The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

Dumont d’Urville has proposed a theory which, at first sight, is more satisfactory, and still has a few supporters. In his opinion, Polynesia is the remains of a great continent which was originally connected with Asia. This land sank after some geological revolutions; the sea covered the plains and hills, the highest summits only being now visible and forming the present archipelago. The Polynesians are the descendants of those who survived the catastrophe.

This hypothesis has the advantage of preserving those relations which were broken by that of Ellis. And, curious to relate, it agrees with the tradition of the deluge as preserved by the Tahitians. They say that the great inundation happened without either rain or tempest. It was the sea which rose and covered the whole earth with the exception of a flat rock where one man and a woman took refuge. We might say that there was nothing in this account but a mistake which is easily understood. The sea never rises, but the land may sink, and other people besides the Tahitians have been deceived.

Nevertheless, we cannot accept the theory of Dumont d’Urville. It is in contradiction to the zoological facts so thoroughly investigated by Darwin and Dana. If some of the atolls of Oceania shew signs of subsidence, a great number of islands offer incontestable proofs of upheaval, and Tahiti itself is one of the latter.

But the most serious argument which can be brought against d’Urville is derived from the inhabitants themselves. If travellers agree upon one point, it is that from the Sandwich Islands to New Zealand, from the Tonga Islands to Easter Island, all the Polynesians belong to the same race, and speak the same language with mere variations of dialect.

Now the Polynesian area, the limits of which I have just pointed out, is of greater extent than the whole of Asia. What would an Asiatic Polynesia be like, if that continent were to sink beneath the waters and leave only the summits of its mountains visible, where some representatives of the present inhabitants might take refuge? Is it not at once evident that each archipelago, and often each island, would have its own race and language?

The considerations drawn from the identity of populations and languages in Polynesia are of themselves sufficient to justify the assertion that all the Islanders have a common origin; and consequently, that, starting from some unknown point, they have, in their advance from archipelago to archipelago, peopled by degrees the maritime world in which we find them.

Horatio Hale, the eminent anthropologist of the scientific expedition of the United States, was the first to approach the problem from a general point of view; he solved it as far as he was able with the data collected by himself, and sketched the first chart of Polynesian migrations. Fresh facts have been obtained since that time. Sir George Grey has published the historical songs of the Maories; Thomson, Shortland, and Hochstetter have brought to light fresh traditions; M. Remy published a history of Hawaii arranged by a native. M. Gaussin has carried off the prize in philology by his admirable work upon the Polynesian language; the Dépôt of the French Marine has received special documents from Tahiti to which General Ribourt, Admiral Lavaud, and Admiral Bruat have added the results of their own researches. These unpublished materials have been liberally placed at my disposal, and I have added to them some facts which have been forgotten. I have thus been able to confirm, from a general point of view, the conclusions of Hale, making, however, some important modifications, and to complete, again with some modifications, his chart of migrations. My readers will understand that I cannot here enter into a detailed discussion, and I must beg to refer them to my work upon The Polynesians and their Migrations. I shall confine myself to a short summary of the results which, I believe, it demonstrates.

IV. Both physical and philological characters show that the Polynesians are a branch of those Malay races which are divided into numerous groups by shades of difference, sometimes strongly marked. It is to one of these groups which are least distant from the white type that the nations in question must be referred.

The starting point of these migrations, which were to extend so far into the east, was Boeroe Island, which is represented in all maps between Celebes and Ceram. This conclusion, already proposed with some diffidence by Hale, seems to me to be placed beyond a doubt by all the traditions collected at Tonga by Mariner, with whose work the learned American seems to have been unacquainted.

On quitting the Malay seas, the emigrants must have followed as nearly as possible the course given above. Repulsed doubtless by the black races which then, as now, occupied New Guinea, they passed Melanesia. Some canoes, however, probably separated from the others, reached the eastern extremity of this great island, and there founded a colony recently discovered by Commander Moresby. It is this colony which has doubtless furnished the several archipelagos of Melanesia with at least a part of the Polynesian elements which have been observed by several travellers. We know, however, thanks to the researches of M. de Rochas, that the Polynesian elements of the little archipelago of the Loyalty Islands is due to an emigration passing in 1770 from the Willis Islands to New Caledonia.