Oceania

OCEANIA, a geographical area extending from Australia, in the west, to the most easterly islands of Polynesia, in the east, and from New Zealand, in the south, to Micronesia and the Sand wich islands, in the north. Ethnologically the area is divisible into six principal regions (q.v.) : Australia; Tasmania; Melanesia, a group of islands extending from Fiji, in the south-east, to New Guinea, in the west; New Guinea, which, however, is a geographi cal rather than an ethnological unit, for the eastern and north eastern coastal regions are Melanesian, while the west really falls under Indonesia ; Polynesia, an island area of considerable racial and cultural uniformity, comprising the greater part of the Pacific ; Micronesia, an island area comprising that part of the Pacific which lies between New Guinea, Polynesia and the Philippines.

Racial History.

There is little doubt that man first entered this area from the west, and subsequent migrations have all had an easterly, or, in the case of Australia, a southerly trend. The problem of dissecting out the racial components of the peoples on the eastern and southern periphery is, therefore, comparatively simple. Furthermore, the uniformity, both of physical type and culture, and evidence of a more or less historical kind, show that the Polynesian area is of comparatively recent occupation, even allowing for more than one principal set of migrations. But in New Guinea and Melanesia, the principal gateways into Oceania, conditions are more complex, and the racial history of this area has been only tentatively elucidated. Australia, again, shows con siderable physical and cultural uniformity with many variations, but the existence of varieties of the Papuan type of man in Tas mania, with a very primitive culture, suggests that man entered and crossed the length of Australia at an extremely early date.

Principal Groups.

The six principal divisions of this region, Australia, Tasmania, Melanesia, New Guinea, Polynesia and Mi cronesia, can be fairly readily distinguished from one another, both racially and culturally, though, in the case of New Guinea, there is not that racial and cultural uniformity which characterizes each of the other areas. Apart from New Guinea, with its great diver sity of race and culture, some general characterization of culture as well as race can be made of each of the other areas. Language,

for example, will readily separate Australia, and in all probabil ity Tasmania, from the group Melanesia, Polynesia and Micro nesia. The speech of these three areas, together with the Melan esian and Indonesian part of New Guinea, is clearly referable to one family, the Austronesian (q.v.), extending from part of India and Burma, through Malaya and Indonesia to the extrem ities of Polynesia. But while the Polynesian languages may be described as dialects of one language, there is considerably more diversity within the Melanesian sub-division of this family.

This Austronesian speech is associated with a distinctly higher culture, particularly in Polynesia and Micronesia, the Melanesians being in some respects intermediate between these groups and the Papuans of New Guinea, though among Papuan's there is great variety of culture, the result, no doubt, of various degrees of blending of immigrant cultures with perhaps more than one indig enous culture brought into New Guinea and Melanesia by the original Papuans.

The Australians, culturally as well as physically, betray a marked contrast, not only with the Austronesian-speaking peoples of Oceania, but also with the Papuans of New Guinea. Horticul ture, well-developed throughout the rest of the area, excepting Tasmania, is entirely absent, and the economic life is, conse quently, of a very low order. Nevertheless, an elaborate social organization and ceremonial life and considerable variation in such stable aspects of culture as the disposal of the dead, survive in Australia.

Mode of Life.

The Australians and Tasmanians, being hunters and collectors, are necessarily nomadic, though within more or less well-developed tribal areas. Their most important possessions are their hunting weapons, spears, boomerangs and tools rudely chipped out of stone. The aridity of most of Australia during the greater part of the year, and the very short period during which nature provides abundant food, cause most of the non-economic activities of the Australians to be concentrated in the brief period of spring, when magico-religious rites with the object of increas ing the food supply are performed, initiations are conducted, and, in fact, most of the tribal, in contrast with family, activities take place.