POLYNESIANS. Many studies have been devoted to the origin and migration of the Polynesian people. It has been maintained, largely upon undigested linguistic material. that they are of the Aryan• race; with equal insist ence certain other students on the same linguis tic ground have assigned them to such intimate association with the Malay people as to predi sate a Malayo-Polynesian race. Our real knowl edge of the Polynesian people dates from their discovery by the great navigators in the islands of the Pacific which they now occupy. By legitimate interpretation of, and inference from, the very considerable body of Polynesian tradi tions, which have been collected, we may rea son the past history of the Polynesian race back to its occupation of the islands now known as Indonesia, and at present occupied by Ma layan peoples. Anterior to their residence at a remote epoch in Sumatra, which is abundantly confirmed by the persistence of a distinctly Polynesian strain in the Mentawei Islands, which lie off-shore along its western coast, we are lacking in data whereupon to predicate an earlier history of this race. Percy Smith, in proposes the identification of their ancestral home in the valley of the Ganges; dissection of certain of the linguistic material seems to suggest with equal plausibility an earlier home in conditions which most closely correspond to those of the Hadramaut of south ern Arabia in the present day. With our pres ent material the matter seems incapable of solution. Assuming, then, as susceptible of satisfactory establishment, their former resi dence in certain of the larger islands between Sumatra and the Philippines, we can picture to ourselves a race of people on a plane of culture which may fairly be classed as neolithic, that is to say, in possession of wooden and polished stone implements which could serve for offense or defense, according as the daily need arose. It is also clear that they were in possession of the arts of navigation to a very satisfactory extent. Upon people of this cul tural plane broke in an irruption of a race of higher culture as shown by the possession of weapons of mild steel. In the datable chronol ogy of Hindustan, this irruption may be estab lished as the entrance of Malayan ancestors into Sumatra 400 years ac The possession of the superior weapon of offense meant the extermi nation of the club-armed Polynesian ancestors or their migration in search of a safer home, and their possession of canoes and their knowledge of how to ply the sea, led to the adoption of the latter alternative. It now becomes incum bent to examine the postulate of a Malayo Polynesian race. This was proposed by Bopp in the second quarter of the last century, en tirely upon linguistic grounds. It has been possible to collect the material which he was able to have under study and to determine that while the accessible material was sufficient to enable him to make an intelligent of Malayan languages, the material at that time in existence pertaining to Polynesian languages was so scanty in extent and so poor in quality as to render his results entirely unworthy of credence. There remains, however, a certain speech community of Malayan and Polynesian; this amounts to little more than 250 words and the modern explanation of this community is that these words are Polynesian, which be came incorporated in Malayan as loan material derived from their captives at the period of the great expulsion from Indonesia. Physically the Polynesians are one of the most attractive of the human race and are marked by a stature which. with the doubtful exception of certain Patagonian peoples, represents the highest growth of humanity.. With some interesting traces of the matriarchate, Polynesian socie is rather genetic than political. Each exists as a social unit, holding all its goods in common, the chief is the family head, who is selected by common agreement from the mem bers of that family and it is not uncommon to find the position of chief thus held by women; in general, there is no priestly class, but the functions whereby intercourse is had with the departed who have become family gods are exercised by the chief as priest. There is a wide distinction among the gods, the higher gods are self-existent, their sole activity the original creation of this world and its in habitants, indifferent to the course of current events and not to be moved by prayer; the lesser gods are spirits which have already un dergone a human existence and may, therefore, be the object of supplication, as possessing a certain sympathy with the affairs of mankind.
In the highest degree the religion of the Polyne sians has no connection with ethics, the moral sense and the doctrine of punishments being entirely dependent upon the tabu. The tabu is a moral prohibition; in its greater sense it may be considered as an unknown foundation of social life, in its minor sense it may be im posed for temporary and temporal uses by any person in possession of authonty over the ob ject with which the tabu is associated. The tabu is self-executive, its violation provides its own punishment and in the sensitive conscience of the Polynesian this punishment is not to be evaded. It has been found possible to establish a beginning date of the Polynesian migrations as fixed by the Malayan irruption under Aristan Shar in 400 ac. Detailed study of Polynesian traditions makes it plain that there were two ways of migration. The earlier, that to which the name Proto-Samoan has been applied, ap pears to have reached the Central Pacific, that is, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, about the Christian era. Upon this first settlement there swept a second wave of migration, that which by the Samoans is called the Tongafiti, some 600 years later. The Tongafiti were in possession of a decided advance in the arts of life and were able to rule the Proto-Samoans as a subject people for several centuries; finally, at a period very nearly contemporaneous with the Norman conquest of England, the Proto-Samoans were able to throw off the yoke of the oppressor and then began the second era of migrations in the Pacific, whereby the Tongafiti, with more or less Proto-Samoan companionship, advanced to the settlement of the more remote islands from Samoa as a distributing point. It has been possible to establish this duality of the Polyne sian migration waves by a philological examina tion of the different Polynesian languages. This diversity is also found in the scheme of the god-head. The Proto-Samoans recognize one god, Tangaloa, the creator, held in rever ence but not the object of prayer nor of sacri fice; the Tongafiti had arrived at a conception of four great gods. Tu, Rongo, Tane and Tangaloa, of whom the last was reduced to a position of small relative importance. The Tongafiti centred all their worship of the great gods in the act of human sacrifice. In certain of their branches they had arrived at the Messiah idea of a god who should return to bring blessing to his people; the vanished god was Rongo, and it was an offshoot from the belief that Captain Cook was Rongo, returning for the salvation of his people, that led to the death of that great navigator at Kealakekua, in Hawaii. The first result of the contact of European civilization with these happy islanders was deplorable, for to a people who had not acquired constitutional immunity the simplest ailments of our life, coughs and measles, led to a rapid increase of the death rate. For many years the population of Polynesia seemed to be progressing rapidly toward extinction, but in the present century, the records show an upward turn, and it is probable that the race will be able to adjust itself to the new con ditions. In general the Polynesians have made but a superficial advance in the new culture, but in Hawaii, and among the Maori of New Zealand it has been abundantly established that they are capable of taking a position quite on an even plane with the British and Americans with whom they are associated. Much has been written upon the Polynesian race regarded as elements of a political problem, or as a social problem. As bearing upon their ethnic position, the principal works of reference are the Jour nal of the Polynesian Society (New Plymouth, New Zealand, current), Smith, S. Percy,