The Natural History of the Varieties of Man

by R. G. Latham

Now such a locality is really found in the case before us in the relations already noticed between the north-east point of Timor and Cape Van Diemen; so that, upon the whole, the a priori views are as much in favour of the Timor range of islands, being the connecting link between Australia and the Continent, as they are in favour of New Guinea being so.

The distinction just indicated is of more importance, as illustrative of a general principle, than as a fact affecting the particular point in question. The special facts of the case are, in the mind of the present writer, in favour of Timor and not New Guinea, having been the quarter from whence Australia was peopled, the particular part of the Timorian stock being, of course, the darker, wilder, and, apparently, more ancient tribes of the west and of the interior.

2. Of the Polynesians.—In investigating the relations between Polynesia and the Continent, with an exclusive view to the land-and-sea conditions between the different portions of the connecting series of islands, we should at once derive the population of the Eastern Archipelagoes from the islands which lay nearest to them on the west, and so proceed until we came to the Samoan Archipelago, to the Tonga group, or to the Fijis. These we should connect with the New Hebrides, or Solomon's Isles, and these last with New Guinea, the Moluccas, and the Continent. We should then assume a spread of the population, as far to the North and East as it had been found to occur westwards; and so derive the Micronesians from the northern Polynesians. We should not be afraid of even deriving the people of the Pelew Islands from the same quarter; the similarity of language and habits having already been recognised, and the distance between the Pelews and the nearest portion of Protonesia being greater than (or at least as great as) any interspace of ocean between Polynesia and the Continent. I say that this is what we should do if we looked exclusively to the discovery of that line of connexion where the land-and-sea conditions should be the most favourable; in other words, where the interspaces of sea should be the smallest. Nevertheless, in so doing we should, probably, commit an error in our inference, and certainly violate a principle in our method; a principle which has been suggested in a previous[83] part of the present Volume, and which is founded upon the circumstance of the population of the line of the Papuan Islands, being not Amphinesian but Negrito: so that the ethnological continuity, and the geographical continuity, disagree; a fact which throws us upon a line of greater geographical, but of less ethnological complexity; and in favour of which the probabilities arise out of a composition of the conflicting difficulties. This is the line from either the Philippines, or the northern Moluccas to the Pelews (via Lord North's Isle, Sonsoral, or Johannes I.), the cluster of Goulou, the cluster of Yap, the Egoy Isles, the Lamoursek and Satawal groups; the Proper Caroline group, the Chains of Ralik, and Radak, the Tarawan group, the Navigators' Isles or Samoan Archipelago.

Now the Samoan Archipelago is very nearly the point from which we should have derived the proper Polynesian population, had we taken the course of the Papuan islands; so that it constitutes a point wherein the two lines meet. Hence, if upon historical, philological, or any other points of external evidence, we gave a preference to the Samoan Archipelago, over the Tonga group, as the source of the population for other parts of Polynesia Proper, we should reduce the general question as to the original of South Pacific islanders to that of the origin of the Samoans. This, however, is a matter of detail, of less importance than the recognition of the necessity of making the geographical continuity of the chain which connects the Polynesians with the Continent, agree with the ethnological. This can only be done by deriving the Polynesian population from Micronesia. In this case the stream of migration goes round the Kelænonesian area, and not across it.

The rule of taking, as lines of insular migration, those series where the maximum interspaces of ocean are the smallest, has already been twice insisted on, and in both cases it has been qualified by the indication of particular reasons, which might, in certain cases, lead us to depart from it. These reasons have not been exhibited in detail. Two sorts, however, of them have occurred, as it were spontaneously, i.e., in the natural course of our investigations. These showed themselves, first in the preference given to Timor over New Guinea, as the origin of the Australian population; and next, in the case of Polynesia, just discussed. A third sort will now present itself, i.e., the effect of winds and currents; since it is clear that it is easier to pass over a large interspace of sea with wind and current (one or both) in your favour, than over a small one with either one or both against you.

The prevailing winds in the Pacific are against a line of insular migration, being from west to east, at all; since for three fourths of the year they blow from America towards Amphinesia rather than from Amphinesia to America.

Valeat quantum. All that can possibly be got would be a chance of three to one in favour of an American origin for the Polynesians, provided that all other conditions were equal. But this is not the case; the a priori probabilities are neutralized by a vast difference in the maximum interspaces of ocean, and by the non-American character of both Micronesia and Polynesia.

It is most likely, then, that Polynesia Proper was peopled from Micronesia, and Micronesia from either the Philippines or the Moluccas.

C. The date of the migrations. This is either relative or absolute: relative when we ascertain whether one division of the Oceanic populations migrated before or after another; absolute when we fix the chronological date of a migration. As a general rule the latter is unattainable—Iceland and a few other areas, peopled within the historical period, forming the exceptions.

Respecting, then, the absolute date of the Polynesian migration, there is no reason why it should not be known in particular islands; for instance, in the Dangerous Archipelago, where only a small proportion of the clusters is peopled even at present, any given island may receive a population so late as this, the eleventh hour of the extension of the human species; yet it is evident that the knowledge of such a migration would throw but little light upon the broader question of the date of the Polynesian population en masse. Of this it may safely be said, that no important group has received its first occupants within the Polynesian historical period. This, however, is but a short one.