CHAPTER XL 



EQUATORIAL POLYNESIA. 



lOLYISTESIA is one of those vague geographical terms which have 

 been variously applied to more or less extensive aggregates of 

 oceanic islands. From the purely geographical standpoint these 

 are insular groups of small extent, scattered over the Pacific east 

 of the great archipelagoes and continental regions of the Philip- 

 pines, New Guinea, and Australia. But ethnographically considered Polynesia, 

 that is, the " Many Islands," consists of the east oceanic clusters inhabited by the 

 light brown race allied to the Malays in speech, but differing greatly from them in 

 physical appearance, usages, and traditions. Hence, from the ethnical point 

 of view, both New Zealand in the Antarctic hemisphere and Hawaii in the 

 northern hemisphere would form part of Polynesia. But these outlying regions, 

 so far removed from the equator, are so clearly distinguished by their climate and 

 geographical constitution from the other Polynesian groups, that they have to be 

 studied apart. The Ellice Archipelago, also, whose inhabitants are likewise Poly- 

 nesians, belong to the same insular chain as the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. 



Within its restricted limits Polynesia, properly so called, lies almost entirely 

 between the equator and the tropic of Capricorn. But even within these limits it 

 still presents a considerable extent of land scattered over about 1,200,000 square 

 miles of oceanic waters, and disposed in eleven chief groups, with here and there 

 little clusters in twos and threes, or even solitary islands of every form, with a 

 collective area estimated at nearly 4,000 square miles. Of the several islands, 

 about two hundred and twenty have an area of at least half a mile and upwards ; 

 but it would be impossible to number all the thousands of distinct islets and reefs, 

 which form the rings of countless atolls, and which are awash with the surface, 

 appearing and disappearing with the alternation of the tides. 



Like most other oceanic lands, the East Polynesian Islands are disposed in 

 certain uniform directions. With the exception of Tonga, which belongs to the 

 New Zealand system, and is connected with that archipelago through the Kermadec 

 group, all the Polynesian islands are arranged in the direction from north-west to 

 south-east in parallel chains, whose true form is shown more distinctly by that of 

 the submerged banks revealed by the sounding-line. Excluding the less impor- 

 tant prominences, six main ridges follow with striking regularity from the Niue 



