43 



ON THE ORIGIN AND MIGRATIONS OF THE 

 POLYNESIAN NATION ; 



DEMONSTRATING THEIR ORIGINAL DISCOVERY AND PROGRESSIVE 

 SETTLEMENT OF THE CONTINENT OF AMERICA. 



By the Eev. Dk. Lang. 



[jRead "before the JRoyal Society of N.S.TF., 5 Jtdy, 1876.] 



In the outset of a series of lectures delivered before this Society 

 seven or eight years since, I observed that the singular phenome- 

 non which the South Sea Islands present to the eye of a philo- 

 sophical observer is perhaps one of the most difficult to account 

 for that has ever engaged the efforts or the ingenuity of man. 

 From the Sandwich Islands in the Northern, to New Zealand in 

 the Southern, Hemisphere ; from the Indian Archipelago to 

 Easter Island, adjoining the continent of America — an extent of 

 ocean comprising sixty degrees of latitude and a hundred and 

 twenty of longitude, that is exactly twice the extent of the 

 Eoman Empire in its greatest glory — the same primitive language 

 is spoken, the same singular customs prevail, the same semi- 

 barbarous nation inhabits the multitude of the isles. 



In using this language, however, I would not be understood to 

 include the numerous islands and groups of islands of the West- 

 ern Pacific ; the inhabitants of which are all remarkably different 

 from the other South Sea Islanders, and would seem to be derived 

 from the same primitive stock as the aborigines of Australia and 

 the Papuans of New Gruinea. These islanders of the Western 

 Pacific are all of a much darker hue than those of Polynesia 

 Proper, or the Eastern Islanders, many of them beiug jet black ; 

 and there is this remarkable distinction between the two races, 

 that while the languages of Eastern Polynesia are all mere 

 dialects of the same primitive tongue, there is an infinity of lan- 

 guages in the islands of Western Polynesia, and all remarkably 

 different from each other, every island of any size having one 

 of its own, and the larger islands three or four. 



My attention was strongly directed to this very interesting sub- 

 ject at an early period after my arrival in this Colony for the first 

 time in the year 1823 ; and as there was a more frequent inter- 

 course at that period than in later years, between New South 



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