Man, Past and Present Part 16

[315] See W. Planert, "uber die Sprache der Hottentotten und Buschmanner," _Mitt. d. Seminars f. Oriental. Sprachen z. Berlin_, VIII.

(1905), Abt. III. 104-176.

[316] "In the Pygmies of the north-eastern corner of the Congo basin and amongst the Bantu tribes of the Equatorial East African coast there is a tendency to faucal gasps or explosive consonants which suggests the vanis.h.i.+ng influence of clicks." H. H. Johnston, "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913.

[317] "The Bushmen and their Language," in _Journ. R. Asiatic Soc._ XVIII. Part 1.

[318] _Ancient Hunters_, 1915, p. 425.

CHAPTER V

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 cla.s.s 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 a.n.a.logous 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 s.e.x. 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, ma.s.sive 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 s.p.a.ces being an effect due to the a.s.siduous 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 a.s.sociated 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 pa.s.sed 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 acc.u.mulated 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.es of New Britain, and part of the swarm settled along the eastern and south-eastern sh.o.r.es of New Guinea.

Another stream pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sume 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociated strongly established patrilineal inst.i.tutions, marriage with a wife of a father's brother, the special sanct.i.ty 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.l 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 inst.i.tutions of taboo, totemism and chieftains.h.i.+p. 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 sh.e.l.ls, teeth, feathers, mats, etc., the drill, the slit drum, or gong, the conch trumpet, the fowl, pig, dog, and megalithic monuments.