Observation
Soon Showed Me, However, That Malays And Papuans Differed
Radically In Every Physical, Mental, And Moral Character; And
More Detailed Research, Continued For Eight Years, Satisfied Me
That Under These Two Forms, As Types, The Whole Of The Peoples Of
The Malay Archipelago And Polynesia Could Be Classified.
On
drawing the line which separates these races, it is found to come
near to that which divides the
Zoological regions, but somewhat
eastward of it; a circumstance which appears to me very
significant of the same causes having influenced the distribution
of mankind that have determined the range of other animal forms.
The reason why exactly the same line does not limit both is
sufficiently intelligible. Man has means of traversing the sea
which animals do not possess; and a superior race has power to
press out or assimilate an inferior one. The maritime enterprise
and higher civilization of the Malay races have enabled them to
overrun a portion of the adjacent region, in which they have
entirely supplanted the indigenous inhabitants if it ever
possessed any; and to spread much of their language, their
domestic animals, and their customs far over the Pacific, into
islands where they have but slightly, or not at all, modified the
physical or moral characteristics of the people.
I believe, therefore, that all the peoples of the various islands
can be grouped either with the Malays or the Papuans; and that
these two have no traceable affinity to each other. I believe,
further, that all the races east of the line I have drawn have
more affinity for each other than they have for any of the races
west of that line; that, in fact, the Asiatic races include the
Malays, and all have a continental origin, while the Pacific
races, including all to the east of the former (except perhaps
some in the Northern Pacific), are derived, not from any existing
continent, but from lands which now exist or have recently
existed in the Pacific Ocean.
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