Man, Past and Present

by A. H. Keane

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 the actual 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 the affections 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 Oceanic Negritoes.

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.