4*22 POLYNESI A are not usually so severe as those which visit the seas of eastern Asia, they are often exceedingly destructive, sweeping almost everything down in their course. They last only a few hours. Heavy seas are raised in the line of progress, and vessels are generally exposed to greater danger when lying at anchor at the ports than when in the open sea. The cyclones are always accom panied by considerable electric disturbances, especially when they are passing away. Diseases. Apart from the fever, ague, and dysentery , already alluded to, there is comparatively little disease in i any portion of Polynesia. The principal purely native diseases are such as affect the skin. A form of elephan- j tiasis prevails more or less on all the damp mountainous : islands. Many Europeans are subject to it, especially those who are much exposed to the sun by day and the dews by night, In some of the atolls where the people have little good vegetable food and eat a great quantity of fish, much of it often in a state unfit for food, skin J diseases are even more common than in the mountainous islands. There are reputed cases of leprosy in the Gilbert Islands, and that disease is well known to be one of the scourges of the Hawaiian archipelago. Several European diseases have been introduced into the islands, those which are epidemic usually, at the first visitation, working great havoc among the natives. Many in Europe and America appear to attribute the great mortality which occurs among native races, when an epidemic is introduced among them, to weakness and want of stamina in their constitution ; but a more probable explanation is found in the fact that, on the introduction of measles or smallpox, all the inhabitants of an island are suitable subjects, that the population of entire villages are prostrated at once, that there are no doctors or nurses, none even to feed the sick or to give them drink, and not even the most ordin ary care is taken by the sufferers themselves to lessen the danger. 1 In some islands, especially the Hawaiian group syphilis, first imported by Captain Cook s expedition, has wrought great havoc. It spread very rapidly, because, , at that time, there was almost promiscuous intercourse between the sexes ; and this has been one of the chief causes of the physical deterioration and of the rapid decrease of the natives of Hawaii. The disease has been introduced into other islands in later times through the visits of European and American sailors : but, owing to the influence of Christian teaching, which has in many cases gone first and has produced a change for the better in the relations of the sexes, it has not generally spread. Knees. There are three different kinds of people inhabiting tho islands of Polynesia. The region occupied by each is indicated liy one of the colours on Plate III., and in the subjoined table of I ndo- Pacific peoples the affinity of these races is exhibited. 2 It will be se^ii that there are two broad and very distinct divisions, the dark and the brown races. The dark people occupy Australia, the Andaman Islands, portions of the Indian archipelago, and western Polynesia, and have more or less remote affinity with the natives of .South Africa. The brown people are found in Madagascar, the Indian Archipelago, Formosa, north-western and eastern Poly nesia, together with New Zealand, and are clearly of Asiatic origin. There are in Polynesia people who belong to both the dark and the light sections of the Indo-Pacific races. At present the dark are found only in the western islands as far as Fiji. In some islands 1 In these warm islands the people are generally accustomed to bathe often. When measles prevailed in Fiji many of those who were in a high fever crawled to the bathing places to cool them selves, and many died there. The present writer once visited several islau-ls of the Ellice group about a fortnight after a trading vessel from Sydney, which had influenza on board. This vessel had taken borne of the natives from one island to another as passengers, and at three of the islands the entire population was suffering from the epidemic. Had this been a more severe disease the people would have been utterly helpless. 2 Compare Mr Whitmee s paper on this subject in Journ. Anlhrop. Intl. Lond., 1879. they are considerably mixed with the lighter race, and in many places within the region occupied by them are colonies of the light people who keep themselves distinct. For this dark race the name Papuan is here used. They have generally been known of late years as Melanesians, but Papuan is an older name which has always been used for part of the race, and which clearly ought to be extended to the whole. The region which they inhabit is coloured yellow on the map, and the pink bands across it indicate the presence of some of the light race there. The whole of eastern Polynesia is inhabited by a light brown people to whom the name Sawaiori is here given. 3 They extend out of Polynesia to New Zealand. They have also formed colonies among the Papuans in various places, and in some instances they have become mixed in blood with the blacks among whom they have settled. The pink colour in the map indicates this region. The third kind of people, here called Tarapon, 4 inhabit the northern portion of western Polynesia, the islands generally known as Micronesia (coloured green on the map). The following table shows the relationship of the Indo-Pacific races (Polynesian names in italics): Races. ( Austral. Negrito. ( Dark People : Negrito- Polynesians. Indo- Pacific Races of Men. i, Papuan. Countries where found. Australia.
Andaman Islands,
j Samang, &c. ( Aru Islands. | Western New Guinea.
Solomon Islands, >L-c.
| New Hebrides, <kc. Brown People : Malayo- L Polynesians. ( Sawaiori. Malagasy. { Formosan. Malayan. I Tarapon. ( Samoa, <i-c.
Hawaii.
<( Cook Islands, t(r. | Society Islands, << . 1. New Zealand. Madagascar. Formosa.
Malays of Sumatra, &c. Java, &c.
Caroline Islands. Marshall Islands. Gilbert Islands. I. Thr Papuans. This name is that used by the Malays of the Indian Archipelago for the black, frizzly-haired people found in the Aru Islands and New Guinea. That the inhabitants of the western portion of Polynesia ought to be classed with these Papuans there can be no doubt. The older name is therefore adopted here to include the whole, rather than the newer and less distinctive name Melanesian which has been applied to only a part of the race. A general description of the people is all that can be given here ; for- further details the reader is referred to the articles MELANESIA, NEW GUINEA, &c. In speaking of the affinities of the Papuans ith other peoples much caution is required ; but there is some reason for thinking they may be remotely classified, together with all the other black people of the southern hemisphere, with the tribes of South Africa. 5 See NEGUO. The Papuans are mostly black, but are not of a jet black. In some islands they are lighter than in others. It was long popularly supposed that their hair grew in small tufts. This was, however, a mistake which probably arose from the manner in which many of them are accustomed to dress it. On some islands the men collect their hair into small bunches, and carefully bind each bunch round with fine vegetable fibre from the roots up to within about two inches of the ends. Dr Turner 6 gives a good description of this process. He once counted the bunches on a young man s head, and 3 There has hitherto been no one well understood name used for this people. They are generally called " Polynesians " simply, some- j times " Malayo-Polynesians," and recently the name "Mahori" (a j vile corruption of " Maori ") has been proposed for them. For evident reasons we need some more distinct name than Polynesian. Malayo- Polynesian cannot be confined to them, but must rather be extended to the whole family of which they are but a branch. Sawaiori is a . compound from Sa-moo., Ha-ttM-i, and Ma-ori, thus derived from the native names of the three principal peoples. 4 The name " Micronesians " has been generally adopted. Mr Horatio Hale, in his great work on the Ethnography and Philology
of the United States Exploring Expedition, adopted Tdrawa the
j name of one of the Gilbert Islands, there being no native name for the entire group for the language of that group. The presei t writer i takes part of this name, Tdr-a-wa., and part of the name of the prin- i cipal island in the Caroline Islands, viz., Pow-a-pe, to form the com pound name Tar-u-pon. 5 The Rev. R. H. Codrington believes the Papuan (Melanesian) lan guages belong to the same stock as the rest of the Polynesian languages. But, as is pointed out by Prof. Keane, he entirely overlooks the phy sical aspects of the question. See Journ. Anthrop. Soc. Lond., 1884.
6 Nineteen Years in Polynesia, pp. 77, 78 ; Samoa, pp. 308-310.