P. 14), commencing
to the east of the Philippine Islands, thence along the western
coast of Gilolo, through the island of Bouru, and curving round
the west end of Mores, then bending back by Sandalwood Island to
take in Rotti, we shall divide the Archipelago into two portions,
the races of which have strongly marked distinctive
peculiarities. This line will separate the Malayan and all the
Asiatic races, from the Papuans and all that inhabit the Pacific;
and though along the line of junction intermigration and
commixture have taken place, yet the division is on the whole
almost as well defined and strongly contrasted, as is the
corresponding zoological division of the Archipelago, into an
Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan region.
I must briefly explain the reasons that have led me to consider
this division of the Oceanic races to be a true and natural one.
The Malayan race, as a whole, undoubtedly very closely resembles
the East Asian populations, from Siam to Mandchouria. I was much
struck with this, when in the island of Bali I saw Chinese
traders who had adopted the costume of that country, and who
could then hardly be distinguished from Malays; and, on the 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 inhabiting 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 observations 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 resemble 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, demonstrative, 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 originally 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, leading 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 occurrence 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,
originating in the roaming habits of the chief Malay tribes; and
this is proved by the fact that we find actual modern words of
the Malay and Javanese languages in use in Polynesia, so little
disguised by peculiarities of pronunciation as to be easily
recognisable - not mere Malay roots only to be detected by the
elaborate researches of the philologist, as would certainly have
been the case had their introduction been as
remote as the origin of a very distinct race - a race as different
from the Malay in mental and moral, as it is in physical
characters.
As bearing upon this question it is important to point out the
harmony which exists, between the line of separation of the human
races of the Archipelago and that of the animal productions of
the same country, which I have already so fully explained and
illustrated. The dividing lines do not, it is true, exactly
agree; but I think it is a remarkable fact, and something more
than a mere coincidence, that they should traverse the same
district and approach each other so closely as they do. If,
however, I am right in my supposition that the region where the
dividing line of the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan regions of
zoology can now be drawn, was formerly occupied by a much wider
sea than at present, and if man existed on the earth at that
period, we shall see good reason why the races inhabiting the
Asiatic and Pacific areas should now meet and partially
intermingle in the vicinity of that dividing line.
It has recently been maintained by Professor Huxley, that the
Papuans are more closely allied to the negroes of Africa than to
any other race.
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