140 H. B. GUPPY, M.B., ON 



amongst the spoken tongues of the later settlers in the 

 Archipelago — to wit, the Malays proper and the Javanese. 

 From them, during a long sojourn in the Archipelago, the 

 Polynesians derived those common characters in language 

 which now link together peoples that in physical characters 

 stand far apart. The Melanesians in their turn had, doubt- 

 less ages before, been influenced by contact with the abori- 

 ginal Negrito population of the Archipelago. Probably 

 enough they in this manner became possessed of the names 

 for wild roots and tubers employed by the aborigines, and 

 it is likely that the Australians before them carried away 

 with them some similar linguistic mementoes of their sojourn 

 in that region. Thus, on a priori grounds, we might expect 

 to find similar terms for edible roots and tubers amongst the 

 Negritos, the Australians, the Melanesians, the Polynesians, 

 the Micron esians, the later Malayan immigrants in the Archi- 

 pelago, and even in Further India. Professor Kern, in his 

 Stamland der Maleisch-Polynesische Voiken* if I understand 

 him rightly, regards the Malayo-Polynesians as taking the 

 part that I have here ascribed to the Melanesians. It is, I 

 venture to think, unlikely that a people so long adapted to 

 the conditions of tropical life could have received their words 

 for the staple articles of their vegetable diet, such as those 

 for the yam, the taro, the banana, etc., from the Malayo- 

 Polynesians, who were more recent sojourners in the tropics. 

 The view I here uphold as to the relation of the Polynesians 

 to the other peoples of the Pacific is based therefore on 

 their geographical position. As regards the argument from 

 language, I infer that after the passage of the Australians 

 the Melanesian speech has acted as a linguistic leaven on 

 the numerous languages that have come in contact with it. 



With regard to the conditions of isolation in which the 

 Polynesians were found by European navigators, it is well 

 known that although they were provided with numerous 

 varieties of the banana, breadfruit, yam, taro, etc., the inhabi- 

 tants of the different groups had but little communication 

 with any but their immediate neighbours. The conditions 

 that provailed in the time of Bougainville, Cook, and others 

 could only have led to the local distribution of useful plants, 

 but not to their extension over the Pacific. They would 



* Versl. en Mededeel. der Koninkl. Akad. v. Wetemch : Afdeeling Letter- 

 X-«?i(ie, 3de Eeeks, Deel vi. Amsterdam, 1889. 



