VII.] THE OCEANIC MONGOLS. 249 



Malaysia at all, but from Melanesia, that the Hovas were all 

 originally black, that their olive colour is due to the environment 1 , 

 that the points of resemblance between the Malayan and Malagasy 

 languages may be due to the influence of Arab (sic) traders, and 

 that the North African Libyans may be the remote ancestors of 

 the Hovas, whose type in more than one respect resembles that 

 of the present Kopts 2 . The extent to which Malagasy ethnology 

 has lapsed into chaos may be judged from the contradictory views 

 now current on the origin, type, and affinities of the dominant 

 and presumably well-known Hovas, as, for example :- 



Collignon. Bloch. 



The Hovas differ in no* The Hovas appear to repre- 



important re.spect from the sent a now extinct red race, 

 true Malays ; showing close who were originally Melanesians 

 affinity to the Javanese and or Oceanic Negritoes ; are quite 

 Madurese, most typical of Ma- distinct from the Malays ; their 

 layans. common speech proves nothing, 



as it is common also to the 

 Melanesians. 

 Malayenauswanderung als etwa um das Jahr 1000 n. Chr. vollig ausreichend 



ist etc. etc." 



1 Dr Adolphe Bloch, Bid. Soc. cTAnthrop. 1896, p. 498 sq. Here it is 

 argued that all the Hovas " sont issus de cette race primitive [les Negres 

 oceaniens], comme toutes les autres populations de Madagascar," and that 

 " les Malegaches jaunes out du se former comme se forment toutes les 

 varietes de 1'espece humaine, c'est a dire sous 1'influence de la variabilite qui 

 caracterise tous les etres vivants " (p. 511). But the prototypes of these Hovas 

 are already found in Malaysia ; consequently they did not need to be again 

 specialised in Madagascar from a black precursor, an evolution which, as I 

 hold, never took place. At all events it should not be assumed without 

 necessity, and here there is no necessity. 



2 M. Ch. Letourneau in Bid. Soc. cCAnthrop. 1896, p. 521 sq. This case 

 is characteristic, the source appealed to for some very rash statements, as, for 

 instance, that the linguistic analogies between Malay and Malagasy are " aussi 

 peu frappantes que possible," being the antiquated History of Madagascar 

 by W. Ellis, with J. J. Freeman's Appendix, 1838. M. Letourneau, who has 

 done such excellent work in other fields, might surely have reflected that the 

 Malagasy question was scarcely understood in the thirties, and that since then 

 the "analogies" so far from being slight, have been proved to be identities by 

 Marre, Last, Dahle, Richardson, Cousins, and in fact all philologists who 

 have given serious attention to the subject. 



