FIG. 148.—Same subject as Fig. [147], seen in profile;
a striking blend of Melanesian and Indonesian traits.
(Phot. Lapicque.)
Sundry particulars have already been given in regard to the ornaments of the Australians (p. [178], and Figs. [59], [149], and [150]), in regard to their marriage customs (p. [232]), their system of affiliation (p. [234]), the “corroborees,” and their ceremonies of initiation (p. [241]), at which time are practised the circumcision and urethral sub-incision (mika operation, p. [239]) of the young people. On p. [210], et seq., I have already given some details in regard to the music, poetry, and arts of these people.
In most ethnographical works, the extinct Tasmanian[551] people are described side by side with the Australian. The only reason of this lies in the proximity of their habitat, for really the Tasmanians recall rather the Melanesians, both in somatic traits and in mode of life. The language of the Tasmanians, which is agglutinative with prefixes and suffixes, presents no analogy either with Australian or Melanesian tongues. The Tasmanians appear to have been of stature below the average (1 m. 66); head, sub-dolichocephalic (ceph. ind., 76 to 77); broad and prognathous face; flattened and very broad nose; frizzy hair (which last constituted their chief difference from the Australians).[552]
II. ASIATIC ARCHIPELAGO OR MALAYSIA.—The population of this part of Oceania may be separated into four great ethnic groups: Malays, Indonesians, Negritoes, and Papuans. The first two form the basis of most of the ethnic groups of the Archipelago, while the Negrito element is represented only in the Malay peninsula (which from the ethnic point of view may be associated with the Archipelago), in the Andaman Islands (see p. [397]), in the Philippines, and perhaps in Riu-Linga; and the Papuan element in the Aru and Ke Islands, and in a lesser degree in the South-West Islands, Ceram, Buru, Timur, Floris, and the neighbouring islets. It has long been supposed that the interior of the Malay Islands is occupied by negroid races akin to the Negritoes or Papuans; but no explorer of Sumatra, Borneo, Java,[553] or Celebes has yet encountered Negritoes there, although the centres of these islands have repeatedly been traversed; hence there is little hope of discovering negroid races in them. Besides, the assumed Negritoes of the Mergui Archipelago, of Nicobar and of Engano, described by Anderson, Lapicque, Man, Sherborn and Modigliani, have been shown to be simply Indonesians. The existence of true Negritoes has been affirmed only in the extreme north of the Archipelago, in the spots named above, the Andaman Islands, etc. If there be any trace whatever of intermixture with these races, it should not be necessary to search beyond the north parts of Sumatra and Borneo—in other words, beyond the equator going south.
I have already given some particulars in regard to the Negritoes of Malacca and the Andamanese (p. [397]). As to the people of the Philippines,[554] known under the name of Aeta or Aita (a corruption of the Malay word “hitam,” meaning black), they occupy the interior of Luzon Island in little groups, and are to be met with also in the Mindoro, Panay, and Negros islands, and in the north-east part of Mindanao. They are shorter (1 m. 47) than the Andamanese and the Sakai, but are very like them generally. They are uncivilised hunters; in certain districts where they are crossed with Tagals they have begun to till the soil.
FIG. 149.—“Billy,” Queensland Australian;
height, 1 m. 51; ceph. ind., 70.4; nas. ind., 107.5.
(Phot. Prince Roland Bonaparte.)
The Papuans (see p. [493]) are still less numerous than the Negritoes in the Asiatic Archipelago. They are to be found, more or less pure, only in the Aru, Salawatti, and Waigiu Islands, etc. All these islands form part of the Archipelago only from the political point of view; they belong by their climate, their flora and fauna, to the New Guinea and Australian world. There are also tribes which recall the Papuans in Ceram and Buru, in the Ke and Tenimber islands; but in the remainder of the Moluccas, and in Floris and Timur islands, only traces of Papuan or Melanesian blood can be discovered, generally in the form of intermixture with or modification of the Malay or Indonesian type (see p. [491], and Figs. [46] to [48]). Such at least is the conclusion to which lead the researches of Ten Kate and Lapicque,[555] the only anthropologists who have studied the question on the spot.