Polynesia

Polynesia (Gr. polys, 'many,' nēsos, 'island'), a term applied collectively by some writers to all the Pacific islands of strictly oceanic character—i.e. either of volcanic or coralline origin; by others restricted to the eastern groups inhabited by the brown Polynesian race. Here it will be taken in the broader sense so as to include all the Pacific lands east of the Philippines, New Guinea, and Australia, except Japan, the Kuriles, Aleutians, Queen Charlotte, Vancouver, Revillagigedo, and Galapagos, which are geographical dependencies of the surrounding Asiatic and American continents. These Polynesian, or 'South Sea' islands, as they are also called, are distributed over a vast space, stretching across a hundred degrees of longitude from New Britain (149° E.) to Easter Island (109°

17° W.), and across seventy degrees of latitude from Hawaii (23° N.) to Stewart Island at the southern extremity of New Zealand (47° 20' S.). But the aggregate extent of dry land in this boundless expanse of some 11 million square miles scarcely exceeds 170,000 sq. m., of which nearly two-thirds are comprised in the New Zealand Archipelago, while the total population is probably less than 1,500,000. See the map at WORLD, and also the physical map at AUSTRALIA.

Polynesia comprises the three broad divisions of Micronesia, Melanesia, and East Polynesia, which are determined partly by geographical position, and partly by ethnological conditions, and each of which is again subdivided into several secondary groups. Thus, Micronesia (Gr. mikros, 'small,' nēsos, 'island') lies in the extreme north-west almost entirely north of the equator, and consists exclusively of small volcanoes and atolls, forming the five archipelagoes of the Marianas (Ladrones), Pelew, (Palaos), Carolines, Marshall, and Gilbert, all inhabited by heterogeneous populations in which most of the oceanic and perhaps some of the continental elements are represented. So also Melanesia (Gr. melas, 'black') lies in the extreme west entirely south of the equator, and consists mainly of comparatively large upraised crystalline, coralline, and volcanic islands disposed in parallel chains from north-west to south-east, forming the eleven archipelagoes of the Admiralty, Bismarck (New Britain and New Ireland), D'Entrecasteaux, Louisiade, Solomon, Santa Cruz, Banks, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Loyalty, and Fiji, all inhabited by the Melanesian or dark Oceanic race. Lastly, East Polynesia lies on both sides of the equator, mainly east of a line drawn from New Zealand between Fiji and Samoa to Hawaii, and consists of the twelve volcanic and coralline archipelagoes of Hawaii (Sandwich), Phoenix, Ellice, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga, Kermadec, Austral (Tubuai), Cook, Tahiti, Tuamotu (Paumotu), and Marquesas, besides the large sedimentary and igneous region of New Zealand and numerous sporadic islets, such as Norfolk, Chatham, Rapaiti, Easter, Manihiki, Tongareva, Uvea, and many others. This division is the exclusive domain, apart from recent white immigrants, of the large brown race, commonly called 'Polynesians' in a special sense.

Subjoined is a table of these multitudinous insular groups, with their areas, populations, and political status.

Lying almost entirely within the tropics, and consisting nearly everywhere of igneous or coralline groups exposed to the same atmospheric and marine currents, Polynesia presents great uniformity in its climatic and biological conditions. In these respects, however, New Zealand belongs to a separate world, thanks to its large extent, lofty ranges, different geological history, and high southern latitude. But even in Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, the Solomon and Hawaiian groups, with volcanic cones ranging from 1000 to nearly 14,000 feet, less variety is presented by the different local floras than might be expected from their great altitude. Almost everywhere the prevailing winds are the moist south-east trades, which in summer veer round to the west and north-west. But these winds also bring moisture-bearing clouds, so that the rainfall is generally high, in the Solomons excessive (150 inches), in Hawaii 60 to 80, and in New Caledonia over 40. But many of the atolls, being too low to arrest the currents, receive very little moisture, and in some places constitute a rainless zone, as indicated by the accumulated deposits of guano. The mean temperature is about 70° F. both in Hawaii and New Caledonia (about the two tropics), with an extreme range from 50° to 90° F. But the climate, except in New Caledonia and New Zealand, is everywhere relaxing, and in the Solomons and other large islands malarious up to considerable altitudes.

In the coralline groups the flora is essentially oceanic, the prevailing species being the cocoa-nut and one or two other palms, the pandanus and bread-fruit tree, and such edible roots as yams, taro, and sweet potatoes. Besides these forms, the large archipelagoes have a rich forest vegetation, mostly belonging to the Papuan and Australian zones, with some American and a few indigenous plants. Hence the prevalence of casuarinas, dammaras, araucarias, tree-ferns, besides myrtles, ebony, and the banyan fig. Highly specialised forms are the New Caledonian niauli (Melaleuca leucadendron), which yields the cajeput-oil, and the Hawaiian oleaginous kukiu and gigantic halapepe (Branchleya), with foliage like that of the pandanus. As many as 1300 distinct species have been discovered in New Caledonia, and nearly 1400 in Fiji, of which 1100 are phanerogamous.

In contrast with the relatively rich flora is the remarkably poor fauna, especially in mammals. The dog and pig were found both in the Solomons and Hawaii at the time of their discovery; but both appear to have been introduced in comparatively recent times. The only undoubtedly indigenous mammals in these and the other Polynesian groups are two or three species of rodents (rats and mice) and a few varieties of the bat family. Even reptiles and insects are rare, being chiefly represented by three small lizards in Hawaii, one snake, one scorpion, one centipede, and a spider in New Caledonia, a few snakes and frogs in Fiji, and in East Polynesia by only one venomous animal, a centipede. Fiji is the easternmost limit of the frog and the Solomons of the crocodile, which here adapts itself both to fresh and salt water about the rivers and estuaries. Birds are everywhere more numerous, 107 species occurring in New Caledonia, 46 in Fiji, and 40 in Hawaii, these last including the oo (Moho nobilis), whose lovely black and yellow plumage is used for decorating royal mantles.

In recent times no branch of ethnology has been more carefully studied than that which deals with the origin, migrations, physical features, languages, and traditions of the Oceanic peoples. But so intricate are their mutual relations that the difficult anthropological and linguistic problems suggested by a comparative study of these peoples are still far from solved. There is, however, a general consensus that Polynesia has been occupied from prehistoric times by two distinct races, the dark Melanesians, who belong to the same stock as the Papuans of New Guinea and Malaysia, and the brown Polynesians, called also Mahori and Sawaiori, whose racial affinities have not been satisfactorily determined. By different writers they have been allied to the Mongoloid Malays, to the Aryans or Caucasians, to the American aborigines, and even to the Melanesians. But the difference between the Polynesians and Melanesians must be regarded as fundamental. The former are brachycephalons (round-headed, with high cephalic index), orthognathous, narrow-nosed, of a light-brown café-au-lait colour, with round orbits and black lank hair, and next to the Patagonians the tallest people on the globe (mean height, 5 feet 10 inches). The Melanesians are dolichocephalons (long-headed, with the lowest cephalic index of any race), prognathous, broad-nosed, of a sooty black colour, with low orbits, black frizzy hair, and low stature (mean height, 5 feet 5 inches).

The Melanesians appear to be the indigenous element in the Pacific, where they formerly occupied a much wider domain than at present, for traces of black blood are found in Samoa, New Zealand, and even as far east as the Marquesas (Whitmee). They also stand at a lower stage of culture, being undoubted cannibals, in many places head-hunters, extremely savage, blood-thirsty and treacherous, scarcely recognising any hereditary chiefs, and often forming independent hostile groups at perpetual feud with their neighbours.

The Polynesians, who closely resemble the Indonesians of the Malay Archipelago (see MALAYS), seem to be later arrivals almost certainly from Malaysia to Samoa, whence they gradually spread from island to island over all the eastern archipelagoes, more recently sending colonies westwards to Melanesia and even to New Guinea. Hence Sawaiori settlements and mixed Sawaiori-Melanesian communities are now found in the eastern parts of Fiji, in the New Hebrides (Niue, Futuna, Mel, and Fil), in the Loyalty group (Uvea), in British New Guinea (Motu), and generally in Micronesia. That Samoa was the centre of dispersion is shown by the recurrence of such geographical terms as Samoa and Sava'i (originally Savaiki), the largest island of the archipelago, under diverse dialectic forms (Hamo, Amoa, Hawaii, Havaiki, Hawaiki, Avaiki), either in the geographical nomenclature or in the traditions and mythologies of all the Polynesian islanders from New Zealand to Hawaii.

In Easter Island (Rapanui) and the Carolines (Ponapé, Lelé, Ualan) are found numerous cyclopean monuments, huge monolithic statues, paved avenues, ramparts or walls of basalt blocks over 30 feet long, brought from great distances. None of the present races could erect such structures as these, all memory of which has died out. They have been referred to the cultured peoples of America, and the features of the Easter Island (q.v.) statues are said to resemble the Bolivian Aymaras, though others have recognised a Papuan cast in the specimens preserved in the British Museum. Skulls of a Papuan type have also been found in Easter Island, but if the monuments were erected by these natives, it must have been under the direction of builders such as the Hindu missionaries who raised the stupendous temples of Java and Indo-China by training Malay and Cambodian craftsmen for the work.

Nearly all the Pacific languages appear to be members of the great Malayo-Polynesian family, which stretches across two oceans, from Madagascar to Rapanui. However it is to be explained, the fact is now established that both the dark and brown peoples speak idioms derived from a common stock; and Mr Codrington has even shown that the Melanesian are of a more archaic type than the Polynesian tongues. Perhaps this is the most inexplicable of all the problems presented by the Oceanic peoples, for here anthropology and philology are found to be in direct antagonism. At first sight it would appear as if the lower had imposed its speech on the higher race, by whom it became profoundly modified both in its phonetic system and grammatical structure. But the reverse and less violent process is conceivable, and it may be assumed that during their endless migrations over the Pacific the more enterprising and intelligent Polynesians transmitted their speech to the more passive Melanesians at a very remote period, the former afterwards modifying it in the direction of greater simplicity and harmony, the latter preserving it in its more pristine inflectional form.

For over a century the Oceanic peoples have been in contact with Europeans, and nearly all the Polynesians, as well as many of the Melanesians, profess some form of Christianity—the first mission established being that to Tahiti in 1797 by the London Missionary Society. But as western influences increase the races themselves appear to decrease. Thus, the population of Hawaii had fallen from about 300,000 at the time of Cook's visit (1778) to 40,000 in 1884; the Maoris of New Zealand, who numbered probably 400,000 in 1769 (Cook's first visit), were reduced to 42,000, including half-castes, in 1886, and the Tahitians from 240,000 in 1776 to less than 10,000 in 1888. Here and there the returns show an apparent increase, as in some of the Ellice and Marshall islands, but only amongst the half-castes. Everywhere the pure Polynesian race seems to be rapidly disappearing, a phenomenon attributed partly to the introduction of alcoholic drinks, partly to the abrupt change of habits, dress, diet, &c. enforced or encouraged by the missionaries, but mainly to the ravages of leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, measles, and especially pulmonary affections, by which whole communities have been decimated.

Formerly the political organisation was based on a distinction between two classes, the nobles and the common people. The Maoris had developed a sort of democracy; but elsewhere the archipelagoes constituted one or more monarchies of a somewhat feudal character, with powerful hereditary rulers under a king, whose authority had been much reduced in Samoa, the Marquesas, and some other groups. Their subjects were a gay, pleasure-loving people, engaged chiefly in fishing, agriculture, and navigation. Their diet was largely vegetarian (yams, taro, batatas, bananas, cocoa-nuts, &c.), varied with fish, pork, poultry, and, in some places, human flesh. Human victims were also offered on solemn occasions, and a prominent feature of the primitive religion was the so-called Tabu (q.v.), in virtue of which certain persons and objects acquired a sacred character. But there was nowhere a distinct sacerdotal class, and most of the old beliefs had resolved themselves into a system of ancestor-worship. Other distinctive institutions were certain orders of knighthood, secret societies with peculiar semi-religious rites, and tattooing, which, especially in Micronesia, acquired the character of a fine art, rivalling the Burmese and Japanese systems in its elaborate designs and skilful execution. Few other arts were practised, and letters were unknown, although a national folklore, tolerably rich in historic legends and myths, was orally preserved, and has now been mostly committed to writing by European scholars.

See CORAL, and the articles on the several Polynesian islands or groups of islands; and for the first navigators in Polynesia, see GEOGRAPHY, PACIFIC OCEAN in this work. See also Ellis, Polynesian Researches (1829); Reybaud, La Polynésie (1843); Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology (1855); De Quatrefages, Les Polynésiens et leurs Migrations (1866); Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences (1866); Angus, Polynesia, or the Islands of the Pacific, &c. (1867); Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vol. vi. (1872); Moresby, New Guinea and Polynesia (1877); Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race, &c. (1878–86); Gill, Historical Sketches of Savage Life in Polynesia (1880); Lesson, Les Polynésiens, &c. (1880–87); Keane, Inter-Oceanic Races and Languages (1880); Novara and Challenger Reports; R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (1891); and Guillemand on Malaysia and the Pacific Archipelagoes (1895) in the new edition of 'Stanford's Compendium.'