THE OCEANIC NEGROES: PAPUASIANS (PAPUANS AND MELANESIANS)--NEGRITOES--
TASMANIANS
General Ethnical Relations in Oceania--The terms PAPUAN, MELANESIAN
and PAPUASIAN defined--The Papuasian Domain, Past and Present--
Papuans and Melanesians--Physical Characters: Papuan,
Papuo-Melanesian, Melanesian--The _New Caledonians_--Physical
Characters--Food Question--General Survey of Melanesian
Ethnology--Cultural Problems--Kava-drinking and Betel-chewing--Stone
Monuments--The Dual People--Summary of Culture Strata--Melanesian
Culture--Dress--Houses--Weapons--Canoes, etc.--Social Life--Secret
Societies--Clubs--Religion--Western Papuasia--Ethnical Elements--
Region of Transition by Displacements and Crossings--Papuan and
Malay Contrasts--Ethnical and Biological Divides--The Negritoes--
The _Andamanese_--Stone Age--Personal Appearance--Social Life--
Religion--Speech--Method of Counting--Grammatical Structure--
The _Semangs_--Physical Appearance--Usages--Speech--Stone Age--
The _Aetas_--Head-Hunters--_New Guinea Pygmies_--Negrito Culture--
The _Tasmanians_--Tasmanian Culture--Fire Making--Tools and
Weapons--Diet--Dwellings--Extinction.
CONSPECTUS.
#Present Range.# Papuasian: _East Malaysia, New Guinea, Melanesia_;
Tasmanian: _extinct_; Negrito: _Andamans, Malay Peninsula, Philippines,
New Guinea_.
#Hair.# Papuasian: _black, frizzly, mop-like, beard scanty or absent_;
Tasmanian: _black, shorter and less mop-like than Papuasian_; Negrito:
_short, woolly or frizzly, black, sometimes tinged with brown or red_.
#Colour.# All: _very deep shades of chocolate brown, often verging on
black, a very constant character, lighter shades showing mixture_.
#Skull.# Papuasian: _extremely dolichocephalic (68-73) and high, but
very variable in areas of mixture. (70-84)_; Tasmanian: _dolichocephalic
or mesaticephalic (75)_; Negrito: _brachycephalic (80-85)_.
#Jaws.# Papuasian: _moderately or not at all prognathous_; Tasmanian
_and_ Negrito: _generally prognathous_. #Cheek-bones.# All: _slightly
prominent or even retreating_. #Nose.# Papuasian: _large, straight,
generally aquiline in true Papuans_; Tasmanian _and_ Negrito: _short,
flat, broad, wide nostrils (platyrrhine) with large thick cartilage_.
#Eyes.# All: _moderately large, round and black or very deep brown, with
dirty yellowish cornea, generally deep-set with strong overhanging
arches_.
#Stature.# Papuasian _and_ Tasmanian: _above the average, but variable,
with rather wide range from 1.62 m. to 1.77 or 1.82 m. (5 ft. 4 in. to 5
ft. 10 in. or 6 ft.)_; Negrito: _undersized, but taller than African
Negrillo, 1.37 m. to 1.52 m. (4. ft. 6 in. to 5 ft.)_.
#Temperament.# Papuasian: _very excitable, voluble and laughter-loving,
fairly intelligent and imaginative_; Tasmanian: _distinctly less
excitable and intelligent, but also far less cruel, captives never
tortured_; Negrito: _active, quick-witted or cunning within narrow
limits, naturally kind and gentle_.
#Speech.# Papuasian _and_ Tasmanian: _agglutinating with postfixes, many
stock languages in West Papuasia, apparently one only in East Papuasia
(Austronesian)_; Negrito: _scarcely known except in Andamans, where
agglutination both by class prefixes and by postfixes has acquired a
phenomenal development_.
#Religion.# Papuasian: _reverence paid to ancestors, who may become
beneficent or malevolent ghosts_; _general belief in_ mana _or
supernatural power_; _no priests or idols_; Negrito: _exceedingly
primitive_; _belief in spirits, sometimes vague deities_.
#Culture.# Papuasian: _slightly developed_; _agriculture somewhat
advanced (N. Guinea, N. Caledonia)_; _considerable artistic taste and
fancy shown in the wood-carving of houses, canoes, ceremonial objects,
etc._ All others: _at the lowest hunting stage, without arts or
industries, save the manufacture of weapons, ornaments, baskets, and
rarely (Andamanese) pottery_.
Main Divisions.
#Papuasian#: 1. Western Papuasians (_true Papuans_): _nearly all the New
Guinea natives_; _Aru and other insular groups thence westwards to
Flores_; _Torres Straits and Louisiade Islands_. 2. Eastern Papuasians:
_nearly all the natives of Melanesia from Bismarck Archipelago to New
Caledonia, with most of Fiji, and part of New Guinea_.
#Negritoes#: 1. Andamanese _Islanders_. 2. Semangs, _in the Malay
Peninsula_. 3. Aetas, _surviving in most of the Philippine Islands_. 4.
_Pygmies in New Guinea._
* * * * *
PAPUASIANS.
From the data supplied in _Ethnology_, Chap. XI. a reconstruction may be
attempted of the obscure ethnical relations in Australasia on the
following broad lines.
1. The two main sections of the Ulotrichous division of mankind, now
separated by the intervening waters of the Indian Ocean, are
fundamentally one.
2. To the Sudanese and Bantu sub-sections in Africa correspond, _mutatis
mutandis_, the Papuan and Melanesian sub-sections in Oceania, the former
being distinguished by great linguistic diversity, the latter by
considerable linguistic uniformity, and both by a rather wide range of
physical variety within certain well-marked limits.
3. In Africa the physical varieties are due mainly to Semitic and
Hamitic grafts on the Negro stock; in Oceania mainly to Mongoloid
(Malay) and Caucasian (Indonesian) grafts on the Papuan stock.
4. The Negrillo element in Africa has its counterpart in an analogous
Negrito element in Oceania (Andamanese, Semangs, Aetas, etc.).
5. In both regions the linguistic diversity apparently presents similar
features--a large number of languages differing profoundly in their
grammatical structure and vocabularies, but all belonging to the same
agglutinative order of speech, and also more or less to the same
phonetic system.
6. In both regions the linguistic uniformity is generally confined to
one or two geographical areas, Bantuland in Africa and Melanesia in
Oceania.
7. In Bantuland the linguistic system shows but faint if any
resemblances to any other known tongues, whereas the Melanesian group is
but one branch, though the most archaic, of the vast Austronesian
Family, diffused over the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The Papuan
languages are entirely distinct from the Melanesian. They are in some
respects similar to the Australian, but their exact positions are not
yet proved[319].
8. Owing to their linguistic, geographical, and to some extent their
physical and social differences, it is desirable to treat the Papuans
and Melanesians as two distinct though closely related sub-groups, and
to restrict the use of the terms PAPUAN and MELANESIAN accordingly,
while both may be conveniently comprised under the general or collective
term PAPUASIAN[320].
9. Here, therefore, by _Papuans_ will be understood the true aborigines
of New Guinea with its eastern Louisiade dependency[321], and in the
west many of the Malaysian islands as far as Flores inclusive, where the
black element and non-Malay speech predominate; by _Melanesians_, the
natives of Melanesia as commonly understood, that is, the Admiralty
Isles, New Britain, New Ireland and Duke of York; the Solomon Islands;
Santa Cruz; the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Loyalty, and Fiji, where
the black element and Austronesian speech prevail almost exclusively.
PAPUASIA will thus comprise the insular world from Flores to New
Caledonia.
Such appear to be the present limits of the Papuasian domain, which
formerly may have included Micronesia also (the Marianne, Pelew, and
Caroline groups), and some writers suggest that it possibly extended
over the whole of Polynesia as far as Easter Island.
The variation in the inhabitants of New Guinea has often been recognised
and is well described by C. G. Seligman who remarks[322] that the
contrast between the relatively tall, dark-skinned, frizzly-haired
inhabitants of Torres Straits, the Fly River and the neighbouring parts
of New Guinea on the one hand, and the smaller lighter coloured peoples
to the east, is so striking that the two peoples must be recognised as
racially distinct. He restricts the name Papuan to the congeries of
frizzly-haired and often mop-headed peoples whose skin colour is some
shade of brownish black, and proposes the term Papuo-Melanesian for the
generally smaller, lighter coloured, frizzly-haired races of the eastern
peninsula and the islands beyond. Besides these conspicuous differences
"The Papuan is generally taller and is more consistently dolichocephalic
than the Papuo-Melanesian: he is always darker, his usual colour being a
dark chocolate or sooty brown; his head is high and his face, is, as a
rule, long with prominent brow-ridges, above which his rather flat
forehead commonly slopes backwards. The Papuo-Melanesian head is usually
less high and the brow ridges less prominent, while the forehead is
commonly rounded and not retreating. The skin colour runs through the
whole gamut of shades of _cafe-au-lait_, from a lightish yellow with
only a tinge of brown, to a tolerably dark bronze colour. The lightest
shades are everywhere uncommon, and in many localities appear to be
limited to the female sex. The Papuan nose is longer and stouter and is
often so arched as to present the outline known as 'Jewish.' The
character of its bridge varies, typically the nostrils are broad and the
tip of the nose is often hooked downwards. In the Papuo-Melanesian the
nose is generally smaller: both races have frizzly hair, but while this
is universal among Papuans, curly and even wavy hair is common among
both [Eastern and Western] divisions of Papuo-Melanesians[323]."
The Melanesians are as variable as the natives of New Guinea; the hair
may be curly, or even wavy, showing evidence of racial mixture, and the
skin is chocolate or occasionally copper-coloured. The stature of the
men ranges from 1.50 m. to 1.78 m. (4 ft. 11 in. to 5 ft. 10 in.), with
an average between 1.56 m. and 1.6 m. (5 ft. 1-1/2 in. to 5 ft. 3 in.).
The skull is usually dolichocephalic, but ranges from 67 to 85 and in
certain parts brachycephaly is predominant; the nose shows great
diversity. This type ranges with local variations from the Admiralty
Islands and parts of New Guinea through the Bismarck Archipelago,
Solomon Islands, and the New Hebrides and other island groups to Fiji
and New Caledonia.
The "Kanakas," as the natives of New Caledonia and the Loyalty group are
wrongly[324] called by their present rulers, have been described by
various French investigators. Among the best accounts of them is that of
M. Augustin Bernard[325], based on the observations of de Rochas,
Bourgard, Vieillard, Bertillon, Meinicke, and others. Apart from several
sporadic Polynesian groups in the Loyalties[326], all are typical
Melanesians, long-headed with very broad face at least in the middle,
narrow boat-shaped skull (ceph. index 70)[327], large, massive lower
jaw, often with two supplementary molars[328], colour a dark chocolate,
often with a highly characteristic purple tinge; but de Rochas'
statement that for a few days after birth infants are of a light reddish
yellow hue lacks confirmation; hair less woolly but much longer than the
Negro; beard also longish and frizzly, the peppercorn tufts with
simulated bald spaces being an effect due to the assiduous use of the
comb; very prominent superciliary arches and thick eyebrows, whence
their somewhat furtive look; mean height 5 ft. 4 in.; speech Melanesian
with three marked varieties, that of the south-eastern districts being
considered the most rudimentary member of the whole Melanesian
group[329].
From the state of their industries, in some respects the rudest, in
others amongst the most advanced in Melanesia, it may be inferred that
after their arrival the New Caledonians, like the Tasmanians, the
Andamanese, and some other insular groups, remained for long ages almost
completely secluded from the rest of the world. Owing to the poverty of
the soil the struggle for food must always have been severe. Hence the
most jealously guarded privileges of the chiefs were associated with
questions of diet, while the paradise of the dead was a region where
they had abundance of food and could gorge on yams.
The ethnological history of the whole of the Melanesian region is
obscure, but as the result of recent investigations certain broad
features may be recognised. The earliest inhabitants were probably a
black, woolly-haired race, now represented by the pygmies of New Guinea,
remnants of a formerly widely extended Negrito population also surviving
in the Andaman Islands, the Malay Peninsula (Semang) and the Philippines
(Aeta). A taller variety advanced into Tasmania and formed the Tasmanian
group, now extinct, others spread over New Guinea and the western
Pacific as "Papuans," and formed the basis of the Melanesian
populations[330]. The Proto-Polynesians in their migrations from the
East Indian Archipelago to Polynesia passed through this region and
imposed their speech on the population and otherwise modified it. In
later times other migrations have come from the west, and parts of
Melanesia have also been directly influenced by movements from
Polynesia. The result of these supposed influences has been to form the
Melanesian peoples as they exist to-day[331]. G. Friederici[332] has
accumulated a vast amount of evidence based chiefly on linguistics and
material culture, to support the theory of Melanesian cultural streams
from the west. He regards the Melanesians as having come from that part
of Indonesia which extends from the Southern Islands of the Philippine
group, through the Minahasa peninsula of Celebes, to the Moluccas in the
neighbourhood of Buru and Ceram. From the Moluccan region they passed
north of New Guinea to the region about Vitiaz and Dampier Straits,
which Friederici regards as the gateway of Melanesia. Here they
colonised the northern shores of New Britain, and part of the swarm
settled along the eastern and south-eastern shores of New Guinea.
Another stream passed to the Northern Louisiades, Southern Solomons, and
Northern New Hebrides. The Philippine or sub-Philippine stream took a
more northerly route, going by the Admiralty group to New Hanover, East
New Ireland and the Solomons.
The first serious attempt to disentangle the complex character of
Melanesian ethnography was made by F. Graebner in 1905[333], followed by
G. Friederici, the references to whose work are given above. More
recently W. H. R. Rivers[334] has attacked the cultural problem by means
of the genealogical method and the results of his investigations are
here briefly summarised. He has discovered several remarkable forms of
marriage in Melanesia and has deduced others which have existed
previously. He argues that the anomalous forms of marriage imply a
former dual organisation (_i.e._ a division of the community into two
exogamous groups) with matrilineal descent, and he is driven to assume
that in early times there was a state of society in which the elders had
acquired so predominant a position that they were able to monopolise all
the young women. Some of the relationship systems are of great
antiquity, and it is evident that changes have taken place due to
cultural influences coming in from without.
The distribution of kava-drinking and betel-chewing is of great
interest. The former occurs all over Polynesia (except Easter Island and
New Zealand) and throughout southern Melanesia, including certain Santa
Cruz Islands, where it is limited to religious ceremonial. Betel-chewing
begins at these islands and extends northwards through New Guinea and
Indonesia to India. Kava and betel were introduced into Melanesia by
different cultural migrations.
The introduction of betel-chewing was relatively late and restricted and
may have taken place from Indonesia after the invasion by the Hindus.
With it were associated strongly established patrilineal institutions,
marriage with a wife of a father's brother, the special sanctity of the
skull and the plank-built canoe. The use of pile dwellings is a more
constant element of the betel-culture than of the kava-culture. The
religious ritual centres round the skulls of ancestors and relatives,
and the cult of the skull has taken a direction which gives the heads of
enemies an importance equal to that of relatives, hence head-hunting has
become the chief object of warfare. The skull of a relative is the
symbol--if not the actual abiding place--of the dead, to be honoured and
propitiated, while the skulls of enemies act as the means whereby this
honour and propitiation are effected.
The influence of the kava-using peoples was more extensive in time and
space than that of the betel-chewing people. Rivers supposes that they
had neither clan organisation nor exogamy. Some of them preserved the
body after death and respect was paid to the head or skull. It is
possible that the custom of payment for a wife came into existence in
Melanesia as the result of the need of the immigrant men for women of
the indigenous people owing to their bringing few women with them, and
the great development of shell money may be due in part to those
payments. Contact with the earlier populations also resulted in the
development of secret societies. The immigrants introduced the cult of
the dead and the institutions of taboo, totemism and chieftainship. They
brought with them the form of outrigger canoe and the knowledge of
plank-building for canoes (which however was only partially adopted),
the rectangular house, and may have known the art of making pile
dwellings. They introduced various forms of currency made of shells,
teeth, feathers, mats, etc., the drill, the slit drum, or gong, the
conch trumpet, the fowl, pig, dog, and megalithic monuments.
There may have been two immigrations of peoples who made monuments of
stone: 1. Those who erected the more dolmen-like structures, probably
had aquatic totems, and interred their dead in the extended position.
2. A later movement of people whose stone structures tended to take the
form of pyramids, who had bird totems, practised a cult of the sun and
cremated their dead.
When the kava-using people came into Melanesia they found it already
inhabited. The earliest form of social organisation of which we have
evidence was on the dual basis, associated with matrilineal descent, the
dominance of the old men (gerontocracy) and certain peculiar forms of
marriage. These people interred their dead in the contracted or sitting
position, which also was employed in most parts of Polynesia. Evidently
they feared the ghosts and removed their dead as completely as possible
from the living. These people--whom we may speak of as the
"dual-people"--were communistic in property and probably practised
sexual communism; the change towards the institution of individual
property and individual marriage were assisted by, if not entirely due
to, the influence of the kava-people. They practised circumcision. Magic
was an indigenous institution. Characteristic is the cult of _vui_,
unnamed local spirits with definite haunts or abiding places whose rites
are performed in definite localities. In the Northern New Hebrides the
offerings connected with _vui_ are not made to the _vui_ themselves but
to the man who owns the place connected with the _vui_. It would seem as
if ownership of a locality carried with it ownership of the _vui_
connected with the locality. Thus _vui_ are local spirits belonging to
the indigenous owners of the soil, and there seems no reason to believe
that they were ever ghosts of dead men. As totemism occurs among the
dual-people of the Bismarck Archipelago (who live in parts of New
Britain and New Ireland and Duke of York Island) it is possible that the
kava-people were not the sole introducers of totemism into Melanesia.
The dual-people were probably acquainted with the bow, which they may
have called _busur_, and the dug-out canoe which was used either lashed
together in pairs or singly with an outrigger.
The origin of a dual organisation is generally believed to be due to
fission, but it is more reasonable to regard it as due to fusion, as
hostility is so frequently manifest between the two groups despite the
fact that spouses are always obtained from the other moiety. In New
Ireland (and elsewhere) each moiety is associated with a hero; one acts
wisely but unscrupulously, the other is a fool who is always falling an
easy victim to the first. Each moiety has a totem bird: one is a fisher,
clever and capable, while the second obtains its food by stealing from
the other and does not go to sea. One represents the immigrants of
superior culture who came by sea, the other the first people,
aborigines, of lowly culture who were quite unable to cope with the
wiles and stratagems of the people who had settled among them. In the
Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain, the dual groups are associated with
light and dark coconuts; affiliated with the former are male objects and
the clever bird, which is universally called _taragau_, or a variant of
that term. The bird of the other moiety is named _malaba_ or
_manigulai_, and is associated with female objects. The dark coconuts,
the dark colour and flattened noses of the women who were produced by
their transformation, and the projecting eyebrows of the _malaba_ bird
and its human adherents seem to be records in the mythology of the
Bismarck Archipelago of the negroid (or, Rivers suggests, an Australoid)
character of the aboriginal population. The light coconut which was
changed into a light-coloured woman seems to have preserved a tradition
of the light colour of the immigrants.
The autochthones of Melanesia were a dark-skinned and ulotrichous
people, who had neither a fear of the ghosts of their dead nor a manes
cult, but had a cult of local spirits. The Baining of the Gazelle
Peninsula of New Britain may be representatives of a stage of Melanesian
history earlier than the dual system; if so, they probably represent in
a modified form, the aboriginal element. They are said to be completely
devoid of any fear of the dead.
The immigrants whose arrival caused the institution of the dual system
were a relatively fair people of superior culture who interred their
dead in a sitting position and feared their ghosts. They first
introduced the Austronesian language.
All subsequent migrations were of Austronesian-speaking peoples from
Indonesia. First came the kava-peoples in various swarms, and more
recently the betel-people.
Possibly New Caledonia shows the effects of relative isolation more than
other parts of Melanesia, but, except for Polynesian influence (most
directly recognisable in Fiji and southern Melanesia), Melanesia may be
regarded as possessing a general culture with certain characteristic
features which may be thus summarised[335]. The Melanesians are a noisy,
excitable, demonstrative, affectionate, cheery, passionate people. They
could not be hunters everywhere, as in most of the islands there is no
game, nor could they be pastors anywhere, as there are no cattle; the
only resources are fishing and agriculture. In the larger islands there
is usually a sharp distinction between the coast people, who are mainly
fishers, and the inlanders who are agriculturalists; the latter are
always by far the more primitive, and in many cases are subservient to
the former. Both sexes work in the plantations. In parts of New Guinea
and the Western Solomons the sago palm is of great importance; coconut
palms grow on the shores of most islands, and bananas, yams,
bread-fruit, taro and sweet potatoes supply abundant food. As for dress,
the men occasionally wear none, but usually have belts or bands, of
bark-cloth, plaits, or strings, and the women almost everywhere have
petticoats of finely shredded leaves. The skin is decorated with scars
in various patterns, and tattooing is occasionally seen, the former
being naturally characteristic of the darker skinned people, and the
latter of the lighter. Every portion of the body is decorated in
innumerable ways with shells, teeth, feathers, leaves, flowers, and
other objects, and plaited bands encircle the neck, body, and limbs.
Shell necklaces, which constitute a kind of currency, and artificially
deformed boars' tusks are especially characteristic, though each group
usually has its peculiar ornaments, distinguishing it from any other
group. There is a great variety of houses. The typical Melanesian house
has a gable roof, the ridge pole is supported by two main posts, side
walls are very low, and the ends are filled in with bamboo screens. Pile
dwellings are found in the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands and
New Guinea, and some New Guinea villages extend out into the sea.
The weapons typical of Melanesia are the club and the spear (though the
latter is not found in the Banks Islands), each group and often each
island possessing its own distinctive pattern. Stone headed clubs are
found in New Guinea, New Britain and the New Hebrides. The spears of the
Solomon Islands are finely decorated and have bone barbs; those of New
Caledonia are pointed with a sting-ray spine; those of the Admiralty
Islands have obsidian heads; and those of New Britain have a human
armbone at the butt end. The bow, the chief weapon of the Papuans,
occurs over the greater part of Melanesia, though it is absent in S.E.
New Guinea, and is only used for hunting in the Admiralty Islands.
The hollowed out tree trunk with or without a plank gunwale is general,
usually with a single outrigger, though plank-built canoes occur in the
Solomons, characteristically ornamented with shell inlay. Pottery is an
important industry in parts of New Guinea and in Fiji; it occurs also in
New Caledonia, Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides) and the Admiralty Islands.
Bark-cloth is made in most islands, but a loom for weaving leaf strips
is now found only in Santa Cruz.
A division of the community into two exogamous groups is very widely
spread, no intermarriage being permitted within the group. Mother-right
is prevalent, descent and inheritance being counted on the mother's
side, while a man's property descends to his sister's children. At the
same time the mother is in no sense the head of the family; the house is
the father's, the garden may be his, the rule and government are his,
though the maternal uncle sometimes has more authority than the father.
The transition to father-right has definitely occurred in various
places, and is taking place elsewhere; thus, in some of the New
Hebrides, the father has to buy off the rights of his wife's relations
or his sister's children.
Chiefs exist everywhere, being endowed with religious sanctity in Fiji,
where they are regarded as the direct descendants of the tribal
ancestors. More often, a chief holds his position solely owing to the
fact that he has inherited the cult of some powerful spirit, and his
influence is not very extensive. Probably everywhere public affairs are
regulated by discussion among the old or important men, and the more
primitive the society, the more power they possess. But the most
powerful institutions of all are the secret societies, occurring with
certain exceptions throughout Melanesia. These are accessible to men
only, and the candidates on initiation have to submit to treatment which
is often rough in the extreme. The members of the societies are believed
to be in close association with ghosts and spirits, and exhibit
themselves in masks and elaborate dresses in which disguise they are
believed by the uninitiated to be supernatural beings. These societies
do not practise any secret cult, in fact all that the initiate appears
to learn is that the "ghosts" are merely his fellows in disguise, and
that the mysterious noises which herald their approach are produced by
the bull-roarer and other artificial means. These organisations are most
powerful agents for the maintenance of social order and inflict
punishment for breaches of customary law, but they are often terrorising
and blackmailing institutions. Women are rigorously excluded.
Other social factors of importance are the clubs, especially in the New
Hebrides and Banks Islands. These are a means of attaining social rank.
They are divided into different grades, the members of which eat
together at their particular fire-place in the club-house. Each rank has
its insignia, sometimes human effigies, usually, but wrongly, called
"idols." Promotion from one grade to another is chiefly a matter of
payment, and few reach the highest. Those who do so become personages of
very great influence, since no candidate can obtain promotion without
their permission.
Totemism occurs in parts of New Guinea and elsewhere and has marked
socialising effects, as totemic solidarity takes precedence of all other
considerations, but it is becoming obsolete. The most important
religious factor throughout Melanesia is the belief in a supernatural
power or influence, generally called _mana_. This is what works to
effect everything which is beyond the ordinary power of man or outside
the common processes of nature; but this power, though in itself
impersonal, is always connected with some person who directs it; all
spirits have it, ghosts generally, and some men. A more or less
developed ancestor cult is also universally distributed. Human beings
may become beneficent or malevolent ghosts, but not every ghost becomes
an object of regard. The ghost who is worshipped is the spirit of a man
who in his lifetime had _mana_. Good and evil spirits independent of
ancestors are also abundant everywhere. There is no established
priesthood, except in Fiji, but as a rule, any man who knows the
particular ritual suitable to a definite spirit, acts as intermediary,
and a man in communication with a powerful spirit becomes a person of
great importance. Life after death is universally believed in, and the
soul is commonly pictured as undertaking a journey, beset with various
perils, to the abode of departed spirits, which is usually represented
as lying towards the west. As a rule only the souls of brave men, or
initiates, or men who have died in fight, win through to the most
desirable abode. Magical practices occur everywhere for the gaining of
benefits, plenteous crops, good fishing, fine weather, rain, children or
success in love. Harmful magic for producing sickness or death is
equally universal[336].
Returning to the Papuan lands proper, in the insular groups west of New
Guinea we enter one of the most entangled ethnical regions in the world.
Here are, no doubt, a few islands such as the Aru group, mainly
inhabited by full-blood Papuans, men who furnished Wallace with the
models on which he built up his true Papuan type, which has since been
vainly assailed by so many later observers. But in others--Ceram, Buru,
Timor, and so on to Flores--diverse ethnical and linguistic elements are
intermingled in almost hopeless confusion. Discarding the term "Alfuro"
as of no ethnical value[337], we find the whole area west to about 120 deg.
E. longitude[338] occupied in varying proportions by pure and mixed
representatives of three distinct stocks: Negro (Papuans), Mongoloid
(Malayans), and Caucasic (Indonesians). From the data supplied by
Crawfurd, Wallace, Forbes, Ten Kate and other trustworthy observers, I
have constructed the subjoined table, in which the east Malaysian
islands are disposed according to the constituent elements of their
inhabitants[339]:
_Aru Group_--True Papuans dominant; Indonesians (Korongoei) in the
interior.
_Kei Group_--Malayans; Indonesians; Papuan strain everywhere.
_Timor; Wetta; Timor Laut_--Mixed Papuans, Malayans and Indonesians; no
pure type anywhere.
_Serwatti Group_--Malayans with slight trace of black blood (Papuan or
Negrito).
_Roti and Sumba_--Malayans.
_Savu_--Indonesians.
_Flores; Solor; Adonera; Lomblen; Pantar; Allor_--Papuans pure or mixed
dominant; Malayans in the coast towns.
_Buru_--Malayans on coast; reputed Papuans, but more probably
Indonesians in interior.
_Ceram_--Malayans on coast; mixed Malayo-Papuans inland.
_Amboina; Banda_--Malayans; Dutch-Malay half-breeds ("Perkeniers").
_Goram_--Malayans with slight Papuan strain.
_Matabello; Tior; Nuso Telo; Tionfoloka_--Papuans with Malayan
admixture.
_Misol_--Malayo-Papuans on coast; Papuans inland.
_Tidor; Ternate; Sulla; Makian_--Malayans.
_Batjan_--Malayans; Indonesians.
_Gilolo_--Mixed Papuans; Indonesians in the north.
_Waigiu; Salwatti; Batanta_--Malayans on the coast; Papuans inland.
From this apparently chaotic picture, which in some places, such as
Timor, presents every gradation from the full-blood Papuan to the
typical Malay, Crawfurd concluded that the eastern section of Malaysia
constituted a region of transition between the yellowish-brown
lank-haired and the dark-brown or black mop-headed stocks. In a sense
this is true, but not in the sense intended by Crawfurd, who by
"transition" meant the actual passage by some process of development
from type to type independently of interminglings. But such extreme
transitions have nowhere taken place spontaneously, so to say, and in
any case could never have been brought about in a small zoological area
presenting everywhere the same climatic conditions. Biological types may
be, and have been, modified in different environments, arctic,
temperate, or tropical zones, but not in the same zone, and if two such
marked types as the Mongol and the Negro are now found juxtaposed in the
Malaysian tropical zone, the fact must be explained by migrations and
displacements, while the intermediate forms are to be attributed to
secular intermingling of the extremes. Why should a man, passing from
one side to another of an island 10 or 20 miles long, be transformed
from a sleek-haired brown to a frizzly-haired black, or from a mercurial
laughter-loving Papuan to a Malayan "slow in movement and thoroughly
phlegmatic in disposition, rarely seen to laugh or become animated in
conversation, with expression generally of vague wonder or weary
sadness"[340]?
Wallace's classical description of these western Papuans, who are here
in the very cradleland of the race, can never lose its charm, and its
accuracy has been fully confirmed by all later observers. "The typical
Papuan race," he writes, "is in many respects the very opposite of the
Malay. The colour of the body is a deep sooty-brown or black, sometimes
approaching, but never quite equalling, the jet-black of some negro
races. The hair is very peculiar, being harsh, dry, and frizzly, growing
in little tufts or curls, which in youth are very short and compact, but
afterwards grow out to a considerable length, forming the compact,
frizzled mop which is the Papuan's pride and glory.... The moral
characteristics of the Papuan appear to me to separate him as distinctly
from the Malay as do his form and features. He is impulsive and
demonstrative in speech and action. His emotions and passions express
themselves in shouts and laughter, in yells and frantic leapings.... The
Papuan has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates his
canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil with elaborate
carving, a habit which is rarely found among tribes of the Malay race.
In the affections and moral sentiments, on the other hand, the Papuans
seem very deficient. In the treatment of their children they are often
violent and cruel, whereas the Malays are almost invariably kind and
gentle."
The ethnological parting-line between the Malayan and Papuasian races,
as first laid down by Wallace, nearly coincides with his division
between the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan floras and faunas, the chief
differences being the positions of Sumbawa and Celebes. Both of these
islands are excluded from the Papuasian realm, but included in the
Austro-Malayan zoological and botanical regions.
THE OCEANIC NEGRITOES.
Recent discoveries and investigations of the pygmy populations on the
eastern border of the Indian Ocean tend to show that the problem is by
no means simple. Already two main stocks are recognised, differentiated
by wavy and curly hair and dolichocephaly in the Sakai, and so-called
woolly hair in the Andamanese Islanders, Semang (Malay Peninsula) and
Aeta (Philippines), combined with mesaticephaly or low brachycephaly. In
East Sumatra and Celebes a short, curly-haired dark-skinned people
occur, racially akin to the Sakai, and Moszkowski suggests that the same
element occupied Geelvink Bay (Netherlands New Guinea). These with the
Vedda of Ceylon, and some jungle tribes of the Deccan, represent
remnants of a once widely distributed pre-Dravidian race, which is also
supposed to form the chief element in the Australians[341].
The "Mincopies," as the Andamanese used to be called, nobody seems to
know why, were visited in 1893 by Louis Lapicque, who examined a large
kitchen-midden near Port Blair, but some distance from the present
coast, hence of great age[342]. Nevertheless he failed to find any
worked stone implements, although flint occurs in the island. Indeed,
chipped or flaked flints, now replaced by broken glass, were formerly
used for shaving and scarification. But, as the present natives use only
fishbones, shells, and wood, Lapicque somewhat hastily concluded that
these islanders, like some other primitive groups, have never passed
through a Stone Age at all. The shell-mounds have certainly yielded an
arrow-head and polished adze "indistinguishable from any of the European
or Indian celts of the so-called Neolithic period[343]." But there is no
reason to think that the archipelago was ever occupied by a people
different from its present inhabitants. Hence we may suppose that their
ancestors arrived in their Stone Age, but afterwards ceased to make
stone implements, as less handy for their purposes and more difficult to
make than the shell or bone-tipped weapons and the nets with which they
capture game and fish more readily "than the most skilful fisherman with
hook and line[344]." Similarly they would seem to have long lost the art
of making fire, having once obtained it from a still active volcano in
the neighbouring Barren Island[345].
The inhabitants of the Andaman Islands range in colour from bronze to
sooty black. Their hair is extremely frizzly, seeming to grow in spiral
tufts and is seldom more than 5 inches long when untwisted. The women
usually shave their heads. Their height is about 1.48 m. (4 ft. 10-1/2
in.), with well-proportioned body and small hands. The cephalic index
averages 82. The face is broad at the cheek-bones, the eyes are
prominent, the nose is much sunken at the root but straight and small;
the lips are full but not thick, the chin is small but not retreating,
nor do the jaws project. The natives are characterised by honesty,
frankness, politeness, modesty, conjugal fidelity, respect for elders
and real affection between relatives and friends. The women are on an
equal footing with the men and do their full share of work. The food is
mainly fish (obtained by netting, spearing or shooting with bow and
arrow), wild yams, turtle, pig and honey. They do not till the soil or
keep domestic animals. Instead of clothing both sexes wear belts,
necklaces, leg-bands, arm-bands etc. made of bones, wood and shell, the
women wearing in addition a rudimentary leaf apron. When fully dressed
the men wear bunches of shredded Pandanus leaf at wrists and knees, and
a circlet of the same leaf folded on the head. They make canoes, some of
which have an outrigger, but never venture far from the shore. They
usually live in small encampments round an oval dancing ground, their
simple huts are open in front and at the sides, or in a large communal
hut in which each family has its own particular space, the bachelors and
spinsters having theirs. A family consists of a man and his wife and
such of their children, own and adopted, as have not passed the period
of the ceremonies of adolescence. Between that period and marriage the
boys and girls reside in the bachelors' and spinsters' quarters
respectively. A man is not regarded as an independent member of the
community till he is married and has a child. There is no organised
polity. Generally one man excels the rest in hunting, warfare, wisdom
and kindliness, and he is deferred to, and becomes, in a sense, chief. A
regular feature of Andamanese social life is the meeting at intervals
between two or more communities. A visit of a few days is paid and
presents are exchanged between hosts and guests, the time being spent in
hunting, feasting and dancing.
No forms of worship have been noticed, but there is a belief in various
kinds of spirits, the most important of whom is Biliku, usually regarded
as female, who is identified with the north-east monsoon and is paired
with Tarai the south-west monsoon. Biliku and Tarai are the producers of
rain, storms, thunder and lightning. Fire was stolen from Biliku. There
is always great fluidity in native beliefs, so some tribes regard Puluga
(Biliku) as a male. Three things make Biliku angry and cause her to send
storms; melting or burning of bees-wax, interfering in any way with a
certain number of plants, and killing a cicada or making a noise during
the time the cicadae are singing. A. R. Brown[346] gives an interesting
explanation of this curious belief. Biliku is supposed to have a human
form but nobody ever sees her. Her origin is unknown. The idea of her
being a creator is local and is probably secondary, she does not concern
herself with human actions other than those noted above.
E. H. Man has carefully studied and reduced to writing the Andamanese
language, of which there are at least nine distinct varieties,
corresponding to as many tribal groups. It has no clear affinities to
any other tongue[347], the supposed resemblances to Dravidian and
Australian being extremely slight, if not visionary. Its phonetic system
is astonishingly rich (no less than 24 vowels and 17 consonants, but no
sibilants), while the arithmetic stops at _two_. Nobody ever attempts to
count in any way beyond _ten_, which is reached by a singular process.
First the nose is tapped with the finger-tips of either hand, beginning
with the little finger, and saying _ubatul_ (one), then _ikpor_ (two)
with the next, after which each successive tap makes _anka_, "and this."
When the thumb of the second hand is reached, making _ten_, both hands
are brought together to indicate 5 + 5, and the sum is clenched with the
word _arduru_ = "all." But this feat is exceptional, and usually after
_two_ you get only words answering to several, many, numerous,
countless, which flight of imagination is reached at about 6 or 7.
Yet with their infantile arithmetic these paradoxical islanders have
contrived to develop an astonishingly intricate form of speech
characterised by an absolutely bewildering superfluity of pronominal and
other elements. Thus the possessive pronouns have as many as sixteen
possible variants according to the class of noun (human objects, parts
of the body, degrees of kinship, etc.) with which they are in agreement.
For instance, _my_ is _dia_, _dot_, _dong_, _dig_, _dab_, _dar_, _daka_,
_doto_, _dai_, _dar_, _ad_, _ad-en_, _deb_, with _man_, _head_, _wrist_,
_mouth_, _father_, _son_, _step-son_, _wife_, etc. etc.; and so with
_thy_, _his_, _our_, _your_, _their_! This grouping of nouns in classes
is analogous to the Bantu system, and it is curious to note that the
number of classes is about the same. On the other hand there is a wealth
of postfixes attached as in normal agglutinating forms of speech, so
that "in adding their affixes they follow the principles of the ordinary
agglutinative tongues; in adding their prefixes they follow the
well-defined principles of the South African tongues. Hitherto, as far
as I know, the two principles in full play have never been found
together in any other language.... In Andamanese both are fully
developed, so much so as to interfere with each other's grammatical
functions[348]." The result often is certain _sesquipedalia verba_
comparable in length to those of the American polysynthetic languages. A
savage people, who can hardly count beyond two, possessed of about the
most intricate language spoken by man, is a psychological puzzle which I
cannot profess to fathom.
In the Malay Peninsula the indigenous element is certainly the Negrito,
who, known by many names--Semang, Udai, Pangan, Hami, Menik or
Mandi--forms a single ethnical group presenting some striking analogies
with the Andamanese. But, surrounded from time out of mind by Malay
peoples, some semi-civilised, some nearly as wild as themselves, but all
alike slowly crowding them out of the land, these aborigines have
developed defensive qualities unneeded by the more favoured insular
Negritoes, while their natural development has been arrested at perhaps
a somewhat lower plane of culture. In fact, doomed to extinction before
their time came, they never have had a chance in the race, as Hugh
Clifford sings in _The Song of the Last Semangs_:
The paths are rough, the trails are blind
The Jungle People tread;
The yams are scarce and hard to find
With which our folk are fed.
We suffer yet a little space
Until we pass away,
The relics of an ancient race
That ne'er has had its day.
In physical features they in many respects resemble the Andamanese.
Their hair is short, universally woolly and black, the skin colour dark
chocolate brown approximating to glossy black[349], sometimes with a
reddish tinge[350]. There is very little evidence for the stature but
the 17 males measured by Annandale and Robinson[351] averaged 1.52 m. (5
ft. 0-1/4 in.). The average cephalic index is about 78 to 79, extremes
ranging from 74 to 84. The face is round, the forehead rounded, narrow
and projecting, or as it were "swollen." The nose is short and
flattened, with remarkable breadth and distended nostrils. The nasal
index of five adult males was 101.2[352]. The cheekbones are broad and
the jaws often protrude slightly; the lips are as a rule thick. Martin
remarks that characteristic both of Semang and Sakai[353] is the great
thickening of the integumental part of the upper lip, the whole mouth
region projecting from the lower edge of the nose. This convexity occurs
in 79 per cent., and is well shown in his photographs[354].
Hugh Clifford, who has been intimately associated with the "Orang-utan"
(Wild-men) as the Malays often call them, describes those of the Plus
River valley as "like African Negroes seen through the reverse end of a
field-glass. They are sooty-black in colour; their hair is short and
woolly, clinging to the scalp in little crisp curls; their noses are
flat, their lips protrude, and their features are those of the pure
negroid type. They are sturdily built and well set upon their legs, but
in stature little better than dwarfs. They live by hunting, and have no
permanent dwellings, camping in little family groups wherever, for the
moment, game is most plentiful[355]."
Their shelters--huts they cannot be called--are exactly like the
frailest of the Andamanese, mere lean-to's of matted palm-leaves crazily
propped on rough uprights; clothes they have next to none, and their
food is chiefly yams and other jungle roots, fish from the stream, and
sun-dried monkey, venison and other game, this term having an elastic
meaning. Salt, being rarely obtainable, is a great luxury, as amongst
almost all wild tribes. They are a nomadic people living by collecting
and hunting; the wilder ones will often not remain longer than three
days in one place. Very few have taken to agriculture. They make use of
bamboo rafts for drifting down stream but have no canoes. All men are on
an equal footing, but each tribe has a head, who exercises authority.
Division of labour is fairly even between men and women. The men hunt,
and the women build the shelters and cook the food. They are strictly
monogamous and faithful.
All the faculties are sharpened mainly in the quest of food and of means
to elude the enemy now closing round their farthest retreats in the
upland forests. When hard pressed and escape seems impossible, they will
climb trees and stretch rattan ropes from branch to branch where these
are too wide apart to be reached at a bound, and along such frail aerial
bridges women and all will pass with their cooking-pots and other
effects, with their babies also at the breast, and the little ones
clinging to their mother's heels. For like the Andamanese they love
their women-folk and children, and in this way rescue them from the
Malay raiders and slavers. But unless the British raj soon intervenes
their fate is sealed. They may slip from the Malays, but not from their
own traitorous kinsmen, who often lead the hunt, and squat all night
long on the tree tops, calling one to another and signalling from these
look-outs when the leaves rustle and the rattans are heaved across, so
that nothing can be done, and another family group is swept away into
bondage.
From their physical resemblance, undoubted common descent, and
geographical proximity, one might also expect to find some affinity in
the speech of the Andaman and Malay Negritoes. But H. Clifford, who made
a special study of the dialects on the mainland, discovered no points of
contact between them and any other linguistic group[356]. This, however,
need cause no surprise, being in no discordance with recognised
principles. As in the Andamans, stone implements have been found in the
Peninsula, and specimens are now in the Pitt-Rivers collection at
Oxford[357]. But the present aborigines do not make or use such tools,
and there is good reason for thinking that they were the work of their
ancestors, arriving, as in the Andamans, in the remote past. Hence the
two groups have been separated for many thousands of years, and their
speech has diverged too widely to be now traced back to a common
source.
With the Negritoes of the Philippines we enter a region of almost
hopeless ethnical complications[358], amid which, however, the dark
dwarfish _Aeta_ peoples crop out almost everywhere as the indigenous
element. The Aeta live in the mountainous districts of the larger
islands, and in some of the smaller islands of the Philippines, and the
name is conveniently extended to the various groups of Philippine
Negritoes, many of whom show the results of mixture with other peoples.
Their hair is universally woolly, usually of a dirty black colour, often
sun-burnt on the top to a reddish brown. The skin is dark chocolate
brown rather than black, sometimes with a yellowish tinge. The average
stature of 48 men was 1.46 m. (4 ft. 9 in.), but showed considerable
range. The typical nose is broad, flat, and bridgeless, with prominent
arched nostrils, the average nasal index for males being 102, and for
females 105[359]. The lips are thick, but not protruding, sometimes
showing a pronounced convexity between the upper lip and the nose.
John Foreman[360] noted the curious fact that the Aeta were recognised
as the owners of the soil long after the arrival of the Malayan
intruders.
"For a long time they were the sole masters of Luzon Island, where they
exercised seignorial rights over the Tagalogs and other immigrants,
until these arrived in such numbers, that the Negritoes were forced to
the highlands.
"The taxes imposed upon the primitive Malay settlers by the Negritoes
were levied in kind, and, when payment was refused, they swooped down in
a posse, and carried off the head of the defaulter. Since the arrival of
the Spaniards terror of the white man has made them take definitely to
the mountains, where they appear to be very gradually decreasing[361]."
At first sight it may seem unaccountable that a race of such extremely
low intellect should be able to assert their supremacy in this way over
the intruding Malayans, assumed to be so much their superiors in
physical and mental qualities. But it has to be considered that the
invasions took place in very remote times, ages before the appearance on
the scene of the semi-civilised Muhammadan Malays of history. Whether of
Indonesian or of what is called "Malay" stock, the intruders were rude
Oceanic peoples, who in the prehistoric period, prior to the spread of
civilising Hindu or Moslem influences in Malaysia, had scarcely advanced
in general culture much beyond the indigenous Papuan and Negrito
populations of that region. Even at present the Gaddanes, Itaves,
Igorrotes, and others of Luzon are mere savages, at the head-hunting
stage, quite as wild as, and perhaps even more ferocious than any of the
Aetas. Indeed we are told that in some districts the Negrito and
Igorrote tribes keep a regular Debtor and Creditor account of heads.
Wherever the vendetta still prevails, all alike live in a chronic state
of tribal warfare; periodical head-hunting expeditions are organised by
the young men, to present the bride's father with as many grim trophies
as possible in proof of their prowess, the victims being usually taken
by surprise and stricken down with barbarous weapons, such as a long
spear with tridented tips, or darts and arrows carrying at the point two
rows of teeth made of flint or sea-shells. To avoid these attacks some,
like the Central Sudanese Negroes, live in cabins on high posts or trees
60 to 70 feet from the ground, and defend themselves by showering stones
on the marauders.
A physical peculiarity of the full-blood Negritoes, noticed by J.
Montano[362], is the large, clumsy foot, turned slightly inwards, a
trait characteristic also of the African Negrilloes; but in the Aeta the
effect is exaggerated by the abnormal divergence of the great toe, as
amongst the Annamese.
The presence of a pygmy element in the population of New Guinea had long
been suspected, but the actual existence of a pygmy people was first
discovered by the British Ornithologists' Union Expedition, 1910, at the
source of the Mimika river in the Nassau range[363].
The description of these people, the Tapiro, is as follows. Their
stature averages 1.449 m. (4 ft. 9 in.) ranging from 1.326 m. (4 ft.
4-1/2 in.) to 1.529 (5 ft. 0-1/4 in.). The skull is very variable giving
indices from 66.9 to 85.1. The skin colour is lighter than that of the
neighbouring Papuans, some individuals being almost yellow. The nose is
straight, and though described as "very wide at the nostrils," the mean
of the indices is only 83, the extremes being 65.5 and 94. The eyes are
noticeably larger and rounder than those of Papuans, and the upper lip
of many of the men is long and curiously convex. A Negrito element has
also been recognised in the Mafulu people investigated by R. W.
Williamson in the Mekeo District[364], here mixed with Papuan and
Papuo-Melanesian. Their stature ranges from 1.47 m. (4 ft. 10 in.) to
1.63 m. (5 ft. 4 in.). The average cephalic index is 80 ranging from
74.7 to 86.8. The skin colour is dark sooty brown and the hair, though
usually brown or black, is often very much lighter, "not what we in
Europe should call dark." The average nasal index is 84 with extremes of
71.4 and 100. Also partly of Negrito origin are the P[)e]s[)e]g[)e]m of
the upper waters of the Lorentz river[365].
All these Negrito peoples, as has been pointed out, show considerable
diversity in physical characters, none of the existing groups, with the
exception of the Andamanese, appearing to be homogeneous as regards
cephalic or nasal index, while the stature, though always low, shows
considerable range. They have certain cultural features in common[366],
and these as a rule differentiate them from their neighbours. They
seldom practise any deformation of the person, such as tattooing or
scarification, though the Tapiro and Mafulu wear a nose-stick. They are
invariably collectors and hunters, never, unless modified by contact
with other peoples, undertaking any cultivation of the soil. Their huts
are simple, the pile dwellings of the Tapiro being evidently copied from
their neighbours. All possess the bow and arrow, though only the Semang
and Aeta use poison. The Andamanese appear to be one of the very few
peoples who possess fire but do not know how to make it afresh. There
seems a certain amount of evidence that the Negrito method of making
fire was that of splitting a dry stick, keeping the ends open by a piece
of wood or stone placed in the cleft, stuffing some tinder into the
narrow part of the slit and then drawing a strip of rattan to and fro
across the spot until a spark sets fire to the tinder[367]. The social
structure is everywhere very simple. The social unit appears to be the
family and the power of the headman is very limited. Strict monogamy
seems to prevail even where, as among the Aeta, polygyny is not
prohibited. The dead are buried, but the bodies of those whom it is
wished to honour are placed on platforms or on trees.
Related in certain physical characters to the pygmy Negritoes, although
not of pygmy proportions[368], were the aborigines of Tasmania, but
their racial affinities are much disputed. Huxley thought they showed
some resemblance to the inhabitants of New Caledonia and the Andaman
Islands, but Flower was disposed to bring them into closer connection
with the Papuans or Melanesians. The leading anthropologists in France
do not accept either of these views. Topinard states that there is no
close alliance between the New Caledonians and the Tasmanians, while
Quatrefages and Hamy remark that "from whatever point of view we look at
it, the Tasmanian race presents special characters, so that it is quite
impossible to discover any well-defined affinities with any other
existing race." Sollas, reviewing these conflicting opinions, concludes
that "this probably represents the prevailing opinion of the present
day[369]."
The Tasmanians were of medium height, the average for the men being
1.661 m. (5 ft. 5-1/2 in.) with a range from 1.548 m. to 1.732 m. (5 ft.
1 in. to 5 ft. 8 in.); the average height for women being 1.503 m. (4
ft. 11 in.) with a range from 1.295 m. to 1.630 m. (4 ft. 3 in. to 5 ft.
4-1/4 in.). The skin colour was almost black with a brown tinge. The
eyes were small and deep set beneath prominent overhanging brow-ridges.
The nose was short and broad, with a deep notch at the root and widely
distended nostrils. The skull was dolichocephalic or low mesaticephalic,
with an average index of 75, of peculiar outline when viewed from above.
Other peculiarities were the possession of the largest teeth, especially
noticeable in comparison with the small jaw, and the smallest known
cranial capacity (averaging 1199 c.c. for both sexes, falling in the
women to 1093 c.c.).
The aboriginal Tasmanians stood even at a lower level of culture than
the Australians. At the occupation the scattered bands, with no
hereditary chiefs or social organisation, numbered altogether 2000 souls
at most, speaking several distinct dialects, whether of one or more
stock languages is uncertain. In the absence of sibilants and some other
features they resembled the Australian, but were of ruder or less
developed structure, and so imperfect that according to Joseph Milligan,
our best authority on the subject, "they observed no settled order or
arrangement of words in the construction of their sentences, but
conveyed in a supplementary fashion by tone, manner, and gesture those
modifications of meaning which we express by mood, tense, number,
etc.[370]" Abstract terms were rare, and for every variety of gum-tree
or wattle-tree there was a name, but no word for "tree" in general, or
for qualities, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, long, short, round, etc.
Anything hard was "like a stone," round "like the moon," and so on,
"usually suiting the action to the word, and confirming by some sign the
meaning to be understood."
They made fire by the stick and groove method, but their acquaintance
with the fire-drill is uncertain[371]. The stone implements are the
subject of much discussion. A great number are so rude and uncouth that,
taken alone, we should have little reason to suspect that they had been
chipped by man: some, on the other hand, show signs of skilful working.
They were formerly classed as "eoliths" and compared to the plateau
implements of Kent and Sussex, but the comparison cannot be
sustained[372]. Sollas illustrates an implement "delusively similar to
the head of an axe" and notes its resemblance to a Levallois flake
(Acheulean). J. P. Johnson[373] points out the general likeness to
pre-Aurignacian forms and there is a remarkable similarity of certain
examples to Mousterian types. Weapons were of wood, and consisted of
spears pointed and hardened in the fire, and a club or waddy, about two
feet long, sometimes knobbed at one end; the range is said to have been
about 40 yards.
In the native diet were included "snakes, lizards, grubs and worms,"
besides the opossum, wombat, kangaroo, birds and fishes, roots, seeds
and fruits, but not human flesh, at least normally. Like the Bushmen,
they were gross feeders, consuming enormous quantities of food when they
could get it, and the case is mentioned of a woman who was seen to eat
from 50 to 60 eggs of the sooty petrel (larger than a duck's), besides a
double allowance of bread, at the station on Flinders Island. They had
frail bundles of bark made fast with thongs or rushes, half float, half
boat, to serve as canoes, but no permanent abodes or huts, beyond
branches of trees lashed together, supported by stakes, and disposed
crescent-shape with the convex side to windward. On the uplands and
along the sea-shore they took refuge in caves, rock-shelters and natural
hollows. Usually the men went naked, the women wore a loose covering of
skins, and personal ornamentation was limited to cosmetics of red ochre,
plumbago, and powdered charcoal, with occasionally a necklace of shells
strung on a fibrous twine.
Being merely hunters and collectors, with the arrival of English
colonists their doom was sealed. "Only in rare instances can a race of
hunters contrive to co-exist with an agricultural people. When the
hunting ground of a tribe is restricted owing to its partial occupation
by the new arrivals, the tribe affected is compelled to infringe on the
boundaries of its neighbours: this is to break the most sacred 'law of
the Jungle,' and inevitably leads to war: the pressure on one boundary
is propagated to the next, the ancient state of equilibrium is
profoundly disturbed, and inter-tribal feuds become increasingly
frequent. A bitter feeling is naturally aroused against the original
offenders, the alien colonists; misunderstandings of all kinds
inevitably arise, leading too often to bloodshed, and ending in a
general conflict between natives and colonists, in which the former,
already weakened by disagreements among themselves, must soon succumb.
So it was in Tasmania." After the war of 1825 to 1831 the few wretched
survivors, numbering about 200, were gathered together into a
settlement, and from 1834 onwards every effort was made for their
welfare, "but 'the white man's civilisation proved scarcely less fatal
than the white man's bullet,' and in 1877, with the death of Truganini,
the last survivor, the race became extinct[374]."
FOOTNOTES:
[319] Cf. S. H. Ray, _Reports Camb. Anthrop. Exp. Torres Sts._ Vol. III.
1907, pp. 287, 528. For Melanesian linguistic affinities see also W.
Schmidt, _Die Mon-Khmer Voelker_, 1906.
[320] C. G. Seligman limits the use of the term _Papuasian_ to the
inhabitants of New Guinea and its islands, and following a suggestion of
A. C. Haddon's (_Geograph. Journ._ XVI. 1900, pp. 265, 414), recognises
therein three great divisions, the _Papuans_, the _Western
Papuo-Melanesians_, and the _Eastern Papuo-Melanesians_, or _Massim_.
Cf. C. G. Seligman, "A Classification of the Natives of British New
Guinea," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ Vol. XXXIX. 1902, and _The
Melanesians of British New Guinea_, 1910.
[321] That is, the indigenous Papuans, who appear to form the great bulk
of the New Guinea populations, in contradistinction to the immigrant
Melanesians (Motu and others), who are numerous especially along the
south-east coast of the mainland and in the neighbouring Louisiade and
D'Entrecasteaux Archipelagoes (_Eth._ Ch. XI.).
[322] _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_, 1910, pp. 2, 27.
[323] The curly or wavy hair appears more commonly among women than
among men.
[324] _Kanaka_ is a Polynesian word meaning "man," and should therefore
be restricted to the brown Indonesian group, but it is indiscriminately
applied by French writers to all South Sea Islanders, whether black or
brown. This misuse of the term has found its way into some English books
of travel even in the corrupt French form "canaque."
[325] _L'Archipel de la Nouvelle Caledonie_, Paris, 1895.
[326] Lifu, Mare, Uvea, and Isle of Pines. These Polynesians appear to
have all come originally from Tonga, first to Uvea Island (Wallis), and
thence in the eighteenth century to Uvea in the Loyalties, cradle of all
the New Caledonian Polynesian settlements. Cf. C. M. Woodford, "On some
Little-known Polynesian Settlements in the Neighbourhood of the Solomon
Islands," _Geog. Journ._ XLVIII. 1916.
[327] This low index is characteristic of most Papuasians, and reaches
the extreme of dolichocephaly in the extinct Kai-Colos of Fiji (65 deg.),
and amongst some coast Papuans of New Guinea measured by
Miklukho-Maclay. But this observer found the characters so variable in
New Guinea that he was unable to use it as a racial test. In the New
Hebrides, Louisiades, and Bismarck group also he found many of the
natives to be broad-headed, with indices as high as 80 and 85; and even
in the Solomon Islands Guppy records cephalic indices ranging from 69 to
86, but dolichocephaly predominates (_The Solomon Islands_, 1887, pp.
112, 114). Thus this feature is no more constant amongst the Oceanic
than it is amongst the African Negroes. (See also M.-Maclay's paper in
_Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales_, 1882, p. 171 sq.)
[328] _Eth._ Ch. VIII.
[329] Bernard, p. 262.
[330] A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_, 1911, p. 33.
[331] A. C. Haddon, _The Races of Man_, 1909, p. 21.
[332] _Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse einer amtlichen Forschungsreise nach
dem Bismarck-Archipel im Jahre 1908_; _Untersuchungen ueber eine
Melanesische Wanderstrasse, 1913_; and _Mitt. aus den deutschen
Schutzgebieten, Ergaenzungsheft_, Nr 5, 1912, Nr 7, 1913. See also S. H.
Ray, _Nature_, CLXXII. 1913, and _Man_, XIV. 34, 1914.
[333] _Zeitschr. f. Ethnol._ XXXVII. p. 26, 1905. His later writings
should also be consulted, _Anthropos_, IV. 1909, pp. 726, 998;
_Ethnologie_, 1914, p. 13.
[334] _The History of Melanesian Society_, 1914.
[335] A. C. Haddon, _The Races of Man_, 1909, pp. 24-8, and _Handbook to
the Ethnographical Collections British Museum_, 1910, pp. 119-139.
[336] Besides the earlier works of H. H. Romilly, _The Western Pacific
and New Guinea_, 1886, _From My Verandah in New Guinea_, 1889; J.
Chalmers, _Work and Adventure in New Guinea_, 1885; O. Finsch,
_Samoafahrten: Reisen in Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und Englisch Neu-Guinea_,
1888; C. M. Woodford, _A Naturalist Among the Head-hunters_, 1890; J. P.
Thompson, _British New Guinea_, 1892; and R. H. Codrington, _The
Melanesians_, 1891, the following more recent works may be
consulted:--A. C. Haddon, _Head-hunters, Black, White, and Brown_, 1901,
and _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
Straits_, 1901- ; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_, 1907; G.
A. J. van der Sande, _Nova Guinea_, 1907; B. Thompson, _The Fijians_,
1908; G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, 1910; F. Speiser, _Suedsee
Urwald Kannibalen_, 1913.
[337] _Eth._ Ch. XII.
[338] But excluding Celebes, where no trace of Papuan elements has been
discovered.
[339] For details see F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, Vol. II. and
Reclus, Vol. XIV.
[340] S. J. Hickson, _A Naturalist in North Celebes_, 1889, p. 203.
[341] A. C. Haddon, "The Pygmy Question," Appendix B to A. F. R.
Wollaston's _Pygmies and Papuans_, 1912, p. 304.
[342] "A la Recherche des Negritos," etc., in _Tour du Monde_, New
Series, Livr. 35-8. The midden was 150 ft. round, and over 12 ft. high.
[343] E. H. Man, _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ Vol. XI. 1881, p. 271, and XII.
1883, p. 71.
[344] _Ib._ p. 272.
[345] Close to Barren is the extinct crater of _Narcondam_, i.e.
_Narak-andam_ (_Narak_ = Hell), from which the _Andaman_ group may have
taken its name (Sir H. Yule, _Marco Polo_). Man notes, however, that the
Andamanese were not aware of the existence of Barren Island until taken
past in the settlement steamer (p. 368).
[346] _Folk-Lore_, 1909, p. 257. See also the criticisms of W. Schmidt,
"Puluga, the Supreme Being of the Andamanese," _Man_, 2, 1910, and A.
Lang, "Puluga," _Man_, 30, 1910; A. R. Brown, _The Andaman Islands_ (in
the Press).
[347] "The Andaman languages are one group; they have no affinities by
which we might infer their connection with any other known group" (R. C.
Temple, quoted by Man, _Anthrop. Jour._ 1882, p. 123).
[348] R. C. Temple, quoted by Man, _Anthrop. Jour._ 1882, p. 123.
[349] W. W. Skeat and C. D. Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay
Peninsula_, 1906.
[350] R. Martin, _Die Inlandstaemme der Malayischen Halbinsel_, 1905.
[351] N. Annandale and H. C. Robinson, "Fasciculi Malayensis,"
_Anthropology_, 1903.
[352] W. W. Skeat and C. D. Blagden, _loc. cit._
[353] The Sakai have often been classed among Negritoes, but, although
undoubtedly a mixed people, their affinities appear to be pre-Dravidian.
[354] Cf. A. C. Haddon, "The Pygmy Question," Appendix B to A. F. R.
Wollaston's _Pygmies and Papuans_, 1912, p. 306.
[355] _In Court and Kampong_, 1897, p. 172.
[356] Senoi grammar and glossary in _Jour. Straits Branch R. Asiat.
Soc._ 1892, No. 24.
[357] See L. Wray's paper "On the Cave Dwellers of Perak," in _Jour.
Anthrop. Inst._ 1897, p. 36 sq. This observer thinks "the earliest cave
dwellers were most likely the Negritoes" (p. 47), and the great age of
the deposits is shown by the fact that "in some of the caves at least 12
feet of a mixture of shells, bones, and earth has been accumulated and
subsequently removed again in the floors of the caves. In places two or
three layers of solid stalagmite have been formed and removed, some of
these layers having been five feet in thickness" (p. 45).
[358] See on this point Prof. Blumentritt's paper on the Manguians of
Mindoro in _Globus_, LX. No. 14.
[359] One Aeta woman of Zambales had a nasal index of 140.7. W. Allen
Reed, "Negritoes of Zambales," _Department of the Interior: Ethnological
Survey Publications_, II. 1904, p. 35. For details of physical features
see the following:--D. Folkmar, _Album of Philippine Types_, 1904; Dean
C. Worcester, "The Non-Christian Tribes of Northern Luzon," _The
Philippine Journal of Science_, I. 1906; and A. C. Haddon, "The Pygmy
Question," Appendix B to A. F. R. Wollaston's _Pygmies and Papuans_,
1912.
[360] _The Philippine Islands_, etc., London and Hongkong, 1890.
[361] _Op. cit._ p. 210.
[362] _Voyage aux Philippines_, etc., Paris, 1886.
[363] A. F. R. Wollaston, _Pygmies and Papuans_, 1912; C. G. Rawling,
_The Land of the New Guinea Pygmies_, 1913.
[364] _The Mafulu Mountain People of British New Guinea_, 1912.
[365] _Nova Guinea_, VII. 1913, 1915.
[366] A. C. Haddon, "The Pygmy Question," Appendix B to A. F. R.
Wollaston's _Pygmies and Papuans_, 1912, pp. 314-9.
[367] It is not certain however that this method is known to the Semang,
and it occurs among peoples who are not Negrito, such as the Kayan of
Sarawak, and in other places where a Negrito element has not yet been
recorded.
[368] The term pygmy is usually applied to a people whose stature does
not exceed 1.5 m. (4 ft. 11 in.).
[369] W. J. Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_, 1915, and W. Turner, "The
Aborigines of Australia," _Trans. R. Soc. Edin._ 1908, XLVI. 2, and
1910, XLVII. 3.
[370] Paper in Brough Smyth's work, II. p. 413.
[371] H. Ling Roth, _The Aborigines of Australia_ (2nd ed.), 1899,
Appendix LXXXVIII., and "Tasmanian Firesticks," _Nature_, LIX. 1899, p.
606.
[372] W. J. Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_, 1915, pp. 90, 106 ff.
[373] _Nature_, XCII. 1913, p. 320.
[374] W. J. Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_, 1915, pp. 104-5.