ON THE LANGUAGES OF OCEANIA. OOF 
the breast.’ The Malay equivalent is swsuw, ‘milk.’ Therefore, 
it is said, the Polynesians must be Malays. But there is the 
Sanskrit root si, whence siéimas, sdimam, ‘ milk,’ ‘water.’ 
There is the Polynesian word Ja, ‘the sun,’ ‘a sail,’ the idea 
common to both being that of ‘whiteness,’ ‘brightness’; for ‘a 
sail,’ the Malays say /a-yer. But, here again, we have behind 
these the Sanskrit déha, ‘burning,’ and the Greek dazé, dalos. 
Less obvious instances of an Indian connection can be given. 
For example, the Samoan ‘az means ‘to eat.’ The “break” here 
represents an initial k, and the word is kat. Now this word in 
varying forms is used everywhere in Polynesia and in New Guinea, 
New Britain, Fiji, New Hebrides—Melanesian regions—but the 
Malay verb ‘to eat’ is ma-kan, as we have seen. ‘The ka of kav is 
for ta, in my opinion, and that again is a transposition of the 
Sanskrit root ad, ‘ to eat,’ Lat. edo. 
The Samoan aga, alu, ‘to go, I trace to the Pali root aya, 
Sanskrit aga, ga, ‘to go.’ 
The Samoan verb ‘ave (for kave), ‘to take,’ seems to me to be 
the Aryan root gab, gawv, ‘to take.’ 
The Samoan ‘avau, ‘to speak loudly,’ is the Aryan root-word, 
gab, gav, ‘to speak.’ 
And go on. 
Now, before I close this discussion you are entitled to ask me 
how I account for the presence in Oceania of so many words of 
Aryan origin as I allege to be there. This is a fair question, and 
I will answer it. My opinion is that the whole of Oceania from 
the Sunda Straits right across to Easter Island was at first pos- 
sessed by a negroid race, showing the broad nose, flat lips, and dark 
skin of the negro. This race came there by way of India from 
the shores of the Persian gulf—the original seat of the blacks. 
Their kindred are some of the wild black tribes now in the Dekkan 
of India, and the dwarfish Samangs of Malacca. To them also 
belong a portion of our native population in Australia, and also a 
portion of the Melanesians. 
