The Pacific: The Least Known Region 549 



of entry of man into the Pacific — for it 

 is agreed that the inhabitants of this re- 

 gion could not have evolved there, but 

 must have entered it as emigrants, 

 whether voluntary or involuntary, from 

 some other branch of the human stock — 

 but the inquiry will no doubt throw much 

 illumination upon the evolution of the 

 human race itself. 



THREE DISTINCT RACES 



Much valuable material will also be 

 collected to assist in a better understand- 

 ing of the growth of our own civilization 

 from elemental savagery, for it is reason- 

 able to suppose that the primitive wants 

 of man in different ages and regions 

 have called forth similar expedients to 

 satisfy them. 



Other important objects of investiga- 

 tions for the ethnologist will touch the 

 various racial types in which the Pacific 

 islanders are divided. Of these, three 

 are generally recognized, of whom the 

 Papuans and Polynesians appear to show 

 the widest divergences, with the Micro- 

 nesians occupying the intermediate 

 ground and possessing affinities of race, 

 language, and custom within the other 

 two. Eliminating the Micronesians 

 from the question for the moment, the 

 presence of two distinct races of man in 

 the Pacific suggests two periods and 

 sources of immigration and adds diffi- 

 culty to an already perplexing question, 

 for the demarkation between the divis- 

 ions of the races is by no means well 

 defined, but is complicated by the admix- 

 ture of many other races of both oriental 

 and occidental origin. 



The Papuans may be generally said to 

 inhabit New Guinea, the Solomons, New 

 Caledonia, Australia, and Fiji. Their 

 most obvious characteristics may be 

 briefly summed up by stating that they 

 are irreligious, democratic, quarrelsome, 

 cannibalistic, and hostile to strangers. 

 They possess no hereditary chiefs, paint 

 or scar the body rather than wear 

 clothes, cook in earthen pots, chew betel, 

 and their speech is broken up into a 

 number of apparently irreconcilable dia- 

 lects. The Papuans are the least attrac- 



tive of any Pacific islanders, and the 

 island groups which they occupy are 

 among the least known of the Pacific 

 and have been for many generations 

 shunned by mariners and associated with 

 everything that is of evil repute in the 

 record of the ocean. 



The Polynesians in many attributes 

 are greatly at variance with the Papuan 

 islanders. They possess, generally 

 speaking, an elaborate religious system, 

 an established order of hereditary chiefs 

 and well-defined social castes. They are 

 friendly to strangers, fond of dress, ex- 

 pert manufacturers of Kapa cloth, and 

 intrepid seamen and navigators. They 

 tattoo instead of scar the body, seldom 

 practice cannibalism, cook in earthen 

 ovens instead of in earthen pots, drink 

 awa, and possess a common language 

 understandable throughout New Zea- 

 land, Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, and the 

 Paumotu Islands. 



Of all the Pacific races the greatest 

 interest attaches to the Polynesian isl- 

 anders, but it is unfortunately these peo- 

 ple whose primitive customs and racial 

 types have been most broken up by mod- 

 ern intercourse. The study of the 

 Polynesian language will afford a most 

 fascinating field of inquiry, and its 

 proper investigation will require a 

 knowledge of the tongues of the people 

 inhabiting the region between the east- 

 ern coast of Africa and the western coast 

 of South America. 



The Malayo-Polynesian language pos- 

 sesses the distinction of being spoken by 

 indigenes over the widest area of any 

 language of the world, for it embraces 

 two great oceans and extends from the 

 island continent of Madagascar to the 

 isolated islet of Rapanui. This latter in- 

 significant output of Polynesian culture 

 is distinguished as affording specimens 

 of that remarkable ideographic writing 

 which lifts the race well above the plane 

 of savages and proves it to have ad- 

 vanced toward a culture worthy of com- 

 parison with primitive civilization. The 

 deciphering of the Rapanui records has 

 not yet been accomplished, but its solu- 

 tion should be achieved when all speci- 



