240 INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERS. 



circumstances have taken place. Even in the wildest 

 of the Malayo-Polynesian tribes, we find hereditary 

 chieftainship, division into different ranks in society, 

 private property, comfortable houses, cultivated 

 grounds, and well constructed canoes. Their lan- 

 guages,* so remarkable for their wonderful family 

 resemblance over so large a space of the earth's 

 surface, are, I believe, always copious, elegant, and 

 expressive, and they all cultivate the arts of music, 

 poetry, and dancing. The favourite weapons of 

 the Polynesian race are the spear and the dagger, 

 and they have no small aptitude for acquiring 

 skill in military evolutions, either at sea or on 

 shore. 



Papuan race. — Our information regarding the 

 intellectual characteristics of this race, is of a nega- 

 tive rather than positive kind. They seem to be 

 inferior to the Polynesian race, inasmuch as no 

 effort at civilization has ever sprung up among 

 them. Their political institutions seem to be simple 

 and feeble. We do not hear of any division into 

 ranks or of any hereditary chieftainship or authority 

 among them. They seem to live in small tribes, 

 hostile the one to the other. Of their religious 

 notions nothing is known. They have never attained 

 to any great skill in navigation. Their canoes are 

 commonly small, rudely fashioned, and unfit to en- 



* I must refer the reader to Dr. Prichard's work before-men- 

 tioned, for the most accessible, interesting, and condensed 

 account of the Great Polynesian language. 



