Part 8 (1/2)

The Solomon Island natives are usually referred to the Melanesian group of the Ethiopian division, a group which includes the Papuans of New Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western Pacific; but my observations on the physical characters of these natives have shown that the type of a Solomon Island native varies considerably in different parts of the group, in some islands approaching the pure Papuan, in others possessing Polynesian affinities, and in others showing traces of the Malay. The _prevailing characters_, however, are distinctly Melanesian or Papuan. The Melanesians, who, according to Professor Flower, are chiefly distinguished from the African negroes by the well developed _glabella_ and supra-orbital ridges in the male, greatly excel the true African negroes, the Hottentots and Bushmen, and the Negritos of the Andaman and Philippine Islands, who are included in the Ethiopian division, in all that affects their social condition. In their usuages, their rites, their dwellings, their agriculture, their canoes, and in many other respects, the Melanesian or Papuan peoples display a far greater intellectual capacity than we find exhibited by the other members of the Ethiopian division.

I cannot here enter at length into the question of the peopling of the various groups of islands in the Pacific. It is a question on which conclusions drawn from the linguistic and physical characters of the inhabitants of these islands do not always agree. Professor Keane[82]

holds that the three princ.i.p.al divisions of the varieties of man are represented in this region; the _Caucasian_ in the Polynesians inhabiting the islands of the south-central Pacific (Marquesas, Samoa, Tonga, &c.); the _Mongolian_ in the Micronesians of the islands of the north-central Pacific (Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, Ladrone Islands); and the _Ethiopian_, or as he terms it the Dark Type, in the Papuans of the Western Pacific (to whom he restricts the name Melanesian), New Guinea, and the adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago. It is to the different mingling of these three princ.i.p.al types, that the widely varying characters of the peoples dwelling in the several regions of the Pacific are attributed. According to Professor Keane, the Polynesians of the south-central Pacific are almost purely Caucasian, without a trace of Mongolian blood. This view, however, is not supported by Professor Flower who contends that the combination of the Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters, in varying proportions and under varying conditions, would probably account for all the modifications observed among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands.

[82] _Vide_ a series of three papers in vol. XXIII. of ”Nature” on the Indo-Chinese and Oceanic Races.

The theory advanced by Professor Keane with reference to the peopling of the Pacific Islands, is one on which some of my observations in the Solomon Islands, although not directly connected with the subject, have some bearing. The primitive Negrito race, as now exhibited in the Andaman Islander, according to this view is the original stock of all the dark races. From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it extended westwards to Africa across the now lost continent of Lemuria, and eastwards ”across a continent of which the South Sea Islands are a remnant--to become slowly differentiated into the present Papuan or Melanesian peoples of those islands.” Subsequently, the Caucasians of southern Asia, impelled before the southerly migration of the Mongols from higher Asia, occupied the islands of the Indian Archipelago and extended eastwards to their present homes in the south-central Pacific (Samoa, Tonga, the Marquesas, Society Islands, &c.). The Mongols following close upon them, finally reached the groups of islands together known as Micronesia in the north-central Pacific (Ladrone, Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, &c.).

The reference to the supposed sunken continents in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which served as stepping-stones in these migrations, merits my attention. From our most recent knowledge of the geological structure of tropical islands, to which my observations in the Solomon Islands have in some measure contributed, it may be inferred that there is but little geological evidence to support the view of the existence of these submerged continents. The theory of subsidence, on which Mr.

Darwin's explanations of atolls was based, cannot now be urged in support of prolonged periods of subsidence in the tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The groups of atolls, which there occur, were formed, as shown by recent investigations, around and over oceanic peaks of volcanic formation, and independently of any movement of subsidence.[83]

[83] _Vide_ the writings of Murray, Aga.s.siz, Geikie, and others. In my volume of geological observations, to be shortly published, I have referred at length to this subject.

With reference to the migration eastwards of the Eastern Polynesians, I would allude to a piece of evidence which was advanced by Mr. Hale in support of the view that the island of Bouro in the Malay Archipelago was the starting-point of the migration. Quiros, the Spanish navigator, was informed in 1606 by a native captured at Taumaco, near the Santa Cruz Group, that there was a large country named Pouro in the vicinity of that region. This _Pouro_, however, was without doubt the neighbouring island of St. Christoval (one of the Solomon Group) which retains the native name of _Bauro_ at the present day, and as we learn from Gallego's journal,[84] was called by the natives _Paubro_ rather over three centuries ago. Mr. Hale, however, who of course was not acquainted with the native name of St. Christoval, endeavours to ident.i.ty this Pouro, of which Quiros was informed, with the distant Bouro of the Indian Archipelago. (_Vide_ note xv. of the Geographical Appendix)... . The foregoing remarks have not been offered with any object of criticising a view on which I am not competent to speak. The misconception having come under my notice, I considered it my duty to refer to it.

[84] _Vide_ page 229 of this work.

In the course of my researches I came upon a circ.u.mstance which appears to point in an unmistakeable manner to the Indian Archipelago as being the highway by which the Eastern Polynesians have reached the Pacific.

The circ.u.mstance, to which I refer, is that it is possible to trace the native names of some of the common littoral trees, such as the _Panda.n.u.s_, _Barringtonia speciosa_, &c., from the Indian Archipelago across the central Pacific to the Austral and Society Islands. In ill.u.s.tration, I will take _Barringtonia speciosa_, referring the reader, however, for the other trees to page 186 of this work. In the Indian Archipelago, I find the native names of this tree to be _Boewa boeton_ and _Poetoen_.[85] In the islands of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, it is known as _Puputu_. In Fiji, it is known as _Vutu_;[86] in the Tongan Group, as _Futu_;[87] and in the Hervey and Society Islands as _E-Hoodu_[88] or _Utu_.[89] It is interesting to notice the modifications which the name of this tree undergoes, as one follows it eastward from the Indian Archipelago to the centre of the Pacific Ocean, a distance of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles; and it is equally instructive to reflect that without the intermediate changes, intermediate it should be added in a geographical as well as in an etymological sense, the names at the end of the series would scarcely seem to be related. The Indian Archipelago would appear to be the home of this littoral tree, which on account of the buoyancy of its fruits has not only been spread over Polynesia, but has reached Ceylon and Madagascar.[90] From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it has therefore extended to the eastward as far as the central Pacific, and to the westward nearly across the Indian Ocean... . It is obvious that much information of this kind might be collected which would be of considerable value to philologists; and even in the case of this single tree I have only, so to speak, broken the ground. The tedious character of the research necessary to collect the scanty information I have obtained on this subject, will be amply compensated for, if my remarks should prove suggestive to residents in the different islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

[85] ”De Inlandsche Plantennamen,” by G. J. Filet (_vide_ reference on page 186).

[86] ”Year in Fiji,” by J. Horne: p. 70. (1881.)

[87] ”Ten years in South-Central Polynesia,” by the Rev. T. West: p.

146. (1865.)

[88] ”Observations made during a Voyage round the World,” by J. R.

Forster. (1778.)

[89] ”Jottings from the Pacific,” by Wyatt Gill: p. 198. (1885.)

[90] ”Report on the Botany of the Challenger,” by W. Botting Hemsley: vol. I., part iii., p. 152.

_The physical characters of a typical Solomon Islander._--Notwithstanding the variety in some of the characters of these natives, it is not a difficult matter to describe a typical individual who combines their most prominent and most prevalent characteristics. Such a man would have a well-proportioned physique, a good carriage, and well-rounded limbs. His height would be about 5 feet 4 inches; his chest-girth between 34 and 35 inches; and his weight between 125 and 130 pounds. The colour of his skin would be a deep brown, corresponding with number 35 of the colour-types of M. Broca;[91]

and he would wear his hair in the style of a bushy periwig in which all the hairs are entangled independently into a loose frizzled ma.s.s. His face would have a moderate degree of subnasal prognathism, with projecting brows, deeply sunk orbits, short, straight nose, much depressed at the root but sometimes arched, lips of moderate thickness and rather prominent, chin somewhat receding. His hairless face would have an expression of good humour, which is in accord with the cheerful temperament of these islanders. The form of his skull would be probably mesocephalic. The proportion of the length of the span of the extended arms to the height of the body, taking the latter as 100, would be represented by the index 1067. The length of the upper limb would be exactly one-third the height of the body; and the tip of his middle finger would reach down to a point about 3? inches above the patella.

The length of the lower limb would be slightly under one-half (49/100) of the height of the body; and the relations of the lengths of the upper and lower limbs to each other would be represented by the intermembral index 68. I was only able to obtain the measurement of six women who belonged to the small islands of Ugi and Santa Anna, off the St.

Christoval coast. Their average height was 4 feet 10 inches, which corresponds with the rule given by Topinard in his ”Anthropology,” that for a race of this stature 7 per cent of the height of the man (5 feet 3 inches, in this part of the group) must be subtracted to obtain the true proportional height of the woman. The hair of the women has the same characters as that of the men. Their figures have not usually that breadth of hip which the European model would possess. The general appearance of the younger women is not unattractive, but they soon lose their good looks after marriage. In Bougainville Straits, it was often possible to notice amongst the wives of the chiefs two castes of women of very different appearance, the one with elegant figure and carriage, slim limbs and more delicately cut features, the other more clumsily proportioned with stout ungainly limbs and a coa.r.s.e type of features.

[91] The colour-types employed were those given in the ”Anthropological Notes and Queries,” published by the British a.s.sociation in 1874.

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