General Ethnical Relations in Oceania—The termsPapuan,MelanesianandPapuasiandefined—The Papuasian Domain, Past and Present—Papuans and Melanesians—Physical Characters: Papuan, Papuo-Melanesian, Melanesian—TheNew Caledonians—Physical Characters—Food Question—General Survey of Melanesian Ethnology—Cultural Problems—Kava-drinking and Betel-chewing—Stone Monuments—The Dual People—Summary of Culture Strata—Melanesian Culture—Dress—Houses—Weapons—Canoes, etc.—Social Life—Secret Societies—Clubs—Religion—Western Papuasia—Ethnical Elements—Region of Transition by Displacements and Crossings—Papuan and Malay Contrasts—Ethnical and Biological Divides—The Negritoes—TheAndamanese—Stone Age—Personal Appearance—Social Life—Religion—Speech—Method of Counting—Grammatical Structure—TheSemangs—Physical Appearance—Usages—Speech—Stone Age—TheAetas—Head-Hunters—New Guinea Pygmies—Negrito Culture—TheTasmanians—Tasmanian Culture—Fire Making—Tools and Weapons—Diet—Dwellings—Extinction.
General Ethnical Relations in Oceania—The termsPapuan,MelanesianandPapuasiandefined—The Papuasian Domain, Past and Present—Papuans and Melanesians—Physical Characters: Papuan, Papuo-Melanesian, Melanesian—TheNew Caledonians—Physical Characters—Food Question—General Survey of Melanesian Ethnology—Cultural Problems—Kava-drinking and Betel-chewing—Stone Monuments—The Dual People—Summary of Culture Strata—Melanesian Culture—Dress—Houses—Weapons—Canoes, etc.—Social Life—Secret Societies—Clubs—Religion—Western Papuasia—Ethnical Elements—Region of Transition by Displacements and Crossings—Papuan and Malay Contrasts—Ethnical and Biological Divides—The Negritoes—TheAndamanese—Stone Age—Personal Appearance—Social Life—Religion—Speech—Method of Counting—Grammatical Structure—TheSemangs—Physical Appearance—Usages—Speech—Stone Age—TheAetas—Head-Hunters—New Guinea Pygmies—Negrito Culture—TheTasmanians—Tasmanian Culture—Fire Making—Tools and Weapons—Diet—Dwellings—Extinction.
Distribution in Past and Present Times.
Present Range.Papuasian:East Malaysia, New Guinea, Melanesia; Tasmanian:extinct; Negrito:Andamans, Malay Peninsula, Philippines, New Guinea.
Physical Characters.
Hair.Papuasian:black, frizzly, mop-like, beard scanty or absent; Tasmanian:black, shorter and less mop-like than Papuasian; Negrito:short, woolly or frizzly, black, sometimes tinged with brown or red.
Colour.All:very deep shades of chocolate brown, often verging on black, a very constant character, lighter shades showing mixture.
Skull.Papuasian:extremely dolichocephalic (68-73) and high, but very variable in areas of mixture. (70-84); Tasmanian:dolichocephalic or mesaticephalic (75); Negrito:brachycephalic (80-85).
Jaws.Papuasian:moderately or not at all prognathous; TasmanianandNegrito:generally prognathous.Cheek-bones.All:slightly prominent or even retreating.Nose.Papuasian:large, straight, generally aquiline in true Papuans; TasmanianandNegrito:short, flat, broad, wide nostrils (platyrrhine) with large thick cartilage.Eyes.All:moderately large, round and black or very deep brown, with dirty yellowish cornea, generally deep-set with strong overhanging arches.
Stature.PapuasianandTasmanian:above the average, but variable, with rather wide range from 1.62 m. to 1.77 or 1.82 m. (5 ft. 4 in. to 5 ft. 10 in. or 6 ft.); Negrito:undersized, but taller than African Negrillo, 1.37 m. to 1.52 m. (4. ft. 6 in. to 5 ft.).
Mental Characters.
Temperament.Papuasian:very excitable, voluble and laughter-loving, fairly intelligent and imaginative; Tasmanian:distinctly less excitable and intelligent, but also far less cruel, captives never tortured; Negrito:active, quick-witted or cunning within narrow limits, naturally kind and gentle.
Speech.PapuasianandTasmanian:agglutinating with postfixes, many stock languages in West Papuasia, apparently one only in East Papuasia (Austronesian); Negrito:scarcely known except in Andamans, where agglutination both by class prefixes and by postfixes has acquired a phenomenal development.
Religion.Papuasian:reverence paid to ancestors, who may become beneficent or malevolent ghosts;general belief inmanaor supernatural power;no priests or idols; Negrito:exceedingly primitive;belief in spirits, sometimes vague deities.
Culture.Papuasian:slightly developed;agriculture somewhat advanced (N. Guinea, N. Caledonia);considerable artistic taste and fancy shown in the wood-carving of houses, canoes, ceremonial objects, etc.All others:at the lowest hunting stage, without arts or industries, save the manufacture of weapons, ornaments, baskets, and rarely (Andamanese) pottery.
Main Divisions.
Papuasian: 1. Western Papuasians (true Papuans):nearly all the New Guinea natives;Aru and other insular groups thence westwards to Flores;Torres Straits and Louisiade Islands. 2. Eastern Papuasians:nearly all the natives of Melanesia from Bismarck Archipelago to New Caledonia, with most of Fiji, and part of New Guinea.
Negritoes: 1. AndamaneseIslanders. 2. Semangs,in the Malay Peninsula. 3. Aetas,surviving in most of the Philippine Islands. 4.Pygmies in New Guinea.
General Ethnical Relations in Oceania.
From the data supplied inEthnology, Chap. XI. a reconstruction may be attempted of the obscure ethnical relations in Australasia on the following broad lines.
1. The two main sections of the Ulotrichous division of mankind, now separated by the intervening waters of the Indian Ocean, are fundamentally one.
2. To the Sudanese and Bantu sub-sections in Africa correspond,mutatis mutandis, the Papuan and Melanesian sub-sections in Oceania, the former being distinguished by great linguistic diversity, the latter by considerable linguistic uniformity, and both by a rather wide range of physical variety within certain well-marked limits.
3. In Africa the physical varieties are due mainly to Semitic and Hamitic grafts on the Negro stock; in Oceania mainly to Mongoloid (Malay) and Caucasian (Indonesian) grafts on the Papuan stock.
4. The Negrillo element in Africa has its counterpart in an analogous Negrito element in Oceania (Andamanese, Semangs, Aetas, etc.).
5. In both regions the linguistic diversity apparently presents similar features—a large number of languages differing profoundly in their grammatical structure and vocabularies, but all belonging to the same agglutinative order of speech, and also more or less to the same phonetic system.
6. In both regions the linguistic uniformity is generally confined to one or two geographical areas, Bantuland in Africa and Melanesia in Oceania.
7. In Bantuland the linguistic system shows but faint if any resemblances to any other known tongues, whereas the Melanesian group is but one branch, though the most archaic, of the vast Austronesian Family, diffused over the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The Papuan languages are entirely distinct from the Melanesian. They are in somerespects similar to the Australian, but their exact positions are not yet proved[319].
The terms Papuan, Melanesian and Papuasian defined.
8. Owing to their linguistic, geographical, and to some extent their physical and social differences, it is desirable to treat the Papuans and Melanesians as two distinct though closely related sub-groups, and to restrict the use of the termsPapuanandMelanesianaccordingly, while both may be conveniently comprised under the general or collective termPapuasian[320].
9. Here, therefore, byPapuanswill be understood the true aborigines of New Guinea with its eastern Louisiade dependency[321], and in the west many of the Malaysian islands as far as Flores inclusive, where the black element and non-Malay speech predominate; byMelanesians, the natives of Melanesia as commonly understood, that is, the Admiralty Isles, New Britain, New Ireland and Duke of York; the Solomon Islands; Santa Cruz; the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Loyalty, and Fiji, where the black element and Austronesian speech prevail almost exclusively.Papuasiawill thus comprise the insular world from Flores to New Caledonia.
The Papuasian Domain, Past and Present.
Such appear to be the present limits of the Papuasian domain, which formerly may have included Micronesia also (the Marianne, Pelew, and Caroline groups), and some writers suggest that it possibly extended over the whole of Polynesia as far as Easter Island.
Papuans and Melanesians, Physical Characters.
Papuan.
Papuo-Melanesian.
The variation in the inhabitants of New Guinea has often been recognised and is well described by C. G. Seligman who remarks[322]that the contrast between the relatively tall, dark-skinned, frizzly-haired inhabitants of Torres Straits, the Fly River and the neighbouring parts of New Guinea on the one hand, and the smaller lighter coloured peoples to the east, is so striking that the two peoples must be recognised as racially distinct. He restricts the name Papuan to the congeries of frizzly-haired and often mop-headed peoples whose skin colour is some shade of brownish black, and proposes the term Papuo-Melanesian for the generally smaller, lighter coloured, frizzly-haired races of the eastern peninsula and the islands beyond. Besides these conspicuous differences "The Papuan is generally taller and is more consistently dolichocephalic than the Papuo-Melanesian: he is always darker, his usual colour being a dark chocolate or sooty brown; his head is high and his face, is, as a rule, long with prominent brow-ridges, above which his rather flat forehead commonly slopes backwards. The Papuo-Melanesian head is usually less high and the brow ridges less prominent, while the forehead is commonly rounded and not retreating. The skin colour runs through the whole gamut of shades ofcafé-au-lait, from a lightish yellow with only a tinge of brown, to a tolerably dark bronze colour. The lightest shades are everywhere uncommon, and in many localities appear to be limited to the female sex. The Papuan nose is longer and stouter and is often so arched as to present the outline known as 'Jewish.' The character of its bridge varies, typically the nostrils are broad and the tip of the nose is often hooked downwards. In the Papuo-Melanesian the nose is generally smaller: both races have frizzly hair, but while this is universal among Papuans, curly and even wavy hair is common among both [Eastern and Western] divisions of Papuo-Melanesians[323]."
Melanesian.
The Melanesians are as variable as the natives of New Guinea; the hair may be curly, or even wavy, showing evidence of racial mixture, and the skin is chocolate or occasionally copper-coloured. The stature of the men ranges from 1.50 m. to 1.78 m. (4 ft. 11 in.to 5 ft. 10 in.), with an average between 1.56 m. and 1.6 m. (5 ft. 1½ in. to 5 ft. 3 in.). The skull is usually dolichocephalic, but ranges from 67 to 85 and in certain parts brachycephaly is predominant; the nose shows great diversity. This type ranges with local variations from the Admiralty Islands and parts of New Guinea through the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Islands, and the New Hebrides and other island groups to Fiji and New Caledonia.
The New Caledonians.
Physical Characters.
The "Kanakas," as the natives of New Caledonia and the Loyalty group are wrongly[324]called by their present rulers, have been described by various French investigators. Among the best accounts of them is that of M. Augustin Bernard[325], based on the observations of de Rochas, Bourgard, Vieillard, Bertillon, Meinicke, and others. Apart from several sporadic Polynesian groups in the Loyalties[326], all are typical Melanesians, long-headed with very broad face at least in the middle, narrow boat-shaped skull (ceph. index 70)[327], large, massive lower jaw, often with two supplementary molars[328], colour a dark chocolate, often with a highly characteristic purple tinge; but de Rochas' statement that for a few days after birth infants are of a light reddish yellow hue lacks confirmation; hair less woolly but much longer than the Negro; beard also longish and frizzly, the peppercorn tufts with simulated bald spaces being an effectdue to the assiduous use of the comb; very prominent superciliary arches and thick eyebrows, whence their somewhat furtive look; mean height 5 ft. 4 in.; speech Melanesian with three marked varieties, that of the south-eastern districts being considered the most rudimentary member of the whole Melanesian group[329].
The Food Question.
From the state of their industries, in some respects the rudest, in others amongst the most advanced in Melanesia, it may be inferred that after their arrival the New Caledonians, like the Tasmanians, the Andamanese, and some other insular groups, remained for long ages almost completely secluded from the rest of the world. Owing to the poverty of the soil the struggle for food must always have been severe. Hence the most jealously guarded privileges of the chiefs were associated with questions of diet, while the paradise of the dead was a region where they had abundance of food and could gorge on yams.
General Survey of Melanesian Ethnology.
The ethnological history of the whole of the Melanesian region is obscure, but as the result of recent investigations certain broad features may be recognised. The earliest inhabitants were probably a black, woolly-haired race, now represented by the pygmies of New Guinea, remnants of a formerly widely extended Negrito population also surviving in the Andaman Islands, the Malay Peninsula (Semang) and the Philippines (Aeta). A taller variety advanced into Tasmania and formed the Tasmanian group, now extinct, others spread over New Guinea and the western Pacific as "Papuans," and formed the basis of the Melanesian populations[330]. The Proto-Polynesians in their migrations from the East Indian Archipelago to Polynesia passed through this region and imposed their speech on the population and otherwise modified it. In later times other migrations have come from the west, and parts of Melanesia have also been directly influenced by movements from Polynesia. The result of these supposed influences has been to form the Melanesian peoples as they exist to-day[331]. G. Friederici[332]has accumulated a vast amountof evidence based chiefly on linguistics and material culture, to support the theory of Melanesian cultural streams from the west. He regards the Melanesians as having come from that part of Indonesia which extends from the Southern Islands of the Philippine group, through the Minahasa peninsula of Celebes, to the Moluccas in the neighbourhood of Buru and Ceram. From the Moluccan region they passed north of New Guinea to the region about Vitiaz and Dampier Straits, which Friederici regards as the gateway of Melanesia. Here they colonised the northern shores of New Britain, and part of the swarm settled along the eastern and south-eastern shores of New Guinea. Another stream passed to the Northern Louisiades, Southern Solomons, and Northern New Hebrides. The Philippine or sub-Philippine stream took a more northerly route, going by the Admiralty group to New Hanover, East New Ireland and the Solomons.
Cultural Problems.
The first serious attempt to disentangle the complex character of Melanesian ethnography was made by F. Graebner in 1905[333], followed by G. Friederici, the references to whose work are given above. More recently W. H. R. Rivers[334]has attacked the cultural problem by means of the genealogical method and the results of his investigations are here briefly summarised. He has discovered several remarkable forms of marriage in Melanesia and has deduced others which have existed previously. He argues that the anomalous forms of marriage imply a former dual organisation (i.e.a division of the community into two exogamous groups) with matrilineal descent, and he is driven to assume that in early times there was a state of society in which the elders had acquired so predominant a position that they were able to monopolise all the young women. Some of the relationship systems are of great antiquity, and it is evident that changes have taken place due to cultural influences coming in from without.
Kava-drinking and Betel-chewing.
The distribution of kava-drinking and betel-chewing is of great interest. The former occurs all over Polynesia (except Easter Island and New Zealand) and throughout southern Melanesia, includingcertain Santa Cruz Islands, where it is limited to religious ceremonial. Betel-chewing begins at these islands and extends northwards through New Guinea and Indonesia to India. Kava and betel were introduced into Melanesia by different cultural migrations.
The introduction of betel-chewing was relatively late and restricted and may have taken place from Indonesia after the invasion by the Hindus. With it were associated strongly established patrilineal institutions, marriage with a wife of a father's brother, the special sanctity of the skull and the plank-built canoe. The use of pile dwellings is a more constant element of the betel-culture than of the kava-culture. The religious ritual centres round the skulls of ancestors and relatives, and the cult of the skull has taken a direction which gives the heads of enemies an importance equal to that of relatives, hence head-hunting has become the chief object of warfare. The skull of a relative is the symbol—if not the actual abiding place—of the dead, to be honoured and propitiated, while the skulls of enemies act as the means whereby this honour and propitiation are effected.
The influence of the kava-using peoples was more extensive in time and space than that of the betel-chewing people. Rivers supposes that they had neither clan organisation nor exogamy. Some of them preserved the body after death and respect was paid to the head or skull. It is possible that the custom of payment for a wife came into existence in Melanesia as the result of the need of the immigrant men for women of the indigenous people owing to their bringing few women with them, and the great development of shell money may be due in part to those payments. Contact with the earlier populations also resulted in the development of secret societies. The immigrants introduced the cult of the dead and the institutions of taboo, totemism and chieftainship. They brought with them the form of outrigger canoe and the knowledge of plank-building for canoes (which however was only partially adopted), the rectangular house, and may have known the art of making pile dwellings. They introduced various forms of currency made of shells, teeth, feathers, mats, etc., the drill, the slit drum, or gong, the conch trumpet, the fowl, pig, dog, and megalithic monuments.
There may have been two immigrations of peoples who made monuments of stone: 1. Those who erected the moredolmen-like structures, probably had aquatic totems, and interred their dead in the extended position.
Stone Monuments.
2. A later movement of people whose stone structures tended to take the form of pyramids, who had bird totems, practised a cult of the sun and cremated their dead.
The Dual-people.
When the kava-using people came into Melanesia they found it already inhabited. The earliest form of social organisation of which we have evidence was on the dual basis, associated with matrilineal descent, the dominance of the old men (gerontocracy) and certain peculiar forms of marriage. These people interred their dead in the contracted or sitting position, which also was employed in most parts of Polynesia. Evidently they feared the ghosts and removed their dead as completely as possible from the living. These people—whom we may speak of as the "dual-people"—were communistic in property and probably practised sexual communism; the change towards the institution of individual property and individual marriage were assisted by, if not entirely due to, the influence of the kava-people. They practised circumcision. Magic was an indigenous institution. Characteristic is the cult ofvui, unnamed local spirits with definite haunts or abiding places whose rites are performed in definite localities. In the Northern New Hebrides the offerings connected withvuiare not made to thevuithemselves but to the man who owns the place connected with thevui. It would seem as if ownership of a locality carried with it ownership of thevuiconnected with the locality. Thusvuiare local spirits belonging to the indigenous owners of the soil, and there seems no reason to believe that they were ever ghosts of dead men. As totemism occurs among the dual-people of the Bismarck Archipelago (who live in parts of New Britain and New Ireland and Duke of York Island) it is possible that the kava-people were not the sole introducers of totemism into Melanesia. The dual-people were probably acquainted with the bow, which they may have calledbusur, and the dug-out canoe which was used either lashed together in pairs or singly with an outrigger.
The origin of a dual organisation is generally believed to be due to fission, but it is more reasonable to regard it as due to fusion, as hostility is so frequently manifest between thetwo groups despite the fact that spouses are always obtained from the other moiety. In New Ireland (and elsewhere) each moiety is associated with a hero; one acts wisely but unscrupulously, the other is a fool who is always falling an easy victim to the first. Each moiety has a totem bird: one is a fisher, clever and capable, while the second obtains its food by stealing from the other and does not go to sea. One represents the immigrants of superior culture who came by sea, the other the first people, aborigines, of lowly culture who were quite unable to cope with the wiles and stratagems of the people who had settled among them. In the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain, the dual groups are associated with light and dark coconuts; affiliated with the former are male objects and the clever bird, which is universally calledtaragau, or a variant of that term. The bird of the other moiety is namedmalabaormanigulai, and is associated with female objects. The dark coconuts, the dark colour and flattened noses of the women who were produced by their transformation, and the projecting eyebrows of themalababird and its human adherents seem to be records in the mythology of the Bismarck Archipelago of the negroid (or, Rivers suggests, an Australoid) character of the aboriginal population. The light coconut which was changed into a light-coloured woman seems to have preserved a tradition of the light colour of the immigrants.
Summary of Culture Strata.
The autochthones of Melanesia were a dark-skinned and ulotrichous people, who had neither a fear of the ghosts of their dead nor a manes cult, but had a cult of local spirits. The Baining of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain may be representatives of a stage of Melanesian history earlier than the dual system; if so, they probably represent in a modified form, the aboriginal element. They are said to be completely devoid of any fear of the dead.
The immigrants whose arrival caused the institution of the dual system were a relatively fair people of superior culture who interred their dead in a sitting position and feared their ghosts. They first introduced the Austronesian language.
All subsequent migrations were of Austronesian-speaking peoples from Indonesia. First came the kava-peoples in various swarms, and more recently the betel-people.
Melanesian Culture.
Dress.
Houses.
Possibly New Caledonia shows the effects of relative isolation more than other parts of Melanesia, but, except for Polynesian influence (most directly recognisable in Fiji and southern Melanesia), Melanesia may be regarded as possessing a general culture with certain characteristic features which may be thus summarised[335]. The Melanesians are a noisy, excitable, demonstrative, affectionate, cheery, passionate people. They could not be hunters everywhere, as in most of the islands there is no game, nor could they be pastors anywhere, as there are no cattle; the only resources are fishing and agriculture. In the larger islands there is usually a sharp distinction between the coast people, who are mainly fishers, and the inlanders who are agriculturalists; the latter are always by far the more primitive, and in many cases are subservient to the former. Both sexes work in the plantations. In parts of New Guinea and the Western Solomons the sago palm is of great importance; coconut palms grow on the shores of most islands, and bananas, yams, bread-fruit, taro and sweet potatoes supply abundant food. As for dress, the men occasionally wear none, but usually have belts or bands, of bark-cloth, plaits, or strings, and the women almost everywhere have petticoats of finely shredded leaves. The skin is decorated with scars in various patterns, and tattooing is occasionally seen, the former being naturally characteristic of the darker skinned people, and the latter of the lighter. Every portion of the body is decorated in innumerable ways with shells, teeth, feathers, leaves, flowers, and other objects, and plaited bands encircle the neck, body, and limbs. Shell necklaces, which constitute a kind of currency, and artificially deformed boars' tusks are especially characteristic, though each group usually has its peculiar ornaments, distinguishing it from any other group. There is a great variety of houses. The typical Melanesian house has a gable roof, the ridge pole is supported by two main posts, side walls are very low, and the ends are filled in with bamboo screens. Pile dwellings are found in the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, and some New Guinea villages extend out into the sea.
Weapons.
The weapons typical of Melanesia are the club and the spear (though the latter is not found in the Banks Islands),each group and often each island possessing its own distinctive pattern. Stone headed clubs are found in New Guinea, New Britain and the New Hebrides. The spears of the Solomon Islands are finely decorated and have bone barbs; those of New Caledonia are pointed with a sting-ray spine; those of the Admiralty Islands have obsidian heads; and those of New Britain have a human armbone at the butt end. The bow, the chief weapon of the Papuans, occurs over the greater part of Melanesia, though it is absent in S.E. New Guinea, and is only used for hunting in the Admiralty Islands.
Canoes etc.
The hollowed out tree trunk with or without a plank gunwale is general, usually with a single outrigger, though plank-built canoes occur in the Solomons, characteristically ornamented with shell inlay. Pottery is an important industry in parts of New Guinea and in Fiji; it occurs also in New Caledonia, Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides) and the Admiralty Islands. Bark-cloth is made in most islands, but a loom for weaving leaf strips is now found only in Santa Cruz.
Social Life.
A division of the community into two exogamous groups is very widely spread, no intermarriage being permitted within the group. Mother-right is prevalent, descent and inheritance being counted on the mother's side, while a man's property descends to his sister's children. At the same time the mother is in no sense the head of the family; the house is the father's, the garden may be his, the rule and government are his, though the maternal uncle sometimes has more authority than the father. The transition to father-right has definitely occurred in various places, and is taking place elsewhere; thus, in some of the New Hebrides, the father has to buy off the rights of his wife's relations or his sister's children.
Secret Societies.
Chiefs exist everywhere, being endowed with religious sanctity in Fiji, where they are regarded as the direct descendants of the tribal ancestors. More often, a chief holds his position solely owing to the fact that he has inherited the cult of some powerful spirit, and his influence is not very extensive. Probably everywhere public affairs are regulated by discussion among the old or important men, and the more primitive the society, the more power they possess. But the most powerful institutions of all are the secret societies,occurring with certain exceptions throughout Melanesia. These are accessible to men only, and the candidates on initiation have to submit to treatment which is often rough in the extreme. The members of the societies are believed to be in close association with ghosts and spirits, and exhibit themselves in masks and elaborate dresses in which disguise they are believed by the uninitiated to be supernatural beings. These societies do not practise any secret cult, in fact all that the initiate appears to learn is that the "ghosts" are merely his fellows in disguise, and that the mysterious noises which herald their approach are produced by the bull-roarer and other artificial means. These organisations are most powerful agents for the maintenance of social order and inflict punishment for breaches of customary law, but they are often terrorising and blackmailing institutions. Women are rigorously excluded.
Clubs.
Other social factors of importance are the clubs, especially in the New Hebrides and Banks Islands. These are a means of attaining social rank. They are divided into different grades, the members of which eat together at their particular fire-place in the club-house. Each rank has its insignia, sometimes human effigies, usually, but wrongly, called "idols." Promotion from one grade to another is chiefly a matter of payment, and few reach the highest. Those who do so become personages of very great influence, since no candidate can obtain promotion without their permission.
Religion.
Totemism occurs in parts of New Guinea and elsewhere and has marked socialising effects, as totemic solidarity takes precedence of all other considerations, but it is becoming obsolete. The most important religious factor throughout Melanesia is the belief in a supernatural power or influence, generally calledmana. This is what works to effect everything which is beyond the ordinary power of man or outside the common processes of nature; but this power, though in itself impersonal, is always connected with some person who directs it; all spirits have it, ghosts generally, and some men. A more or less developed ancestor cult is also universally distributed. Human beings may become beneficent or malevolent ghosts, but not every ghost becomes an object of regard. The ghost who is worshipped is the spirit of a man who in his lifetime hadmana. Good andevil spirits independent of ancestors are also abundant everywhere. There is no established priesthood, except in Fiji, but as a rule, any man who knows the particular ritual suitable to a definite spirit, acts as intermediary, and a man in communication with a powerful spirit becomes a person of great importance. Life after death is universally believed in, and the soul is commonly pictured as undertaking a journey, beset with various perils, to the abode of departed spirits, which is usually represented as lying towards the west. As a rule only the souls of brave men, or initiates, or men who have died in fight, win through to the most desirable abode. Magical practices occur everywhere for the gaining of benefits, plenteous crops, good fishing, fine weather, rain, children or success in love. Harmful magic for producing sickness or death is equally universal[336].
Western Papuasia.
Ethnical Elements.
Returning to the Papuan lands proper, in the insular groups west of New Guinea we enter one of the most entangled ethnical regions in the world. Here are, no doubt, a few islands such as the Aru group, mainly inhabited by full-blood Papuans, men who furnished Wallace with the models on which he built up his true Papuan type, which has since been vainly assailed by so many later observers. But in others—Ceram, Buru, Timor, and so on to Flores—diverse ethnical and linguistic elements are intermingled in almost hopeless confusion. Discarding the term "Alfuro" as of no ethnical value[337], we find the whole area west to about 120° E. longitude[338]occupied in varying proportions by pure and mixed representatives of three distinct stocks: Negro (Papuans), Mongoloid (Malayans), and Caucasic (Indonesians). From the data supplied by Crawfurd,Wallace, Forbes, Ten Kate and other trustworthy observers, I have constructed the subjoined table, in which the east Malaysian islands are disposed according to the constituent elements of their inhabitants[339]:
Aru Group—True Papuans dominant; Indonesians (Korongoei) in the interior.Kei Group—Malayans; Indonesians; Papuan strain everywhere.Timor; Wetta; Timor Laut—Mixed Papuans, Malayans and Indonesians; no pure type anywhere.Serwatti Group—Malayans with slight trace of black blood (Papuan or Negrito).Roti and Sumba—Malayans.Savu—Indonesians.Flores; Solor; Adonera; Lomblen; Pantar; Allor—Papuans pure or mixed dominant; Malayans in the coast towns.Buru—Malayans on coast; reputed Papuans, but more probably Indonesians in interior.Ceram—Malayans on coast; mixed Malayo-Papuans inland.Amboina; Banda—Malayans; Dutch-Malay half-breeds ("Perkeniers").Goram—Malayans with slight Papuan strain.Matabello; Tior; Nuso Telo; Tionfoloka—Papuans with Malayan admixture.Misol—Malayo-Papuans on coast; Papuans inland.Tidor; Ternate; Sulla; Makian—Malayans.Batjan—Malayans; Indonesians.Gilolo—Mixed Papuans; Indonesians in the north.Waigiu; Salwatti; Batanta—Malayans on the coast; Papuans inland.
Aru Group—True Papuans dominant; Indonesians (Korongoei) in the interior.
Kei Group—Malayans; Indonesians; Papuan strain everywhere.
Timor; Wetta; Timor Laut—Mixed Papuans, Malayans and Indonesians; no pure type anywhere.
Serwatti Group—Malayans with slight trace of black blood (Papuan or Negrito).
Roti and Sumba—Malayans.
Savu—Indonesians.
Flores; Solor; Adonera; Lomblen; Pantar; Allor—Papuans pure or mixed dominant; Malayans in the coast towns.
Buru—Malayans on coast; reputed Papuans, but more probably Indonesians in interior.
Ceram—Malayans on coast; mixed Malayo-Papuans inland.
Amboina; Banda—Malayans; Dutch-Malay half-breeds ("Perkeniers").
Goram—Malayans with slight Papuan strain.
Matabello; Tior; Nuso Telo; Tionfoloka—Papuans with Malayan admixture.
Misol—Malayo-Papuans on coast; Papuans inland.
Tidor; Ternate; Sulla; Makian—Malayans.
Batjan—Malayans; Indonesians.
Gilolo—Mixed Papuans; Indonesians in the north.
Waigiu; Salwatti; Batanta—Malayans on the coast; Papuans inland.
A Region of Transition by Displacements and Crossings.
From this apparently chaotic picture, which in some places, such as Timor, presents every gradation from the full-blood Papuan to the typical Malay, Crawfurd concluded that the eastern section of Malaysia constituted a region of transition between the yellowish-brown lank-haired and the dark-brown or black mop-headed stocks. In a sense this is true, but not in the sense intended by Crawfurd, who by "transition" meant theactual passage by some process of development from type to type independently of interminglings. But such extreme transitions have nowhere taken place spontaneously, so to say, and in any case could never have been brought about in a small zoological area presenting everywhere the same climatic conditions. Biological types may be, and have been, modified in different environments, arctic, temperate, or tropical zones, but not in the same zone, and if two such marked types as the Mongol and the Negro are now found juxtaposed in the Malaysian tropical zone, the fact must be explained by migrations and displacements, while the intermediate forms are to be attributed to secular intermingling of the extremes. Why should a man, passing from one side to another of an island 10 or 20 miles long, be transformed from a sleek-haired brown to a frizzly-haired black, or from a mercurial laughter-loving Papuan to a Malayan "slow in movement and thoroughly phlegmatic in disposition, rarely seen to laugh or become animated in conversation, with expression generally of vague wonder or weary sadness"[340]?
Papuan and Malay Contrasts.
Wallace's classical description of these western Papuans, who are here in the very cradleland of the race, can never lose its charm, and its accuracy has been fully confirmed by all later observers. "The typical Papuan race," he writes, "is in many respects the very opposite of the Malay. The colour of the body is a deep sooty-brown or black, sometimes approaching, but never quite equalling, the jet-black of some negro races. The hair is very peculiar, being harsh, dry, and frizzly, growing in little tufts or curls, which in youth are very short and compact, but afterwards grow out to a considerable length, forming the compact, frizzled mop which is the Papuan's pride and glory.... The moral characteristics of the Papuan appear to me to separate him as distinctly from the Malay as do his form and features. He is impulsive and demonstrative in speech and action. His emotions and passions express themselves in shouts and laughter, in yells and frantic leapings.... The Papuan has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil with elaborate carving, a habit which is rarely found among tribes of the Malay race. In theaffections and moral sentiments, on the other hand, the Papuans seem very deficient. In the treatment of their children they are often violent and cruel, whereas the Malays are almost invariably kind and gentle."
Ethnical and Biological Divides.
The ethnological parting-line between the Malayan and Papuasian races, as first laid down by Wallace, nearly coincides with his division between the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan floras and faunas, the chief differences being the positions of Sumbawa and Celebes. Both of these islands are excluded from the Papuasian realm, but included in the Austro-Malayan zoological and botanical regions.
The Negritoes.
Recent discoveries and investigations of the pygmy populations on the eastern border of the Indian Ocean tend to show that the problem is by no means simple. Already two main stocks are recognised, differentiated by wavy and curly hair and dolichocephaly in the Sakai, and so-called woolly hair in the Andamanese Islanders, Semang (Malay Peninsula) and Aeta (Philippines), combined with mesaticephaly or low brachycephaly. In East Sumatra and Celebes a short, curly-haired dark-skinned people occur, racially akin to the Sakai, and Moszkowski suggests that the same element occupied Geelvink Bay (Netherlands New Guinea). These with the Vedda of Ceylon, and some jungle tribes of the Deccan, represent remnants of a once widely distributed pre-Dravidian race, which is also supposed to form the chief element in the Australians[341].
The Andamanese.
Stone Age.
The "Mincopies," as the Andamanese used to be called, nobody seems to know why, were visited in 1893 by Louis Lapicque, who examined a large kitchen-midden near Port Blair, but some distance from the present coast, hence of great age[342]. Nevertheless he failed to find any worked stone implements, although flint occurs in the island. Indeed, chipped or flaked flints, now replaced by broken glass, were formerly used for shaving and scarification. But, as the present natives use only fishbones,shells, and wood, Lapicque somewhat hastily concluded that these islanders, like some other primitive groups, have never passed through a Stone Age at all. The shell-mounds have certainly yielded an arrow-head and polished adze "indistinguishable from any of the European or Indian celts of the so-called Neolithic period[343]." But there is no reason to think that the archipelago was ever occupied by a people different from its present inhabitants. Hence we may suppose that their ancestors arrived in their Stone Age, but afterwards ceased to make stone implements, as less handy for their purposes and more difficult to make than the shell or bone-tipped weapons and the nets with which they capture game and fish more readily "than the most skilful fisherman with hook and line[344]." Similarly they would seem to have long lost the art of making fire, having once obtained it from a still active volcano in the neighbouring Barren Island[345].
Personal Appearance.