Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
other hand, I have seen natives of Java who, as far as physiognomy was concerned, would
pass very well for Chinese. Then, again, we have the most typical of the Malayan tribes in-
habiting a portion of the Asiatic continent itself, together with those great islands which,
possessing the same species of large Mammalia with the adjacent parts of the continent,
have in all probability formed a connected portion of Asia during the human period. The
Negritos are, no doubt, quite a distinct race from the Malay; but yet, as some of them inhabit
a portion of the continent, and others the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, they must
be considered to have had, in all probability, an Asiatic rather than a Polynesian origin.
Now, turning to the eastern parts of the Archipelago, I find, by comparing my own obser-
vations with those of the most trustworthy travellers and missionaries, that a race identical
in all its chief features with the Papuan, is found in all the islands as far east as the Fijis;
beyond this the brown Polynesian race, or some intermediate type, is spread everywhere
over the Pacific. The descriptions of these latter often agree exactly with the characters of
the brown indigenes of Gilolo and Ceram.
It is to be especially remarked that the brown and the black Polynesian races closely re-
semble each other. Their features are almost identical, so that portraits of a New Zealander
or Otaheitan will often serve accurately to represent a Papuan or Timorese, the darker colour
and more frizzly hair of the latter being the only differences. They are both tall races. They
agree in their love of art and the style of their decorations. They are energetic, demonstrat-
ive, joyous, and laughter-loving, and in all these particulars they differ widely from the
Malay.
I believe, therefore, that the numerous intermediate forms that occur among the countless
islands of the Pacific, are not merely the result of a mixture of these races, but are, to some
extent, truly intermediate or transitional; and that the brown and the black, the Papuan, the
natives of Gilolo and Ceram, the Fijian, the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands and those of
New Zealand, are all varying forms of one great Oceanic or Polynesian race.
It is, however, quite possible, and perhaps probable, that the brown Polynesians were ori-
ginally the produce of a mixture of Malays, or some lighter coloured Mongol race with the
dark Papuans; but if so, the intermingling took place at such a remote epoch, and has been
so assisted by the continued influence of physical conditions and of natural selection, lead-
ing to the preservation of a special type suited to those conditions, that it has become a fixed
and stable race with no signs of mongrelism, and showing such a decided preponderance of
Papuan character, that it can best be classified as a modification of the Papuan type. The oc-
currence of a decided Malay element in the Polynesian languages, has evidently nothing to
do with any such ancient physical connexion. It is altogether a recent phenomenon, originat-
