The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

I. The greater number of the defenders of autochthony allow that there is no fundamental impossibility in migration by land, but maintain that it is different in migrations by sea. The peopling of America, and especially that of Polynesia, by emigrants from our great continent, is, in their opinion, far more than could possibly be undertaken or accomplished by nations unacquainted with the science of astronomy, and the improved method of navigation. According to them, geographical conditions, winds and currents, must oppose an insurmountable obstacle to any enterprise of this nature.

Starting from Polynesia, let us see how much truth there is in these assertions. This will be taking, so to speak, the bull by the horns, for no other part of the globe seems to justify to such an extent, the opinions of autochthonists.

II. Polynesia is not quite so isolated as we are accustomed to think. A study of the map alone should be sufficient to justify us in holding that a maritime people, accustomed to the navigation of the Malay Archipelago, might, on some occasion, have pushed as far as New Guinea. This fact is now established above all dispute. Beyond New Guinea, the Archipelago of New Britain and the Solomon Islands would put, so to speak, any fairly adventurous navigators on their way to the Fiji Islands; once arrived at this archipelago, however little they may have been impelled by the spirit of discovery, they must easily have reached Polynesia properly so called. New Zealand to the south, and the Sandwich Islands to the north, remain, however, beyond the limits of this route, as it is pointed out by geography.

For bold mariners to be stopped in their advance, winds and currents must have been invariably contrary and irresistible. The stronger the belief in the universality and absolute constancy of the trade winds in these regions, the more was this action attributed to them. But the investigations which have been carried on in the interests of science, the writings of Commander Maury, and the charts of Captain Kerhallet, have taught us that the variable winds due to the cloud-ring extend over almost twenty degrees in the maritime area in question. We know, moreover, that every year the monsoon drives back the trade winds and blows beyond the Sandwich and Tahiti Islands, so that instead of the winds being contrary, they are, for many months, very favourable for ships sailing eastward.

Considerations drawn from currents lead almost to the same conclusions. In the Pacific, the equatorial current running from east to west forms in reality two great distinct oceanic streams separated by a large counter current flowing in the reverse direction. The latter skirts almost the whole northern portion of the Polynesian area; it thus, as it were, forms the outlet from the Indian Archipelago. There is every indication of its having played some part in the history of the dispersion of races in all parts of Oceania and to the east of the Malay peninsula.

Finally, we know that there is no absolute regularity in the atmospheric phenomena in the regions of the Pacific, any more than elsewhere. This ocean has in common with others its typhoons and its tempests, which suddenly change the direction of the winds and carry ships before them in spite of currents. Islands, both large and small, with which it is beset, must often have been visited by sailors who had thus lost their way, of which we shall presently quote examples.

Far from being impossible, the peopling of Polynesia by navigators starting from the Indian Archipelago is relatively easy at certain times of the year, provided only that the navigators are courageous and not afraid of losing sight of land. Now we know the character of the Malay populations in this respect.

Again, those who have taken all these circumstances into consideration, Malte-Brun, Homme, Lesson, Rienzi, Beechey, Wilkes and others, have not hesitated to regard Polynesia as having been peopled by migrations advancing from west to east.

III. Writers, on the contrary, who have only consulted the imperfect knowledge which we till lately possessed of these seas, and the ordinary direction of the winds, have either believed in autochthony or have invented various theories to explain the presence of man in this multitude of islands and remote islets.

Ellis held that the Polynesians had been conveyed from America to Oceania by winds and currents, but this hypothesis has had scarcely any adherents. It is in too direct contradiction with all the physical, philological, and social characters, which refer the Polynesians to the Malay races as strongly as they separate them from the Americans.