Man and His Migrations

by R. G. Latham

Australia is radically and fundamentally the occupancy of a single stock; the greatest sign of difference between its numerous tribes being that of language. Now this is but a repetition of the philological phænomena of America. The blacker and ruder population of Timor represents the great-great ancestors of the Australians; and it was from Timor that Australia was, apparently, peopled. I feel but little doubt on the subject. Timor itself is connected with the Malayan peninsula by a line of dark-coloured, rude, and fragmentary populations, to be found in Ombay and Floris at the present moment, and inferred to have existed in Java and Sumatra before the development of the peculiar and encroaching civilization of the Mahometan Malays.

It is in the Malayan peninsula that another line of migration terminates. From New Caledonia to New Guinea a long line of islands—Tanna, Mallicollo, Solomon’s Isles, &c.—is occupied by a dark-skinned population of rude Papuas, with Tasmanian rather than Australian hair, i.e. with hair which is frizzy, crisp, curled, or mop-headed, rather than straight, lank, or only wavy. This comes from New Guinea; New Guinea itself comes from the Eastern Moluccas; i.e. from their darker populations. These are of the same origin with those of Timor; though the lines of migration are remarkably distinct. One is from the Moluccas to New Caledonia viâ New Guinea; the other is viâ Timor to Australia.

Both these migrations were early; earlier than the occupancy of Polynesia. The previous occupancy of Australia and New Guinea proves this; and the greater differences between the different sections of the two populations do the same.

III. From Easter Island to the South-Eastern parts of Asia.—The northern, southern, and eastern extremities of Polynesia are the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island respectively. These took their occupants from different islands of the great group to which they belong; of which the Navigators’ Islands were, probably, the first to be peopled. The Radack, Ralik, Caroline, and Pelew groups connect this group with either the Philippines or the Moluccas; and when we reach these, we arrive at the point where the Papuan and Polynesian lines diverge. Just as the Papuan line overlapped or wound round Australia, so do the Micronesians and Polynesians form a circuit round the whole Papuan area.

As the languages, both of Polynesia and Micronesia, differ from each other far less than those of New Guinea, the Papuan Islands, and Australia, the separation from the parent stock is later. It is, most probably, through the Philippines that this third line converges towards the original and continental source of all three. This is the south-eastern portion of the Asiatic Continent, or the Indo-Chinese Peninsula.

The Malay of the Malayan Peninsula is an inflected tongue as opposed to the Siamese of Siam, which belongs to the same class as the Chinese, and is monosyllabic. This gives us a convenient point to stop at.

In like manner the Corean and Japanese tongues, with which we broke off the American line of migration, were polysyllabic; though the Chinese, with which they came in geographical contact, was monosyllabic.

The most remarkable fact connected with the Oceanic stock is the presence of a certain number of Malay and Polynesian words in the language of an island so distant as Madagascar; an island not only distant from the Malayan Peninsula, but near to the Mozambique coast of Africa—an ethnological area widely different from the Malay.

Whatever may be the inference from this fact—and it is one upon which many very conflicting opinions have been founded—its reality is undoubted. It is admitted by Mr. Crawfurd, the writer above all others who is indisposed to admit the Oceanic origin of the Malagasi, and it is accounted for as follows:—“A navigation of 3000 miles of open sea lies between them[16], and a strong trade-wind prevails in the greater part of it. A voyage from the Indian Islands to Madagascar is possible, even in the rude state of Malayan navigation; but return would be wholly impossible. Commerce, conquests, or colonization, are, consequently, utterly out of the question, as means of conveying any portion of the Malayan language to Madagascar. There remains, then, but one way in which this could have taken place—the fortuitous arrival on the shores of Madagascar of tempest-driven Malayan praus. The south-east monsoon, which is but a continuation of the south-east trade-wind, prevails from the tenth degree of south latitude to the equator, its greatest force being felt in the Java Sea, and its influence embracing the western half of the island of Sumatra. This wind blows from April to October, and an easterly gale during this period might drive a vessel off the shores of Sumatra or Java, so as to make it impossible to regain them. In such a situation she would have no resource but putting before the wind, and making for the first land that chance might direct her to; and that first land would be Madagascar. With a fair wind and a stiff breeze, which she would be sure of, she might reach that island, without difficulty, in a month. * * * The occasional arrival in Madagascar of a shipwrecked prau might not, indeed, be sufficient to account for even the small portion of Malayan found in the Malagasi; but it is offering no violence to the manners or history of the Malay people, to imagine the probability of a piratical fleet, or a fleet carrying one of those migrations of which there are examples on record, being tempest-driven, like a single prau. Such a fleet, well equipped, well stocked, and well manned, would not only be fitted for the long and perilous voyage, but reach Madagascar in a better condition than a fishing or trading boat. It may seem, then, not an improbable supposition, that it was through one or more fortuitous adventures of this description, that the language of Madagascar received its influx of Malayan.”

As a supplement to the remarks of Mr. Crawfurd, I add the following account from Mr. M. Martin:—“Many instances have occurred of the slaves in Mauritius seizing on a canoe, or boat, at night-time, and with a calabash of water and a few manioc, or Cassada roots, pushing out to sea and endeavouring to reach across to Madagascar or Africa, through the pathless and stormy ocean. Of course they generally perish, but some succeed. We picked up a frail canoe within about a hundred miles of the coast of Africa; it contained five runaway slaves, one dying in the bottom of the canoe, and the others nearly exhausted. They had fled from a harsh French master at the Seychelles, committed themselves to the deep without compass or guide, with a small quantity of water and rice, and trusting to their fishing-lines for support. Steering by the stars, they had nearly reached the coast from which they had been kidnapped, when nature sank exhausted, and we were just in time to save four of their lives. So long as the wanderers in search of home were able to do so, the days were numbered by notches on the side of the canoe, and twenty-one were thus marked when met with by our vessel.”