240 
If man failed to conquer the Atlantic before the tenth century 
or, if he conquered it. failed to survive after he reached the New 
World, we could hardly expect him to have crossed in pre-European 
times the broader and equally stormy Pacific. Yet there are strong 
arguments to support the theory that he journeyed from southern 
Asia and the Malay archipelago through the islands of the south 
Pacific and settled on the coast of either North or South America, 
introducing into this hemisphere certain customs and implements 
that were previously unknown. Sullivan states that a skull flis- 
covered at Punin, in Ecuador, is of definitely Australoid tyjie and 
akin to Melanesian skulls;^ and several European anthropologists 
claim that some skulls unearthed at Lagoa Santa, in Brazil, and 
others discovered later in southern California, differ radicallv from 
ordinary Indian skulls, but closely resemble the skulls of the natives 
in the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and other parrs of the 
Melanesian archipelago.” Rivet, again, finds so many parallels in 
grammatical structure and vocabulary between the Malayo-Poly- 
nesian group of languages, particularly its Melanesian dialects, and 
the Hokan group in California, that he postulates their derivation 
from the same linguistic stock. Then thei'c are several customs that 
are common to the South Sea islands and America, such as the 
chewing of betel-nut and lime in Melanesia, and of the coca-leaf 
and lime in South America; the cutting off of a finger in sign of 
mourning; trc])anation ; masked dances; feather head-dresses and 
cloaks; the use of shell-money, shell-trumpets, pan-pipes, and musical 
bows. The early navigators of the north Pacific coast compared the 
forts, carved house-po.sts, whale-bone clubs, and cedar-bark beaters 
of British Columbia with the forts, house-posts, and clubs of far-off 
New Zealand and the tapa-cloth beaters of central Polynesia. Mauss, 
again, finds all the essential features of the British Columbia feast 
or potlatch reproduced in Melanesia^ Turning to the field of myth- 
ology, we have among the Luiseno and perhaps Gabrielino Indians 
of southern California elaborate cosmogonies without parallel else- 
1 Sullivan, L. 11., atui Ilfllman, Milo: “ Tlie Punin Calvarium”: .\ntli. Papers, Am. Mu.s, Xat. HLst., 
vol. xxiii, pt. VII (New York, 1925). 
2(7/. Verneau, K.; Ciaiuvs (I’liulieiis de la Coloiiiliie, I, ‘Element Papoiia en Amerirpie, L’Antliro- 
pologie, vol. xxxiv, pp. 3.53-386 (Paris, 1924). 
3 Rivet, P.: "lavs Malavo-Polvne.siens en .^merique” ; .hmrnal cle la Societe des .Ymericanistes de 
Paris, vol. xvii, pp. 141-278 (Paris, 1926). 
•1 Mauss, M. : “ 1. 'extension du iiotlateli cn Melane.sie” ; L’Ant liropologie, vol. xxx, pp. 396-7 (Paris, 
1920). 
