Linton — TJic Marquesas Islands 319 



in the pierced planks placed along the center of the Marquesan bow piece. In 

 both we have the high ornamental stern projection. In both, the upper edges 

 of the side planks were expanded to form flat gunwales and the planks themselves 

 were often decorated with carving. In both the Maori and Marquesan canoes, the 

 strips covering the outside of the seams between underbody and side plank were 

 blackened and were decorated with tufts of white feathers at the lashings. Among 

 the Maori, the feathers for this seam decoration were obtained from the shear- 

 water, and although the species of bird from which the Marquesans obtained their 

 feathers for this purpose was not identified, the native descriptions of the habits 

 of the birds makes it almost certain that these people also obtained their decora- 

 tions from the shearwater. 



The resemblances just noted are too close and numerous to be the result of 

 independent evolution, and although the canoes of the two groups differed in cer- 

 tain minor structural details, the conclusion is inevitable that they represent di- 

 vergent developments of a single type. The existence of such closely related forms 

 at almost opposite ends of the Polynesian crescent, when the space between is oc- 

 cupied by forms which differ from both more widely than the Maori and Mar- 

 quesan canoes differ from each other, is best explained by the assumption that 

 they represent marginal survivals of a form which had been diffused over the 

 whole eastern area, but which has been destroyed or overlaid in the intervening 

 regions. The Society Island canoes, with their combination of high stern and 

 prow with many piece construction, are probably a h3'brid type resulting from the 

 superposition of the western stjde of construction upon the Maori-Marquesan 

 form. The exact relation of the Hawaiian canoe to this Maori-Marquesan form 

 is difficult to establish. Basicly they are the same, but the Hawiian canoe lacks 

 all the ornamental features of the other type. It seems probable that both are 

 descended from a common ancestor while the relatively greater simplicity of the 

 Hawaiian canoe suggests that it stands nearer to this original form. The features 

 which distinguish the Maori-Marquesan t}'pe — the high bow and stern and profuse 

 decoration — are strongly suggestive of Melanesia, and it seems probable that they 

 are a result of Melanesian influence. 



159] 



