The Solomon Islands and Their Natives

by H. B. Guppy

[82] Vide a series of three papers in vol. XXIII. of “Nature” on the Indo-Chinese and Oceanic Races.

The theory advanced by Professor Keane with reference to the peopling of the Pacific Islands, is one on which some of my observations in the Solomon Islands, although not directly connected with the subject, have some bearing. The primitive Negrito race, as now exhibited in the Andaman Islander, according to this view is the original stock of all the dark races. From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it extended westwards to Africa across the now lost continent of Lemuria, and eastwards “across a continent of which the South Sea Islands are a remnant—to become slowly differentiated into the present Papuan or Melanesian peoples of those islands.” Subsequently, the Caucasians of southern Asia, impelled before the southerly migration of the Mongols from higher Asia, occupied the islands of the Indian Archipelago and extended eastwards to their present homes in the south-central Pacific (Samoa, Tonga, the Marquesas, Society Islands, &c.). The Mongols following close upon them, finally reached the groups of islands together known as Micronesia in the north-central Pacific (Ladrone, Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, &c.).

The reference to the supposed sunken continents in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which served as stepping-stones in these migrations, merits my attention. From our most recent knowledge of the geological structure of tropical islands, to which my observations in the Solomon Islands have in some measure contributed, it may be inferred that there is but little geological evidence to support the view of the existence of these submerged continents. The theory of subsidence, on which Mr. Darwin’s explanations of atolls was based, cannot now be urged in support of prolonged periods of subsidence in the tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The groups of atolls, which there occur, were formed, as shown by recent investigations, around and over oceanic peaks of volcanic formation, and independently of any movement of subsidence.[83]

[83] Vide the writings of Murray, Agassiz, Geikie, and others. In my volume of geological observations, to be shortly published, I have referred at length to this subject.

With reference to the migration eastwards of the Eastern Polynesians, I would allude to a piece of evidence which was advanced by Mr. Hale in support of the view that the island of Bouro in the Malay Archipelago was the starting-point of the migration. Quiros, the Spanish navigator, was informed in 1606 by a native captured at Taumaco, near the Santa Cruz Group, that there was a large country named Pouro in the vicinity of that region. This Pouro, however, was without doubt the neighbouring island of St. Christoval (one of the Solomon Group) which retains the native name of Bauro at the present day, and as we learn from Gallego’s journal,[84] was called by the natives Paubro rather over three centuries ago. Mr. Hale, however, who of course was not acquainted with the native name of St. Christoval, endeavours to identity this Pouro, of which Quiros was informed, with the distant Bouro of the Indian Archipelago. (Vide [note xv.] of the Geographical Appendix). . . . The foregoing remarks have not been offered with any object of criticising a view on which I am not competent to speak. The misconception having come under my notice, I considered it my duty to refer to it.

[84] Vide [page 229] of this work.

In the course of my researches I came upon a circumstance which appears to point in an unmistakeable manner to the Indian Archipelago as being the highway by which the Eastern Polynesians have reached the Pacific. The circumstance, to which I refer, is that it is possible to trace the native names of some of the common littoral trees, such as the Pandanus, Barringtonia speciosa, &c., from the Indian Archipelago across the central Pacific to the Austral and Society Islands. In illustration, I will take Barringtonia speciosa, referring the reader, however, for the other trees to [page 186] of this work. In the Indian Archipelago, I find the native names of this tree to be Boewa boeton and Poetoen.[85] In the islands of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, it is known as Puputu. In Fiji, it is known as Vutu;[86] in the Tongan Group, as Futu;[87] and in the Hervey and Society Islands as E-Hoodu[88] or Utu.[89] It is interesting to notice the modifications which the name of this tree undergoes, as one follows it eastward from the Indian Archipelago to the centre of the Pacific Ocean, a distance of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles; and it is equally instructive to reflect that without the intermediate changes, intermediate it should be added in a geographical as well as in an etymological sense, the names at the end of the series would scarcely seem to be related. The Indian Archipelago would appear to be the home of this littoral tree, which on account of the buoyancy of its fruits has not only been spread over Polynesia, but has reached Ceylon and Madagascar.[90] From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it has therefore extended to the eastward as far as the central Pacific, and to the westward nearly across the Indian Ocean. . . . It is obvious that much information of this kind might be collected which would be of considerable value to philologists; and even in the case of this single tree I have only, so to speak, broken the ground. The tedious character of the research necessary to collect the scanty information I have obtained on this subject, will be amply compensated for, if my remarks should prove suggestive to residents in the different islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

[85] “De Inlandsche Plantennamen,” by G. J. Filet (vide reference on [page 186]).

[86] “Year in Fiji,” by J. Horne: p. 70. (1881.)