Polynesians

“ Even those who were careless as to the great truths which the Polynesians had to learn, must feel, upon reflection, that merely to unteach the brutal and defiling lesson of ages of darkness was to confer a priceless blessing. ”

“ Large numbers of the women would be enslaved and taken as wives, and hence the Papuan element in so many Polynesians of the present day. But this element was doubtless much increased during the lengthy sojourn of the Polynesians in the Fiji group. All history, tradition, and observation go to prove that Indonesia was occupied by this Negritto race from the very earliest times, and the Polynesians must have had constant communication with them, making war on them, ousting them from the lands, and enslaving them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Polynesian Culture.
The Polynesians are cheerful, dignified, polite, imaginative and intelligent, varying in temperament between the wild and energetic and politically capable Maori to his indolent and politically sterile kinsmen to the north, who have been unnerved by the unvarying [Pg 553] uniformity of temperature. Wherever possible, they are agriculturalists, growing yams, sweet potatoes and taro. Coconuts, bread-fruit and bananas form the staple food in many islands. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the things which civilisation has left behind or missed by the way are there, too, among the Polynesians: beauty and courtesy and mirth. I think there is no gift of mind or body that the wise value which these people lack. A man I met in some other islands, who had travelled much all over the world, said to me, "I have found no man, in or out of Europe, with the good manners and dignity of the Samoan, with the possible exception of the Irish peasant." ”

“ How soon or how long after that occupation the first adventurous Polynesians debouched into the Pacific, it is impossible to even conjecture. But we know that, about the commencement of the Christian era, new swarms of emigrants from middle and eastern India invaded the area occupied by the Polynesians and spread themselves from Sumatra to Timor, from Java to Manila, expelling, subjugating or isolating the previous occupants. ”

“ In physical structure and appearance the Polynesians in general more nearly resemble the Malays than they do any other race, although differing from them in some respects, as, indeed, the natives of several of the groups also do from each other. Centuries and environment have left their impress on the inhabitants of the different islands, as
Everything that is created is changed by the laws of man ”

“ In several islands, in Hawaii, Samoa, and New Zealand, the Polynesians have even risen to the height of having parliamentary institutions, in the management of which they themselves take part. On the other hand, civilisation, in ensuring peace, has had the effect of making the Polynesians unenterprising and lazy, and more inclined to dissipation than they were formerly. ”

“ In spite of their diffusion over a multitude of islands separated from each other by hundreds and even thousands of miles of ocean, the Polynesians are on the whole a remarkably homogeneous race in physical type, language, and forms of society and religion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Polynesians carry their hospitality to an amazing extent. Let a native of Waiurar, the westernmost part of Tahiti, make his appearance as a traveller at Partoowye, the most easterly village of Imeeo; though a perfect stranger, the inhabitants on all sides accost him at their doorways, inviting him to enter, and make himself at home. ”

“ There is no close chain of deduction to bind the whole, and nothing stands out from the confusion except the undoubted fact that the Polynesians are an offshoot from one of the ancient Asiatic races, and that they reached their present widely scattered abodes by way of the Malay Archipelago. ”

“ The natives of Mangareva Island, situated near the extreme S.E. end of the extensive Pau-motu group, and who are pure Polynesians, call the place of departed spirits Avaiki, and Tregear's dictionary of that dialect also states:—"Name of a place often mentioned in the ancient songs of the natives." But I cannot ascertain if the spirits were supposed to go to the west.
Although the present inhabitants of South East New Guinea are not pure Polynesians, there has no doubt in ancient times been an infusion of that blood into the people, together with some of their beliefs. ”

“ Speaking of their beliefs touching the souls of the dead, the same writer says that the Polynesians “imagined they lived in a world of spirits, which surrounded them night and day, watching every action of their lives, and ready to avenge the slightest neglect or the least disobedience to their injunctions, as proclaimed by their priests. ”

“ If there ever were a Polynesian Arcadia, and if it were possible for true reports of the doings and sayings of the Polynesians to reach us from that happy land—reports of their joys and sorrows, their love-makings and their jealousies, their family spats and reconciliations, their worship of beauty and of the gods and goddesses who walked in the garden of beauty—we may say, I think, that such a report would be in substantial agreement with the report that is here offered ”

“ The universal belief in the passing of the spirits of the dead to the west, is to my mind a complete answer to those who hold that the Polynesian migrations were from the east. It is an essential part of Polynesian belief that the spirits rejoin those of the ancient dead and there dwell in a land of beauty and plenty, where the gods supply every want, and with whom communication is constant. The Polynesians would not locate this Paradise in the west, if their ancestral home was in the east. ”

“ 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 ”

“ In the thousand or fifteen hundred years that they have inhabited the islands the Polynesians have worked out a system of human relationships nearer the ultimate, perhaps, than our own idealists would have us believe. ”

“ From this period, down through the ages until the day of their discovery by the Spaniards, the gulf which separated them from the rest of the human family remained unbridged, and the Polynesians were suffered to evolve their own racial peculiarities and develop their own national spirit, untrammelled by exterior influences. ”

“ The island-nature of the archipelago is very favourable to race-mixture; and as we know that on some islands there were several settlements of Polynesians, it is not surprising to find a very complex mingling of races, which it is not an easy task to disentangle. It would seem, however, that we have before us remnants of four races: a short, dark, curly-haired and perhaps original race, a few varieties of the tall Melanesian race, arrived in the islands in several migrations, an old Polynesian element as a relic of its former migrations eastward, and a present Polynesian element from the east. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The inhabitants of these islands have a character for ferocity which is not often to be found among this race of Polynesians, and are said to be lower in the human scale than any whom we have hitherto described. ”

“ But also the movement of the Polynesians points to the west, and if their ancestors may have come from Indonesia there is no doubt that in their long journeys eastward they must have touched at the coasts of other islands on their way, especially the Philippines. ”

“ Fornander seemed to be of the opinion that this was a racial name applied by the Polynesians to themselves in ancient times, and derived from one of their remote ancestors named Kalani-Menehune; but from Maori and Rarotonga accounts, they appear rather to have been an alien race. The vague notions the Polynesians generally now have in regard to the Manahune—their living in the mountains and forests, the wonderful powers of sorcery, &c., accredited to them—seems to point to their having been a race living in the remote past conquered by the Polynesians, and probably often enslaved by them. ”

“ Dwelling in small communities in isles of small area, cut off from communion with more advanced peoples, the Polynesians must have lived for many centuries in much the same stage of culture as they had been when they first entered the Pacific.
The Maori of New Zealand followed in the footsteps of many other divisions of mankind with regard to the commencement of the year. ”

“ The drawer of water, as he lets his bucket down to the farthest reaches of the wells of antiquity, finds in his vessel evidence of kinship with races now covering the whole of Europe. Romance has it that the Amerindians are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel and Mormon missionaries are carrying that charm among the Polynesians. They are very successful in New Zealand among the Maories. Like a great current of warm water in the sea, the Polynesian races have run from Hawaii to Samoa, the Marquesas, Tahiti, and Maoriland. ”

“ The island is small, and the inhabitants probably not more than three hundred or four hundred. They are Polynesians, men of very large stature, rough in manner, and not very easily managed. I landed there and waded across the reef among forty or fifty men. On the beach a large party assembled. I told them in a sort of Polynesian patois, that I wished to take away two lads from their island, that I might learn their language, and come back and teach them many things for their good. ”

“ The true history of a native race can never be written by one who is not thoroughly soaked in the traditions and language of the people, and since no one [Pg 13] man can be an authority upon more than one branch of a people so widely scattered as the Polynesians, a perfect treatise will not be written until Fornanders shall be found contemporary in Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Rarotonga, Futuna, Wallis, and Hawaii, and collaboration arranged between them. To such a task the Polynesian Society in Wellington might well devote its energies. ”

“ The people called by A. R. Wallace, Galela, and who live on the northern shores of Gilolo, are, in all probability, remnants of the Polynesian race, Mr. Wallace describes them ("The Malay Archipelago" p. 325) thus: "They are a very fine people of light complexion, tall, and with Papuan features, coming nearer to the drawings and descriptions of the Polynesians of Tahiti and Hawaii than any I have seen."
We cannot, however, at the present time settle when the Polynesians left Indonesia. ”

“ Polynesian Family.
The tribes included by Dumont d’Urville under the name of Polynesians inhabit the entire eastern part of Oceania, namely, the Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas, the Friendly and Society groups, the Low Archipelago, New Zealand, etc.
The people of all these bear the closest affinity to each other. Their complexion is olive, verging on brown, but not copper-coloured; they are tall in stature, and have sinewy limbs, high foreheads, black, lively, and expressive eyes, and but slightly flattened noses. ”

“ One does not like to be too enthusiastic, but if these savage Polynesians can in the course of three generations, and with the aid of a slight mixture, change from fierce cannibalism to something as sweet and lovable as this, there is indeed great hope for them. ”

“ 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. ”