All this is perfectly true, and it is also true that for generations the recognised castes, say, social pursuits, have been in a state of constant flux, incessantly undergoing processes of segmentation, so that their number is at present past counting. Nevertheless, the system may have been, and probably was, first inspired by racial motives, an instinctive sense of self-preservation, which expressed itself in an informal way by local class distinctions which were afterwards sanctioned by religion, but eventually broke down or degenerated into the present relations under the outward pressure of imperious social necessities[1344].
Oceanic Indonesians.
Micronesians.
Beyond the mainland and Ceylon no Caucasic peoples of Aryan speech are known to have ranged in neolithic or prehistoric times. But we have already followed the migrations of a kindred[1345], though mixed race, here called Indonesians, into Malaysia, the Philippines, Formosa, and the Japanese Archipelago, which they must have occupied in the New Stone Age. Here there occurs a great break, for they are not again met till we reach Micronesia and the still more remote insular groups beyond Melanesia. In Micronesia the relations are extremely confused, because, as it seems, this group had already been occupied by the Papuans from New Guinea before the arrival of the Indonesians, while after their arrival they were followed at intervals by Malays perhaps from the Philippines and Formosa, and still later by Japanese, if not also by Chinese from the mainland. Hence the types are here as varied as the colour, which appears, going eastwards, to shade off from the dark brown of the Pelew and Caroline Islanders to the light brown of the Marshall and Gilbert groups, where we already touch upon the skirts of the true Indonesian domain[1346].
Polynesians.
A line drawn athwart the Pacific from New Zealand through Fiji to Hawaii will roughly cut off this domain from the rest of the Oceanic world, where all to the west is Melanesian, Papuan or mixed, while all to the right—Maori, some of the eastern Fijians, Tongans, Samoans, Tahitians, Marquesans, Hawaiians and Easter Islanders—is grouped under the name Polynesian, a type produced by a mixture of Proto-Malayan and Indonesian. Dolichocephaly and mesaticephaly prevail throughout the region, but there are brachycephalic centres in Tonga, the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands. The hair is mostly black and straight, but also wavy, though never frizzly or even kinky. The colour also is of a light brown compared to cinnamon or café-au-lait, and sometimes approaching an almost white shade, while the tall stature averages 1.72 m. (5 ft. 7¾ ins.).
Migrations.
Migrating at an unknown date eastwards from the East Indian archipelago[1347], the first permanent settlements appear to have been formed in Samoa, and more particularly in the island of Savaii, originally Savaiki, which name under divers forms and still more divers meanings accompanied all their subsequent migrations over the Pacific waters. Thus we have in Tahiti Havaii[1348], the "universe," and the old capital of Raiatea; in Rarotonga Avaiki, "the land under the wind"; in New Zealand Hawaiki, "the land whence came the Maori"; in the Marquesas Havaiki, "the lower regions of the dead," as in to fenua Havaiki, "return to the land of thy forefathers," the words with which the victims in human sacrifices were speeded to the other world; lastly in Hawaii, the name of the chief island of the Sandwich group.
Polynesian Culture.