20 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
seem to have more affinity with the dark, woolly-haired 
races of the Pacific, or are equally distinct from both. 
This view is supported by two writers who have great 
knowledge of the races and languages of the Pacific. 
Mr. W. S. W. Vaux, in a paper on the Probable, Origin 
of the Maories , read before the Anthropological Institute 
in 1876, maintains that the connection of the modern 
languages of the Eastern Polynesians with the Malay is 
by no means so intimate as many able philologists have 
asserted. Still more important and weighty is the 
evidence of Mr. W. L. Kanken, who, in a paper on the 
South Sea Islanders , read before the same society a few 
months later, proposes the native term “ Mahori ” for the 
Eastern Polynesians, and shows that their language is 
totally distinct from the Malay, has a different con¬ 
struction, has very few Malay roots, and only a few 
quite recent Malay words. Though resembling Malays 
both physically and mentally in some respects, the 
“ Mahoris ” differ greatly from them in others. They 
have a much greater average height, their features are 
much more of the European type, and their hair is 
typically wavy. He traces this race to Samoa as their 
first home in the Pacific, but primarily from some part 
of the Asiatic continent. 
We now come to the view held by perhaps the 
greatest authority on Australasian ethnology—Professor 
A. H. Keane—as published in the Journal of the 
Anthropological Institute for February, 1880. In this 
paper the writer agrees with the opinion that the 
Eastern Polynesians are distinct from the Malays, 
but enters more fully into the question of the place 
of origin of the various races that people the 
archipelago. His conclusions may be shortly given 
as follows:— 
