THE CANADIAN JOURNAL. 



NE^W SERIES 



No. LXXIL— AUGUST, 1870. 



THE NATIVE TRIBES OF POLYNESIA. 



Paper read before the Canadian Institute, Toronto, March 12th, ISVO. 

 BY RICHARD LEE, F.A.S.L. 



The following remarks must necessarily fall far short of any ihia^ 

 like a comprehensive summary of the leading features observable amono- 

 the natives of Polynesia. The most that I can hope to accomplish in 

 the brief space of a paper of this kind, is to note some of the most 

 prominent matters that have fallen under my own observation, and to 

 set forth some of the conclusions to which I have been led as to the 

 future of the tribes under consideration. 



Under the term Polynesia or Oceanica I would include all the islands 

 that lie between the 100th degree of west and the 125th degree of 

 east longitude, and between the 40th degree of south latitude and the 

 30th degree of north latitude. We have here a large area occupied by 

 various tribes of the Malay race, differing much from each other, but 

 all retaining very marked evidence of a common origin. My personal 

 knowledge of them is chiefly limited — though not entirely — to the 

 islands of Tasmania, Australia, New Zealand, the Figis and the Navi- 

 gator groups; and it is to these, and especially to the first named, that 

 I shall ask your attention. 



I need not remind members of this society that the Tasmanians are 

 now extinct, the last of the tribes having died in 1869. I first met 

 with them in 1853, and when I saw them last, in 1855, they numbered 

 only sixteen. The time had passed then for making inquiries which 

 could be of much value from an anthropological point of view. They 



