XIV.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 563 



belong our EASTERN POLYNESIANS, who are mostly long-heads 1 

 with remarkably regular features often of a distinctly European 

 stamp, and other characters of a pronouncedly Caucasic type. 

 The hair is mostly black and straight, but also wavy, though 

 never frizzly or even kinky. The colour also is of a light brown 

 compared to cinnamon or cafe-au-lait, and sometimes approaching 

 an almost white shade, while the tall stature averaging 5 ft. 1 1 in. 

 or 6 ft. slightly exceeds that of several European groups in Sweden, 

 Norway, North Britain and Ireland. 



But the language, it is objected, is not Aryan or European. 

 No doubt this is so, but the Caucasic peoples of the New Stone 

 Age spread over North Africa, Europe, and Asia, and most of 

 them spoke non-Aryan idioms, as we see very well from the 

 Hamito-Semitic and the allied Basque, besides those of the 

 Caucasus, and Yagnobi, which in its remarkable survival may 

 be called the "Basque of Central Asia." Malayo-Polynesian 

 also, of which Eastern Polynesian is a very pure member, has 

 its roots on the Asiatic mainland, whence it was diffused over 

 the Oceanic world by our Indonesians in prehistoric times. The 

 problems associated with this position are intricate, but have 

 already been dealt with in the seventh chapter of this volume. 



Migrating at an unknown date eastwards from Malaysia, the 

 Indonesians appear to have first formed permanent 



. ..... Migrations. 



settlements in Samoa, and more particularly in the 

 island of Savaii, originally Savaiki, which name under divers 

 forms and still more divers meanings accompanied all their subse- 

 quent migrations over the Pacific waters. Thus we have in Tahiti 

 Jfavaii' 2 , the "universe," and the old capital of Raiatea; in Raro- 

 tonga Avaiki, "the land under the wind"; in New Zealand 

 Jfawaiki t "the land whence came the Maori"; in the Marquesas 

 Havaiki, "the lower regions of the dead," as in to fenua Havaiki, 



1 I make this statement on the authority of Dr Hamy, who, against the 

 current opinion, finds from fresh measurements that "dans 1'est, dans le nord, 

 et dans le sud ils presentent une dolichocephalic fort prononcee" (Hawaii 75'5; 

 Taiti 74*1; Maori 73*2), rising only in the west to 80 (Les Races Malaiques, 

 V Anlhropologie^ 1896, p. 137). 



2 H everywhere takes the place of .5", which is preserved only in the Samoan 

 mother-tongue; cf. Gr. eirra. with Lat. septem, Eng. seven. 



^6 2 



