46 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



the same throughout; speakers of the Maori of New Zealand can under- 

 stand it and make themselves understood; it has nothing to do directly 

 with the Melanesian languages.* The existence of these Polynesian settle- 

 ments, however, in the midst of Melanesia can not fail to suggest questions 

 of interest and importance which it is impossible to dismiss without con- 

 sideration. As to their origin, it is not difficult to conjecture what it has 

 been. Canoes accidentally drifting or blown away, or expeditions pur- 

 posely directed to known islands, have landed small parties of Polynesian 

 people either on uninhabited places or on islands occupied by Melanesians. 

 Some at least of such settlements may be supposed comparatively modern. 

 If such islands as Rennel, Bellona, or Tikopia have been reached, remote 

 from any large Melanesian island, the colonists naturally remain purely 

 Polynesian in language, habits, and physical characteristics, for there is 

 no admixture. If a single canoe, or a small male party, has found its 

 way to an inhabited Melanesian island, the Polynesian element has been 

 absorbed, leaving perhaps only some fairer and more straight-haired 

 children as an evidence of mixed blood. f In the case of such a settle- 

 ment as Mae the case is different. The middle part of that island, one 

 only about six miles long, is occupied by people whose speech is that 

 common to all these Polynesian settlers, but who physically are not dis- 

 tinguishable from their neighbors who are Melanesian both in language and 

 physical character. The same is the case in the Swallow Islands: the 

 inhabitants of islands close together speak either a language like that of 

 Santa Cruz or the Polynesian ; but they are all alike Melanesian in appear- 

 ance. The Tikopians, an isolated Polynesian settlement, are wholly unlike 

 Melanesians — tall, heavy, light-colored men, with straight hair. The 

 reason why the Polynesian-speaking people of Mae, for example, are Mel- 

 anesian in appearance clearly is that the Melanesian blood in them has 

 overborne the Polynesian element; that is to say, the Polynesian settlers 

 have, generation after generation, taken Melanesian wives into their villages 

 in which the speech was Polynesian. The speech, the descent of chiefs, 

 certain religious practices, have remained Polynesian, the physical aspect 

 has gradually lost its original character. Under such circumstances the 

 speech which will be permanent is the speech of the settlement ; the phys- 

 ical character that will prevail will be that of the blood. Hence the 

 Tikopian is physically and in language purely Polynesian, the Fileni man 

 of the Swallow Group is in speech Polynesian but physically Melanesian. 

 The phenomena of the case are thus explained. + 



♦Some few years ago a whaler picked up in the Solomon Islands and brought down to 

 Norfolk Island some natives of Mae and Fate, survivors of a crew massacred in Ongtong 

 Java. They belonged to the Polynesian settlements, and they told me that they, the 

 Mae and Fate men, spoke the same language, and also understood that of the Ongtong 

 Java people. — Dr. Codrington's note. 



fl have seen myself in Ureparapara a man and woman with a son, drifted thither from 

 some Polynesian island; and I have noticed straight-haired children in Saddle Island 

 who were known to be descendants of Polynesian castaways. — Dr. Codrington's note. 



JSome fifty years ago the Banks Islands were visited in two successive years by double 

 canoes. The people in those canoes said they came from Tonga. They settled the first 

 year for a time on the islet of Qakea, close to Vanua Lava, quarrelled after a time with 

 their neighbors, and went off. When they returned next year they were attacked by 

 the natives and driven off. There were women with them. If they had settled on 

 Qakea there would be there now a Polynesian-speaking people, but Melanesian wives 

 from Vanua Lava would be continually bringing in Melanesian physical characteristics. 

 If Qakea had been an isolated place like Tikopia, there would have been then a small 

 purely Polynesian colony. — Dr. Codrington's note. 



