NA TV RE 



{Jan. 6, i8Si 



THE INDO-CHINESE AND OCEANIC RACES- 

 TYPES AND AFFINITIES^ 

 II. 

 A BETJEFin sorcery is very general, especially amongst 

 ■^~^ the I\Ielanesian^,and some of the practices associated 

 with it often resemble those prevalent amongst the Aus- 

 tralians and African Negroes, and even in mediaeval 

 times in Europe. In Tanna, New Hebrides group, Dr. 

 G. Turner tells us that the real gods " may be said to be 

 the disease-makers. It is surprising how these men are 

 dreaded, and how firm the belief is that they have in 

 their hands the power of life and death. There are rain- 

 makers and thunder-makers, and fly- and mosquito- 

 makers, and a host of other ' sacred men ' ; but the 

 disease- makers are the most dreaded. It is believed 

 that these men can create disease and death by burning 

 what is called iialiak. Nahak means rubbish, but princi- 

 pally refuse of food. Everything of the kind they burn 

 or throw into the sea lest the disease-makers should get 

 hold of it. These fellows are always about, and consider 

 it their special business to pick up and burn, with certain 

 formalities, anything in the nahak line that comes in 

 their way. If a disease maker sees the skin of a banana, 

 for instance, he picks it up, wraps it in a leaf, and wears 

 it all day hanging round his neck. The people stare as 

 they see him go along, and say to each other, ' He has got 

 something : he will do for somebody by and by at night.' 

 In the evening he scrapes the bark off a tree, mixes it with 

 the banana skin, rolls up tightly in a leaf in the form of a 

 cigar, and then puts the one end close enough to the fire 

 to cause it to singe, and smoulder and burn awny 

 gradually. Presently he hears a shell blowing. 'There,' 

 he says to his friends, ' there is the man whose rubbish I 

 am now burning ; he is dl. Ltt us stop burning and see 

 what they bring in the morning.' 



" When a person is taken ill he believes it is occasioned 

 by some one burning his rubbish. Instead of thinking 

 about medicine he calls some one to blow a shell, whidi, 

 when perforated and blown, can be heard two or three 

 miles oft'. The meaning of this is to implore the person 

 who is supposed to be burning the sick man's rubbish and 

 causing all the pain to stop burning; and it is a promi-e 

 as well that a present will be sent in the morning. The 

 greater the pam, the more they blow the bhell, and when 

 the pain abates they cease, supposing that the disease- 

 maker has been kind enough to stop burning. Then the 

 friends of the sick man arrange about a present to be 

 taken in the morning. Pigs, mats, knives, hatchets, 

 bead-i, whaler' teeth, &c., are the sort of thing taken. 

 Some of the disease-maMng craft are always ready to 

 receive the presents and to assure the party that they will 

 do their best to prevent the rubbish from being again 

 burnt. If the poor man has another attack at night 

 he thinks nahak is again burning. The shell is again 

 blown, and so they go on ; and if he dies his friends lay it 

 all down to the disease-tnakers, as not being pleased with 

 the presents taken and as having burned the rubbish to the 

 end. The idea is that whenever it is all burned the perscn 

 dies." (" Nineteen Years in Polynesia.") Substitute 

 for the nahak a wa>cen image of the absent victim, and 

 you have in this account a perfect parallel !o the belief in 

 the power of witchcraft to injure at a distance universd at 

 all times in Europe : — 



" Devovet .ibsente--, Mmulacraque ce.ea finyit, 

 Et miserum tenues in jecur urget acus." 



(Ovifl, Epist 6.) 

 Cut this merely shows ho\v little reliance can be placed 

 on similarity of manners and customs in tracing the 

 affinities of races. The mind of man having sprung, as 

 seems mtst probable, from one original centre, is every- 

 where very much the same in the infantile or undeveloped 



* Continued from p. 203. 



Stage. Hence, like practices under like conditions may 

 very well arise independently in diverse places without im- 

 plying any ethnioal relationship or even any necessary social 

 contact. The most e.xtravagant theorist would scarcely ven- 

 ture to suggest any direct relationship of any sort between 

 the Papuans, for instance, and the Basques ; yet amongst 

 the young girls of both races the extraordinary taste for 

 making pets of little pigs prevails. At least the practice 

 is spoken of by recent explorers as common in New 

 Guinea, while Mdme. d'Aulnoy ("Relation du Voyage 

 d'Espagne," Paris, 1691) was greatly surprised to find the 

 young Basque ladies of Bayonne indulging in the same 

 habit when she visited the place in 1679. " Some of 

 those who came to see me had a little sucking-pig tucked 

 under their arms, just as we carry our little lap-dogs. 

 Several had ribbons of different colours tied round their 

 necks as collars. But when the ladies joined in the dance 

 they were obliged to let the horrid beasts loose in the 

 room, where they made more noise than so many imps." 

 The "couvade" is another remarkable custom attributed 

 both to the Basques and to the Buru Islanders, Eastern 

 .Archipelago, in common with many other peoples ancient 

 and modern in the Old and New World. But M. Julien 

 Vinson {Rcpublique /vvz/zfiii/j-t', January 19, 1877) has shown 

 that, at least as far as regards the Basques, there is little 

 or no ground for the statement. We all know what 

 astonishing conclusions as to ethnical affinities certain 

 ethnologists have drawn from the assumed common 

 prevalence of this eccentric fashion amongst the most 

 widely-dispersed nations. Yet even if it did exist 

 among- 1 theni such conclusions would be otherwise 

 inadmissible. 



It may be mentioned that the missionaries have been 

 for some years at work amongst the Mafor people and their 

 kinsmen of Dorey, into whose language they have trans- 

 lated several tracts and portions of Scripture. Here is a 

 specimen from Genesis i. i (' In the beginning," &c.) : 

 " Beponeia kaku manseren allah ibejadi nanggi ma 

 diinya. Dilnya ibeiirba ma ibro beri, ma ifnurep I on ro 

 bo i, ma rijr manseren allah bieda iriob ro bo wareya." 

 The Malay, or rather Arabic words, allali, God, iliinya, 

 earth, rur for rnh, spirit, are of course borrowed by the 

 translator ; but the structure of the language is entirely 

 different, being highly agglutinating and employing both 

 pre- and post-fixe=, like other Papuan dialects. In other 

 respects the Papiian and Melanesian tongues differ so 

 profoundly from each other that it is impossible to group 

 them in one linguistic f.imily. As a rule they possess 

 absolutely nothing in common beyond a certain uniformity 

 of structure and such verbal resemblance .as is due to 

 iSIalay and Sawaiori influences. These influences are 

 very wide spread, as shown especially in the numerals, 

 which the dark races have almost evciywhere borrowed 

 from their brown and olive neighbours. But they often 

 still retain the old quint system at one time common to 

 Indo-China and Malaysia, but in th:; Oceanic area now 

 mostly replaced by the decimal. Thus in the Duke of 

 York Islands, between New Britain and New Ireland, 

 the five first numerals only are taken from the Sawaiori 

 or Eastern Polynesians, the numbers beyond five being 

 expressed by addition, as in Cambojan and several 

 Malayan and Western Paj uan dialects. Hence for the 

 Samoan e ono = six, e scfiilii = ten, we have liiiiadi via 

 m = 5 + 1, liiiiadi ma limadi =5-1-5, where limadi is 

 from the Samoan or Eastern Polynesian lima = 5. By 

 an analogous pro:ess the numerous Sawaiori words that 

 have found their way especially into the Eastern Papiian 

 idioms are always compelled to conform to the agglutinat- 

 ing character of Papuan grammar. Thus the Fijian and 

 Duke of York tama = brother, apparently answering to 

 the Samoan tiima = boy, assume the pronominal -^o-^X.- 

 dxei 3it, a^, /la, i&c, peculiar to those groups, the Fijian 

 tamazu and Duhe of York tama^ being equivalent to the 

 Samoan o lo'ii tama = my brother or my boy. Here we 



