SECTION H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 



ASSAM ORIGINS IN RELATION TO 



OCEANIA 



ADDRESS BY 



PROF. J. H. HUTTON, CLE., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



In choosing this subject I am not attempting to offer any definite solution 

 to the problems of Indonesian migrations, but propose rather to examine 

 one aspect of them in the hopes that I may elicit further information 

 from various quarters which may contribute towards the ultimate solution 

 of what is really a complex of very difficult problems, as I feel that although 

 a clearing up of the main question may be very distant some analysis of 

 the Assam side of the problem is perhaps possible. 



Many parallels are to be found of one sort or another between Assam 

 and Oceania, some of which were pointed out by Sir Henry Yule and by 

 S. E. Peal ^ in articles in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute in 

 February 1880 and 1893 respectively, and others of which I myself 

 pointed out in an article on Assam and the Pacific in Man in India in 1 924. 

 In 1925 Mr. Henry Balfour pointed out cultural connections between 

 Assam and Indonesia in the matter of certain types of thorn-lined fish 

 traps ^ and, more recently, of fretted horn and shell ear ornaments. 

 It will, therefore, be enough here to demonstrate by three examples the 

 general association between Assam and Oceanic cultures. 



Evans has pointed out ^ how the Malay word buni connects with the 

 word ' taboo ' throughout the Pacific, iwwi or /)Mm' having always some sense 

 of segregation and a cutting off of communication with the outside world. 

 This word puni clearly appears in the Naga words penna and pini, the 

 Angami and Sema words respectively for the taboo observed by a whole 

 village when intercourse with all strangers is entirely prohibited, and to 

 the Pacific examples given by Evans might be added the use in the 

 Marquesas of the 'words penant and pana-le.^ 



The second example is that of the use of wooden images to accommodate 

 the souls of the departed, whose skull is used to form part of the image. 

 In the Naga hills ^ certain remote Konyak villages across the frontier, 

 e.g. Tobu, accommodate the souls of their dead in basket-work figures 



1 Peal, S. E., 1893, J. A. I., 22, 244 sqq. 



* Balfour, H., 1925, Man, 21. 



^ Evans, 1920, Man, 38 ; cf. Hutton I, 192, 200 seqq. ; II, 220. {Note : A key 

 to roman figures used in references will be found in an alphabetical list of autho- 

 rities at the end of the address). 



* Delmas, 1927, La Religion des Marquisiens, 62. ' Hutton, X. 



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