HOMINID^E 751 



but to which an easy transition can be traced from the most char- 

 acteristic members of the type. 



D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo - Polynesians, Mahoris, 

 Sawaioris, or Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen 

 in their greatest purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Poly- 

 nesian Islands, are still more modified, and possess less of the 

 characteristic Mongolian features ; but yet it is difficult to place 

 them anywhere else in the system. The large infusion of the 

 Melanesian element throughout the Pacific must never be forgotten 

 in accounting for the characters of the people now inhabiting the 

 islands an element in many respects so diametrically opposite to 

 the Mongolian that it would materially alter the characters, especi- 

 ally of the hair and beard, which has been with many authors a 

 stumbling-block to the affiliation of the Polynesian with the Mongolian 

 stock. This mixture is physically a fine one, and in some propor- 

 tions produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the Maories 

 of New Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches quite 

 as near, or nearer, to the Caucasian type than to either of the 

 stocks from which it may be presumably derived. This resemblance 

 has led some ethnologists to infer a real extension of the Caucasian 

 element at some very early period into the Pacific Islands, and to 

 look upon their inhabitants as the product of a mingling of all the 

 three great types of men. Though this is a very plausible theory, 

 it rests on little actual proof, since the combination of Mongolo- 

 Malayan and Melanesian characters in different degrees, together 

 with the local variations certain to arise in communities so isolated 

 from each other and exposed to such varied conditions as the in- 

 habitants of the Pacific Islands, would probably account for all the 

 modifications observed among them. 



E. The native population (before the changes wrought by the 

 European conquest) of the great continent of America, excluding 

 the Eskimo, present, considering the vast extent of the country 

 they inhabit and the great differences of climate and other sur- 

 rounding conditions, a remarkable similarity of essential characters 

 with much diversity of detail. 



The construction of the numerous American languages, of which 

 as many as twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point 

 to unity of origin, as, though widely different in many respects, 

 they are all, or nearly all, constructed on the same general gram- 

 matical principle that called polysynthesis which differs from that 

 of the languages of any of the Old World nations. The mental 

 characteristics of all the American tribes have much that is in 

 common ; and the very different stages of culture to which they 

 had attained at the time of the conquest, as that of the Incas and 

 Aztecs and the hunting or fishing tribes of the north and south, 

 which have been quoted as evidence of diversities of race, were not 



