I may here remark that I did not come upon the custom of kava-drinking in these islands. According to the Rev. Mr. Lawes, the kava plant (Piper methysticum) grows wild in the forests of the South-Coast of New Guinea, but its use is unknown. It may similarly be found in the Solomon Islands. On the Maclay Coast, as we are informed by Miklouho-Maclay, the custom of kava-drinking has been introduced not very long ago.[79]
[79] Proc. Lin. Soc., N.S.W., vol. X., pp. 350, 351.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS AND RACE-AFFINITIES OF THESE ISLANDERS.[80]
[80] My observations on the physical characters of these islanders were embodied in a paper read before the Anthropological Institute in July, 1885. They were to be published in the Journal of that society.
I will in the first place briefly refer to the position assigned to these islanders in the classification of the different races of man. Professor Flower, in a recent address,[81] divided the different varieties of the human species into three principal divisions, the Ethiopian, the Mongolian, and the Caucasian, a system of classification which, although often advanced and as often disputed, has now been preferred to other more complicated methods of classifying the different varieties of man. Around or between these three types all existing varieties can be ranged.
[81] The President’s Anniversary Address to the Anthropological Institute, Jan. 27th, 1885.
The Solomon Island natives are usually referred to the Melanesian group of the Ethiopian division, a group which includes the Papuans of New Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western Pacific; but my observations on the physical characters of these natives have shown that the type of a Solomon Island native varies considerably in different parts of the group, in some islands approaching the pure Papuan, in others possessing Polynesian affinities, and in others showing traces of the Malay. The prevailing characters, however, are distinctly Melanesian or Papuan. The Melanesians, who, according to Professor Flower, are chiefly distinguished from the African negroes by the well developed glabella and supra-orbital ridges in the male, greatly excel the true African negroes, the Hottentots and Bushmen, and the Negritos of the Andaman and Philippine Islands, who are included in the Ethiopian division, in all that affects their social condition. In their usuages, their rites, their dwellings, their agriculture, their canoes, and in many other respects, the Melanesian or Papuan peoples display a far greater intellectual capacity than we find exhibited by the other members of the Ethiopian division.
I cannot here enter at length into the question of the peopling of the various groups of islands in the Pacific. It is a question on which conclusions drawn from the linguistic and physical characters of the inhabitants of these islands do not always agree. Professor Keane[82] holds that the three principal divisions of the varieties of man are represented in this region; the Caucasian in the Polynesians inhabiting the islands of the south-central Pacific (Marquesas, Samoa, Tonga, &c.); the Mongolian in the Micronesians of the islands of the north-central Pacific (Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, Ladrone Islands); and the Ethiopian, or as he terms it the Dark Type, in the Papuans of the Western Pacific (to whom he restricts the name Melanesian), New Guinea, and the adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago. It is to the different mingling of these three principal types, that the widely varying characters of the peoples dwelling in the several regions of the Pacific are attributed. According to Professor Keane, the Polynesians of the south-central Pacific are almost purely Caucasian, without a trace of Mongolian blood. This view, however, is not supported by Professor Flower who contends that the combination of the Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters, in varying proportions and under varying conditions, would probably account for all the modifications observed among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands.