COMPULSORY MIGRATIONS IN THE PACIFIC OCEAfl. 1 



By Otto Sittigl 



The fact that the first voyagers around the world found all the archi- 

 pelagoes in the Pacific Ocean inhabited as far as Easter Island in the 

 extreme east appeared to present an indecipherable enigma to authro- 

 pogeography, and although the remarkable skill of the Oceanic peoples 

 in swimming, and the high degree to which they had developed the art 

 of navigation were known, even these did not afford adequate connect- 

 ing links for the origin of these islanders. Therefore, the first oppor- 

 tunity of considering the question with a prospect of success was 

 afforded when instances of longer voyages, which exceeded the dis- 

 tances ordinarily traversed, became known and — this is the main point — 

 also the fact that they occurred involuntarily. In connection with 

 their accounts of such voyages, most travelers have expressed an 

 opinion concerning the origin of the inhabitants of Polynesia. The 

 view that they were indigenous to the soil met with no permanent 

 approval, since from the very beginning there has been a conviction 

 that there is a relationship not only between the Polynesians, but also 

 between them and the inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago, and the 

 Idea of indigenous origin is on the whole mythical, so far as our knowl- 

 edge of the people is concerned. The theory of their derivation from 

 the islands southeast of Asia is therefore strenuously defended. But 

 the opposite opinion, which assumes America to be the starting poiut 

 of the population of Polynesia, is also mooted and finds its principal 

 champion in Ellis. This view denies the possibility of a derivation of 

 the Polynesians from the west, since the prevailing winds and currents 

 move in that very direction and, moreover, there is no lack of ethno- 

 graphical points of resemblance between the people mentioned and the 

 original inhabitants of America. Of minor importance, in our consid- 

 eration, are the individual opinions of Bary, Lesson, and, later, Qua- 

 trefages, who attribute the origin of these islanders to New Zealand. 



The purpose of the present article is to make the most complete com- 

 pilation possible of the cases recorded by history in which vessels have 

 been driven out of their proper course in the Pacific Ocean, whose 

 examination altogether may afford us an insight into the natural hypo- 

 theses of migrations across the ocean. 



1 Translated from Petermann's Mitteilungen, 36 Band, 1890, VII, VIII. 



519 



