FIG. 153.—Woman of the Fualu clan (east coast of
New Caledonia), of pure Melanesian race.
(Phot. E. Robin.)
The inhabitants of Torres Straits very much recall the Papuans; they have nothing in common with the Australians.[570]
The Melanesians properly so called[571] are for the most part of the variety with large square or lozenge-shaped face, with the straight or retroussé nose of the Melanesian race (Fig. [153]). In general they are taller and more dolichocephalic than the Papuans. (See [Appendices I.] and [II.]) All tillers of the soil, cultivating especially the yam and taro, they practise hunting and fishing only at times; the pig is their only domestic animal. Most of the Melanesians still live in the stone age, but the former fine axes of polished serpentine, artistically hafted, are disappearing more and more. They also make many weapons and tools of wood, of shells, and of human humerus bones. The favourite weapons are the club, bow, and spear, this last being used only in war (except in New Caledonia, where the bow is little employed).
The arrow and spear heads are most often of human bone, barbed, and sometimes poisoned with juices of plants or microbes from the ooze of ponds or lagunes.
The Melanesians build outrigger and twin canoes, but they do not sail far from the coasts. Pottery in certain islands is unknown; the dwellings are little houses on piles, except in New Caledonia, where circular huts are met with. Communal houses (“Gamal”) exist everywhere. Tattooing, little practised, is most often done by cicatrices. The habit of chewing betel is general, except in New Caledonia; but kava is almost unknown. Anthropophagy is now indulged in only on the Solomon Islands and in some islands of New Britain and New Hebrides, although the custom of preserving the skulls of the dead, and of hanging them near the hut side by side with those derived from head-hunting, is general. As in New Guinea, there exists a mob of dialects and tongues in each of the Melanesian Islands, and even in different parts of the same island. Melanesian women are very chaste and virtuous, and that notwithstanding the absence of the sense of modesty, at least in New Britain, where they go completely naked, as also do the men. The men, in certain islands, wear only antipudic garments (see p. [170]). Taboo in Melanesia assumes a less clear form than in Polynesia, where it amounts to simple interdiction without the intervention of mysterious forces. As in Australia there are no “tribes” among the Melanesians (except perhaps in New Caledonia), but in each island there exists two or more exogamous “classes” or clans (as in Australia), and the regulations of group marriage (p. [231]) are observed as strictly in the Solomon Islands as in Viti-Levu (the largest of the Fiji Islands). Secret societies (Duk-Duk, etc., p. [253]) flourish especially in Banks Islands, but are met with also in the rest of Melanesia and even in the Fijis, where, especially in the west islands, the population is already intermixed with Polynesian elements.[572]
IV. POLYNESIANS.[573]—Seeing that the Polynesians are distributed over a number of islands, and exist under the most varied conditions, we might expect to find a multitude of types. This is not the case; the Polynesian race shows almost the same traits from the Hawaii Islands to New Zealand. This fact is due to the constant migrations from island to island, and the active trading conducted by all the Polynesians with each other, the effect of which is to efface, by process of intermixture, differences arising from insular isolation.
From the physical point of view the Polynesian is tall (1 m. 74, average of 254 measurements), sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind., 82.6 according to 178 measurements on the living subject, 79 according to 328 skulls), of a fair complexion (warm yellow or brownish), with straight or curly hair, most often straight nose, the cheek-bones fairly projecting, the superciliary arches little marked, and, especially among the women, something languorous in the look (Figs. [154] to [156]). The Polynesian therefore differs completely from the Melanesian, whose stature is below the average (1 m. 62 according to 295 measurements), and who is dolichocephalic (ceph. ind., 77 according to 223 measurements on living subject); he has dark skin, woolly or frizzy hair, concave or convex nose, and, lastly, prominent superciliary arches, which, combined with the pigmentation of the cornea, give a fierce and suspicious look. The Polynesian is more subject to obesity than the Melanesian. He is more lively, more imaginative and intelligent, but also more dissolute in his habits than the Melanesian.
Before the advent of Europeans, the Polynesians of the upper volcanic islands were expert tillers of the soil (as witness the ruins of irrigation works in Tahiti, New Zealand, and elsewhere), and in the lower coral islands lived on the produce of the cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees. Everywhere they were accustomed to fish. They cooked their foods by means of heated stones (p. [153]), having (except in Micronesia, in the Tonga and Easter Islands) no knowledge of pottery; they excelled in the art of plaiting, in the preparation of tapa (p. [183]), and especially in navigation. Their light canoes with outriggers (Fig. [82]), or their large twin canoes connected by a platform and always carrying a single triangular sail of mat, furrowed the ocean in all directions. For weapons they had short javelins, slings, and wooden clubs, but neither bow nor shield. They made tools of shell and polished stone, and were proficient in the art of wood-sculpture (Fig. [71]). Pictography appears to have been known only in Easter Island (p. [140]). Kava (p. [158]) was their national drink; tattooing had reached the condition of an art in New Zealand only. The custom of taboo (p. [252]) probably originated in Polynesia, where also two or three social classes are to be met with. After the arrival of Europeans the Polynesians, adopting the customs of the new-comers, underwent rapid changes. For the most part Christians, especially Protestants, they have modified their very rich old mythology by the incorporation of Christian legends. In several islands, in Hawaii, Samoa, and New Zealand, the Polynesians have even risen to the height of having parliamentary institutions, in the management of which they themselves take part. On the other hand, civilisation, in ensuring peace, has had the effect of making the Polynesians unenterprising and lazy, and more inclined to dissipation than they were formerly. And the population is diminishing, owing either to imported epidemic diseases (particularly syphilis and tuberculosis), or to cross-breeding.