230 J. HORNELL ON 



" besides the aquiline noses already mentioned^ a distinctly Jewish or Papuan 

 feature is met with," that the skin of these people is far darker than is usual among 

 Malays and the hair occasionally curly — all suggestive of the presence of a strain of 

 Papuasian blood. 



The Polynesian Element in India. 



Prior to the incoming of the Dravidians into Southern India it seems probable that 

 a coastal immigration and settlement of Polynesians occurred. From the geographical 

 distribution of outrigger canoes and of brachycephalic coast people, it is probable 

 that these Polynesians crossed from Sumatra. It is significant that at the present 

 day an isolated remnant of a race having strongly marked Polynesian characteristics 

 inhabits the Mentawei Islands off the west coast of Sumatra. Rosenberg ' describes 

 them as resembling in many points the natives of the Marquesas Islands — a fine- 

 looking gentle race who deck the head and the ears with flowers in the Polynesian 

 fashion. Their cast of features is far less Mongol-like than their Malay and Battak 

 neighbours, and, more striking still, their hair is often very curly. A point of the 

 highest importance in this connection is the fact that in common with Polynesians, 

 they employ a single outrigger on their canoes, in striking contrast to the double 

 fo]in so characteristic of Malaysian small craft. The Sumatran Polynesians would 

 naturally land first in Ceylon, whence they appear to have passed to the south- 

 eastern coast of India, and eventually up the West Coast. As they spread they 

 doubtless planted fishing colonies at favourable points, establishing there their pecu- 

 liar boat designs. Such centres may well have included Galle, Colombo, and Korkai, 

 where the embouchure of large rivers makes fishing remunerative. Palk Bay and 

 the Gulf of Mannar, with their wealth of food fishes and treasures of pearls and 

 chank shells, would early attract the attention of the maritime newcomers, and, it is 

 not surprising that there we find the Polynesian boat forms in great variety, and, in 

 common with peculiar Polynesian fishing devices, in continued high esteem by the 

 local fishermen and divers. These people appear also to have freely settled upon the 

 West Coast looking to the great value still set upon the outrigger on the Bombay 

 coast. 



The Maldive islands were probably peopled by Polynesian immigrants at a very 

 early period — much earlier, I believe, than is generally supposed, for we find the 

 Maldivians employing fishing methods nowhere else in use except in Papuasia and 

 the Pacific. Of these the two most important are {a) the luring of sword-fish and other 

 great predaceous fish within easy spearing distance by means of a rude wooden 

 representation of a flying fish dangled from the end of a short rod,'^ and (b) the methods 

 employed in the attracting, catching and curing of bonito, which are almost identical 

 as carried on by the Maldivians and the Japanese, in the latter of whom a strong 

 Polynesian strain probably exists in the higher or governing classes. The Laccadive 



1 Rosenberg, H. von, Int. Archiv. f. Ethnogv., I. 1888. 



^ Dampier's Account of New Holland and the adjacent Islands in Pinkerton's " Voyages" and Hornell in Madras 



Fisheries Bulletin , No. 4, p. 114. 



