DETERMINATION OF THE PLACE OF RAPANUI. 



157 



parable inter se and with the strictly quantitative results heretofore 

 developed and for convenience of such reference included herein under 

 italic differentiation: 



Table 35- 



At a glance we observe that quality apportions these four component 

 elements of the province in an order in parts other than that which 

 develops out of mere quantity. We shall first examine, as before, that 

 element of the material which is identifiable in other seats of Polynesian 

 culture. It should be borne in mind that these artificial figures of 

 quality are an attempt to provide some sort of index for a certain char- 

 acter which may be designated the generality, the community probably 

 more accurately than either, the diffusion of the speech elements 

 under review. It is indicative largely of the degree in which each lan- 

 guage is the heir to the general stock of the vocabulary. 



Let us look more closely into the double column accredited to the 

 general Polynesian. In the italic column of quantitative ratio we find 

 that the average possession is 4 per cent and that the preeminence of 

 the Paumotu is but a single unit per centum. But when we turn to the 

 index of diffusion we find a curve far more strongly accented, the Pau- 

 motu still remaining at the peak, but at a marked interval from the 

 Tahiti at the second level, which it closely shares with the Marquesas, 

 and both distinctly removed from the level at which Mangareva stands 

 below the central level by an amount in close correspondence with the 

 interval which sets off the Paumotu in first place. The reading of this 

 curve is not essentially difficult. We should be puzzled to designate 

 what may be the unit which underlies the artificiality of these indices, 

 but whatever this unit may be imagined to be we find that the Paumotu 

 shares its inheritance nearly twice as much as Mangareva, and that 

 Tahiti and the Marquesas jointly occupy the mid space. 



Now what are we to understand by this expression, sharing the 

 inheritance? In other words are we to regard the Paumotu as a chief 

 center of distribution to the sister archipelagoes or as a center of deposit? 

 Distribution, of course, there has been; but the true reading of this 

 record lies in regarding the Paumotu as a place of deposit. We have 

 already observed that the Paumotu lies like a chain across the general 

 sailing-course up the wind, that in its great extent it must catch and 



hold more of the voyagers than any other group. We have already 



- 



. 





