ It is said that the population embraced in the twelve thousand islands of which Polynesia consists, amounts to about forty millions. No part of the world equals it in the great variety and value of its products. There is scarcely an island but is accessible in every direction, abounding in spacious bays and harbors, and the larger ones in navigable rivers. The people are generally intelligent, and susceptible of a higher degree of cultivation than the natives of Africa, or of many parts of the adjacent continent. ”

“ It certainly seems from the very nature of the surroundings that Indonesia was the school in which the Polynesians learnt to become expert navigators.
If, then, the people lived in Indonesia some three or perhaps four centuries as the traditions seem to indicate, it is to be expected that some of its peculiar features, as contrasted with the later homes of the people, ought to be preserved in tradition: such, for instance, as some of the animals there found,—animals that often test the powers of man to overcome, and of which there is nothing similar in Polynesia. ”

“ There also, especially in the case of chiefs and chieftainesses, brothers and sisters sometimes intermarried. But these customs did not prevail in other groups. It is almost certain that they did not prevail in Hawaii in early times, but that they were the result of that deterioration in the race which their traditions and many of their customs indicate. [6]
Women have always occupied a relatively high position among the Polynesians. In most groups they have great influence and are treated with much respect: In some cases they take hereditary titles and hold high offices. ”

“ There are honest men and dishonest ones engaged in commerce in Polynesia, just as there are elsewhere. When you hear a Polynesian merchant denouncing the missionaries in vehement terms, you may fairly conclude that the missionaries have stood in his way when he was endeavoring to defraud the natives. ”

“ At the wharf half the population seems to be gathered to meet us. Some are clothed, native fashion, in the famous Polynesian mats or in the bark-cloth called tapa, or even in cotton; others are in European dress. The town with its white houses and verandas looks quite civilised. The inhabitants remind us of the New Zealand Maoris, though their colour is somewhat lighter; in fact, both peoples belong to the same great family, the Polynesians, or light-brown people of the Pacific, which is spread over many of the island groups which lie to the north-east and east of Tonga. ”

“ Some of their mats are very beautifully made, and in some islands they are the most valuable property the people possess. The people also use the various fibre-producing plants for the manufacture of ropes, coarse string and fine cord, and for making fishing nets. The nets are often very large, and are netted with a needle and mesh as in hand-netting among ourselves.
The Polynesians, who have always been entirely without metals, are clever workers in wood. Canoe and house building are trades usually confined to certain families. ”

“ Whatever be the origin of the Polynesians, they are not Malays, though, themselves of mixed blood, they have probably certain racial elements in common with the latter, who are undoubtedly hybrids. There is every reason to believe that the Polynesians are ethnologically a far older race than the Malays, who, as they now exist, are a comparatively modern people ”

“ So powerful is the devotion of the Polynesians that they have been known when a canoe was capsized where sharks abounded, to form a ring around their chief, and sacrifice themselves one by one to the ravenous fish, that he might escape. ”

“ Micronesia ("including Palau, the Marianne, Caroline, Marshall, and Gilbert islands") ; Central Polynesia ("including Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Phoenix, Ellice, Union islands, and a number of small islands, such as Rotuma, Fotuna, Keppel, Niue, Niouafu, and Uvea") ; Eastern Polynesia ("all the islands east of 165° W") ; and Southern Melanesia ("including the Santa Cruz group, Banks Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, and New Caledonia") . He considers that the Hawaiian Islands, Solomon Islands, and possibly New Caledonia are bordering districts to the Polynesian Subregion. ”

“ Superstitious respect for chiefs and kings in Tonga and Tahiti. In the rest of Polynesia the state of things was similar. For example, the natives of Tonga in like manner believed that if any one fed himself with his own hands after touching the sacred person of a superior chief, he would swell up and die ”

“ The traditions of many of the Polynesian peoples tend to make Savaii, the largest of the Samoan Islands, their ancestral home in the East Pacific, and linguistic and other evidence goes to support the theory that the first Polynesian settlement in the East Pacific was in Samoa, and that thence the various branches of the race made their way in all directions. ”