Negative Characters.—Little, or no, use of the bow and arrow; considered to be a differential point between Polynesia and Kelænonesia.
Conditions of Social and Physical Development.—Absence of large animals, either as beasts of burden or as food. Nearly general absence of rice and pulse. Intercourse entirely by means of canoes. Between Polynesia and Protonesia little or none. Between the different portions of Polynesia limited or partial. Malay and Hindu influences obscure. Present influences European; of recent date.
Religion.—Paganism, apparently indigenous. Uniform in its general character over a great extent.
Languages.—Allied to each other, and mutually intelligible over large areas. Grammatical structure akin to the Tagala. Malay words numerous and evident.
Divisions.—1. Micronesian Branch. 2. Proper Polynesian Branch.
Reasons will now be given for drawing a distinction between the Micronesians and the Proper Polynesians, and also for taking the Micronesians first in order. In the former I follow Prichard. In the latter I believe my arrangement is singular.
1. MM. Dumont Durville and Lesson, to whose observations on this, as in many other portions of oceanic ethnology, much of our information is due, have agreed in disconnecting the natives of the Western Oceanic Islands from those of the Eastern; insisting upon a difference of language, and a difference in physical conformation. Nay more, they would connect them with the Mongols of the Continent. To give prominence to this difference of opinion on the part of judges so well qualified as the two investigators in question, was Pilchard's reason for thus separating the Archipelago of the Pacific into two sections.
For my own part I consider that the grounds of difference set forth by MM. Lesson and Dumont Durville, although insufficient to establish the double position of an affinity with the Mongolians, and of a no-affinity with the Polynesians, are sufficient to justify the sub-division of the kind in question. The absence, in Micronesia, of certain Polynesian customs, and the modified form of others are additional reasons.