202 



NA TURE 



{IJec. 30, 1880 



it seems impossible to dispel the delusion, although, as 

 Prof. Flower well remarks, " the report of a committee of 

 the Paris Anthropological Society on the growth of the 

 hair of a Negro in one of the hospitals of that city, 

 published last year (1879) in the Btilletin of the Society, 

 ought to set the question at rest for ever." It is curious 

 that evolutionists should have discovered in man a trait 

 which is characteristic of none of the anthropoids. 



The Negritos, whether those described by Jagor and 

 Meyer in the Philippines, or those visited by E. H. Man 

 in the Andaman group, are all alike socially on the lowest 

 level. They are all nomadic, though not pastoral, moving 

 about from hill to hill, from coast to river-bank, in search 

 of food or shelter from the weather or their enemies. 

 They live on the fruits and roots of the tropical wood- 

 lands, on wild honey, snakes, frogs, fish, or such game as 

 their feeble weapons (mostly spear and bow and arrow) 

 are able to procure them. Yet, although indolent and 

 incapable of providing for the future, they do not lack 

 intelligence, for their brain capacity (inde.x No. 74) is 

 still immensely greater than that of the highest anthropoid 

 ape. The Aetas often acquire a knowledge of the neigh- 

 bouring Tagalog and Bisayan (Malayan) dialects, and the 

 speech of the .Andamanese seems from Man's specimens 

 to belong to a highly agglutinating type. They appear 

 to have no shrines or idols of any sort, in this greatly 

 differing from the Papuans, and their religious thought is 

 limited to a blind awe or fear of the powers of nature, for 

 them doubtless supernatural manifestations. But our 

 knowledge of their inner life is still far too restricted 

 to pronounce very positively on these points. The 

 Negritos are not generally suspected of cannibalism ; but 

 the Karons of New Guinea are certainly addicted to the 

 practice. One of them, although quite a youth, admitted 

 to M. AchiUe Raffray that he had already eaten fifteen 

 men, treating it as quite a matter of course. They 

 appear, however, to confine themselves to the bodies of 

 their enemies slain in battle, and do not regard every 

 stranger as so much "meat," like the Negroes of the 

 Lualaba-Congo. 



II. The Papuans: Papuans proper j Sub-Papiians West 

 {'' A/fiiros"); Siib-Papiuins East {Melanesians) 

 The Papiian domain is entirely oceanic, stretching in 

 its widest sense from the island of Floris, Malaysia, 

 eastwards to Fiji (120" - 180° E. long.), and from about 

 the equator southwards to New Caledonia, at this point 

 approaching the Tropic of Capricorn. In our scheme 

 are shown three branches, a central, western, and eastern, 

 which grouping has the convenience of being at once 

 geographical, and to a large e.xtent ethnical. The type 



itself, so named from the Malay word j^^ {papuwah 



= frizzly), denoting one of its most striking characteristics, 

 retains everywhere a considerable degree of uniformity in 

 all essentials. But it is largely mi.xed with two distmct 

 elements, the Malay in the west, the brown Polynesian or 

 Sawaiori in the east. No doubt there are mixture^ in 

 New Guinea or the central region also, and notably on 

 the south-east coast, to which the brovvn Polynesians 

 seem to have penetrated in more recent times. But on 

 the whole the bulk of the New Guinea people, including 

 the adjacent Aru, Waigiu, Salwatty, Mysol, and Ke 

 islanders, may be taken as the most typical branch of the 

 race. The western division, composed of Malayo- Papuans, 

 and often vaguely spoken of as '"Alfuros," but whom 1 

 name Sub-Papiians West, comprises the Mala\sian islands 

 of Floris, Jilolo, Ceram, Buio, Coram, Timor, Wetter, 

 Timor Laut, and neighbouring islets, without prejudice to 

 the question of Papuan blood in Borneo and Celebes. 

 The^ eastern division, compose i mainly of Sawaiori- 

 Papuans, and whom I name Sub-Papiians East, comprises 

 all the South Pacific Islands grouped as Melanesia. This 

 ■term, Melanesia, referring to the prevailing black colour 



of the natives, is in every way convenient, so that Sub- 

 Papuan East and Melanesian may be taken as practically 

 synonymous. Here the chief groups are the Admiralty, 

 New Britain, New Ireland, Solomon, New Hebrides, 

 New Caledonia, Fiji, and it is to be noted that there are 

 some, possibly many, Melanesians who betray no trace of 

 mixture with the brown Polynesians, and who must con- 

 sequently be regarded as pure Papuans. Such are the 

 Vanicoro and Mallicolo people in the New Hebrides, and 

 especially the Kai Colos of Viti Levu in Fiji, some speci- 

 mens of whose crania Prof. Flower has recently shown to 

 be absolutely the inost dolichocephalous on the globe. As 

 brachycephaly is a distinctive mark of the Negrito, so 

 dolichocephaly is of the Papuan type. Consequently on 

 this easternmost verge of the Papuan area we would seem 

 to have, as far as is known, the very purest specimen of 

 the race. This harmonises with the view 1 have ventured 

 elsewhere to express, that the type was developed in a 

 now submerged Souih Pacific Continent, moving west- 

 wards with the gradual subsidence of the land. For a 

 long way east of New Guinea and North-East Australia, 

 in fact quite as far as Samoa, the water is very shallow, 

 averaging probably not more than 500 fathoms. 



The accompanying illustrations may be taken as typical 

 specimens of the three great divisions of the Papuan 

 family. Characteristic full-blood Papuan types are those 

 of two members of the Wosaoni tribe. North- West Coast 

 of New Guinea (Figs. 4 and 5), from portraits by M. 

 Raffray, originally figured in the Toi/r t/it Monde, for 

 April, 1879, P- 267. In Figs. 6 and 7 we have good 

 specimens of the so-called ".Alfuros," or mixed Malayo- 

 Papirans of the .'\rchipelago, from sketches by M. Rosen- 

 berg, reproduced in his "Malay Archipelago," vol. ii. 

 p 401. The Vanikoro chief (Fig. 8), from Stanford's 

 "Australasia," p. 476, represents a pure Melanesian 

 head, extremely narrow and high, with long straight, but 

 somewhat broad (platyrhine) nose and frizzly hair. In 

 this front view the prognathism and dolichocephaly are 

 of course not so perceptible as they would be in pro- 

 file. The Motu youth (Fig. 9), from ;Stone's work, "A 

 Few Months in New Guinea" (Sampson Low and Co.), 

 illustrates the sub- Papiian East type, the moppy head 

 being thoroughly Papuan, while the broad face, implying 

 brachycephaly, must be referred to Sawaiori influences. 

 The Motu people occupy a strip of about sixty miles on 

 the south-east coast of New Guinea about Port Moresby, 

 and speak a language of the Sawaiori type, apparently 

 more allied to Samoan than to Malay. Ci. C. Stone's 

 statement that they reckon up to one million must be 

 received with caution, for the Samoans themselves cannot 

 get beyond 10,000, while the Malays draw the line at 

 100,000. The familiar Maori (New Zealand) head (Fig. 

 10), from Stanford's "Australasia," p. 565, seems to 

 support the now generally accepted view that the Maoris 

 are not pure brown Polynesians, but a mixture of Raro- 

 tongans (Sawaiori stock) and Melanesians, the former 

 predominating. According to some of their traditions on 

 their arrival, probably some 600 years ago, they found 

 the islands occupied by an aboriginal people, who must 

 have been Melanesians, and who were partly exterminated 

 and partly absorbed. 



In point of culture the Papuans take a far higher place 

 not only than the Negritoes and Australians, but even 

 than most of the African Negroes. They build houses 

 preferably on piles, cultivate the land with great care and 

 intelligence, are everywhere settled in fi.\ed tribal com- 

 munities governed by well-understood usages. Alfred R. 

 Wallace, a careful observer of this race, ranks them intel- 

 lectually higher even than the Malays, accountaig for their 

 social inferiority by their less favourable surroundings 

 and remoteness from the civilising influences of more 

 highly-cultured peoples. A very pleasing account is given 

 by Cook of his visit to the New Caledonians, who are 

 ..efierally regarded as an unfavourable branch of the 



