In the matter of government and social or ganization, Polynesian peoples present all grades from democracy of an almost, pure type to what might well be termed absolute and limited monarchies. Mer a considerable portion of Polynesia the division into nobles and common people occurred as in media-cal Europe. In spite of the fearful ravages of vices and diseases in trodneed by the Europeans, the deereelAle:4 due to the monopoly by the white man of the best land, etc., and other related causes, which in many cases of the island groups have practically de populated some and decimated others, an increase of population is reported from certain sections both of English and French Polynesia.
All over the Polynesian area languages show the common origin from one parent stock, prac tically identical with the parent stock of the lrilayan tongues, and proving a iNlalayo-Polyne sian unity. The dialectic variations in Polyne sian languages are to a large extent phonetic. The mythology, folk-lore, and primitive poetry of the various Polynesian peoples is rich and imaginative, eosmogonie tales and ancestor myths, primitive epics and hero-stories being particularly abundant. Love-songs and political orations were extensively cultivated, while the harem), or professional poet, was found in many of the larger groups. In its poetical and literary expression the Polynesian mind shows a combina tion of naiveté and metaphysics which is very Facts of language, mythology, art, general culture, and distribution of food-plants point to the peopling of the Polynesian area from the cast to the west, with the Samoan group as the chief centre of dispersion. Their distribution over the vast extent of the Pacific was made possible by the .seaworthiness and size of their vessels and their skill as navigators. They are comparatively recent intruders into an area that is itself geologically recent. Brinton ( 1800) places the separation of the Polynesian branch from the at "about the beginning of or era." According to Horatio Hale. the :Marquesas
Islands were peopled somewhat less than 2000 years ago, the Hawaiian group in the seventh century A.D., Rarotonga and the nambier Islands in the thirteenth, and New Zealand in the fifteenth century, while the colonization of some of the other islands was actively going on in the time of Cook—indeed, some of the islands of the Low Archipelago seem not to have been inhabited even in the middle of the eighteenth century. The initial point of departure of the Polynesians from the Alalay area is said to have been the island of Burn. The vulture of the Polynesians is more or less intimately eonneeted with the food products of the Pacific. islands—the pig, the lien, several edible roots, the breadfruit, the cocoanut, etc.
Consult: Grey, Polynesian Mythology (Lon don, 1855) ; Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia (ib., 1861) ; De Quatrefages, Les Polym'sicns ct leers nzigrotions (Paris, 1866) ; Meinicke, Bic 1i/se/a des sullen Oceans (Leipzig, 1875) ; Gill, Historical Sketches of Suragc Life in Poly msio (London, 1880) ; id., Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (ib., 1876) : Lesson, Les Polynesietts, bur oriyinc, leers migrations, tear langage (Paris, 1880-84); Fornander, An Ac count of the Polynesian Race (London, 1878-00) ; Edge-Partingtou, An A /bum of the Tools, Ornaments, Articles of Dress. etc.. of the Natires of the Pacific Islands (\Enncheste•, 1890 95) ; Brandstetter, Malaio-Polynesiselic Borsch 11n/en ( Lucerne, 1895-)16) ; :\lacdonahl, Linguistic and Anthropological (Melbourne, 1889) ; Reeves, Brown Men and Women (London, 1898) ; Graf von Pfeil, Studien 'Ind Deobacht lingen sus der• Siidsce (Leipzig, 1890); Batzel, history of Mankind (English trans., London, 1898) : and the publications of the Polynesian Society of Wellington, N. Z.