Polynesian Dog — Luomala 
213 
around the Pacific in the early days of European 
travel, no one happens to mention any ex- 
change of dogs between Australia and Polynesia 
that might have led to a mixture of local breeds. 
Those who regard the dingo and the Poly- 
nesian dog as close kin ignore, however, the 
theory that the dingo may not be a true dog. 
Therefore, they do not raise the inevitable ques- 
tion, "Was the Polynesian native dog a true 
dog?” In fact, no one interested in the Poly- 
nesian dog appears to have expressed doubt that 
it belongs in Canis , except perhaps Elizabeth 
Morey (Im Thurn and Wharton, 1925: 188), 
who lived at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century in Tongatabu (where Cook, it will be 
remembered, introduced native dogs and the 
people also got some later from Fiji ) . She writes 
that "the natives hold in high estimation the 
flesh of a small sized animal of the dog kind, 
which many prefer to the finest fish.” And, again 
in contrast to the dingo, the question has not 
been raised as to whether the Polynesian dog’s 
wild ancestor was nearest a wolf, jackal, fox, or 
other carnivore. 
The polyphyletic theory, that the various races 
of domestic dogs derive not only from the wolf 
but from the jackal, fox, and coyote, had famous 
followers like I. G. Saint-Hilaire and Charles 
Darwin, although the latter (1897, I: 216) felt 
none too convinced. The polyphyletic theory still 
has some followers, although the evidence of- 
fered has rested less on studies of the less plastic 
features like teeth and skulls than on super- 
ficial, modifiable traits like, for example, the 
carriage of the ears and tail or the quality and 
color of the coat. Discussions of the polyphyletic 
or monophyletic origin of the domestic dog 
usually bypass the Polynesian native dog but 
not the dingo; yet, as has been noted, in the mid- 
nineteenth century European settlers in New 
Zealand debated whether or not the dingo of 
Australia and the native dog of New Zealand 
were related. 
Wood-Jones (1926) compares a series of 20 
dingo skulls, selected at random from a collec- 
tion of corpses, with 10 other series or indi- 
viduals of what are probably mostly European 
breeds and also compares these series with crania 
of wolves, foxes, and jackals. Tables and sketches 
accompany his study. Elis purpose to determine 
the place of the dingo led to conclusions that 
supported both Blumenbach’s classification of 
the dingo as Canis familiaris and Cuvier’s be- 
lief that the dingo is "the most primitive true 
dog.” Wood-Jones finds that the dingo’s teeth, 
especially the upper carnassial, are relatively 
more nearly the size and form of those of the 
wolf than are those of any other breed of dog 
studied. Long isolation in Australia apparently 
has stabilized the resemblances to the teeth of 
the wolf that Wood-Jones regards as ancestral 
to domesticated dogs. The teeth of wolves and 
dogs differ in certain significant characteristics 
from those of the jackal and the fox. The dingo, 
Wood-Jones suggests, probably came with man 
by a sea route to Australia. A fact derived from 
his comparison that particularly impresses him 
is that the series of dingo skulls shows "a degree 
of uniformity far greater than that seen in any 
series of skulls of dogs of any breed” (1926: 
355). 
Wood-Jones’ study is regarded as "the most 
compelling account favoring the northern wolf 
as the original ancestor of the dog” (Vevers, 
1948: 5). N. A. Iljin (1941: 410), after an 
8-year genetical study in Russia of the offspring 
of hybrids produced by crossing a female black 
mongrel sheep dog and a male wolf, gray in color 
and caught wild, also suggests "the possibility 
of the origin of the various races of Canis 
familiaris from a single wild species, viz. C. 
lupus.” These two studies have had much to do 
with discrediting the polyphyletic theory. 
CLASSIFICATIONS BY FITZINGER AND SMITH 
In the mid-nineteenth century, L. J. Fitzinger 
and Charles Hamilton Smith, though chronicling 
the increasing mixture between Polynesian dogs 
and foreign dogs, show some interest in the 
FIG. 18. An imaginative artist’s idea of Canis tahi- 
tiensis (Reichenbach, 1836 : 46, pi. 72). 
