Shortland. — Sketch of tie Maori Races. 337 



otlier that they may almost be looked ou as dialects of the same language ; 

 and, as far as is known, the superstitions, customs, and manners of their 

 inhabitants have a general similarity. 



At the Friendly Islands, however, the Polynesian race is found to be 

 partially blended with a totally distinct race called Papuans, having a dif- 

 ferent language and different habits ; while in !N^ew Caledonia, in the New 

 Hebrides, and in other islands lying more to the west, as well as in the chain 

 of islands connecting them with New Gruinea, the inhabitants are all Papuans, 

 New Guinea being the stronghold of that race. 



It is a rational conjecture that the primitive inhabitants of the whole 

 Indian Archipelago were also Papuans. This may be inferred from the fact 

 that traces of the race are still discovered ■ in many of the islands now 

 occupied by the brown race, as well as in the Malay Peninsula, and even, 

 according to some accounts, in Cochin-China, while the natives of the Anda- 

 man Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, have all the characteristics of the Papuan 

 family. 



A migration from the continent of Asia of a brown race of Indians ap- 

 pears to have taken place at a subsequent era, and to have established itself 

 by force in the Malay Peninsula, in Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Celebes, and 

 several of the adjacent islands, as well as in the Philippine group, extermin- 

 ating to a great measure or absorbing the Papuan races in the conquered 

 districts. 



From the Philippines detached portions of the population of the brown 

 race must have migrated eastward in search of new lands, and thus peopled 

 the Caroline and Ladrone Islands, whence they found their way to the Sand- 

 wich Islands and to the Navigators and Society Islands, and the islands 

 comprising Polynesia proper, all of Avhich, we have every reason to believe, 

 were before then uninhabited. 



The most convincing proof that the primitive stock from which the 

 brown race of the Indian Archipelago and the Polynesians have sprung was 

 the same, is derived from comparisons made between their languages. It is 

 observed that the languages of both are constructed on the same gramma^tical 

 principles, and present many striking points of agreement in other respects. 



I was much struck by finding the identity of a root of the pronoun of 

 the first person singular in the Maori of New Zealand with the root of the 

 same pronoun in Malayan, and in the T'hay or Siamese, an allied continental 

 language. In the Maori this pronoun has two roots, au and kio, just as in 

 the English the same pronoun has two roots I and me. In the Malayan, 

 I is represented by one of these roots, ku, which becomes aku by the addi- 

 tion of the personal prefix a. In the Siamese language, the same pronoun is 

 represented by the simple root ku. 

 43 



