To the Agent-General for New Zealand, Sir Julius Vogel K.C.M.G., I must also tender my grateful thanks for much valuable information on the trade of the South Sea Islands notably in Mr. Sterndale's report to the Government of Nev Zealand, which I have followed in my treatment of som details. To my old friend Mr. Archibald J. Dunn, I am in debted for valuable assistance. To Messrs. Thos. P. Elphinstor of Fiji, and T. S. Kelsall of Samoa, I am also much obliged and I should add that some of the commercial matter on Fiji has appeared in the columns of the Field newspaper above my signature. If the following pages have any tendency to advance civilisation by which I mean religion, law, order, and freedom for all-and which includes legitimate commerce in the great Pacific, the end for which this book was written will have been accomplished. CHURCH END, FINCHLEY, H. STONEHEWER COOPER. XVI. ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY OF FIJI XVII. A VERY SUGGESTIVE CHAPTER XVIII. MORE HINTS FOR CAPITALISTS XXII. SAVU SAVU TO TAVIUNI . INTRODUCTION. THE peoples of Polynesia may be divided into three distinct classes. In the western islands from the east end of New Guinea and Australia eastward, including Fiji, we find a nearly black frizzly-haired people. In all the eastern islands there are large brown straight-haired people (found also in New Zealand); and in the western islands north of the equator, there is a smaller brown straight-haired people. The black frizzly-haired people, who are nearly the lowest type of humanity in existence, are called Papuans.* On some of the islands the men collect their hair into small bunches and carefully bind each bunch round with fine vegetable fibre from the roots up to within about two inches from the head. Dr. Turner, in his 'Nineteen Years in Polynesia,' mentions having counted nearly seven hundred bunches on the head of one young man. This strange custom gave rise to the long popular belief that the hair of the Polynesians grew in tufts. Dr. Turner also calls attention to the strange resemblance existing between the hair of these people thus dressed and the conventional representation in the Assyrian. sculptures. In the physiognomy of the Papuan people there is great difference. The lips of a typical specimen are somewhat thick. 6 * From Papuah, frizzled, woolly headed.'-Marsden's Malay Dictionary. According to Spencer, the Fuegians, Andamans, Veddahs, etc., are of a lower type than the Papuans. The nose is broad, often arched and high, but coarse. The jaws project, and they may as a rule be said to be prognathous. They are generally small in stature; and in islands where the natives are comparatively large-sized, there is always evidence of their mixture with another race. The typical Papuan is small, thin-limbed, and physically weak. They are savage, bloodthirsty, and inveterate cannibals. They are also broken up into hostile tribes, speaking languages with a structural resemblance, but wide verbal differences, owing to long isolation; in fact, the people in one valley frequently had no communication with the people in another, except when at war with them. Women hold a very low position among the Papuans, and are merely the slaves and tools of the men. Their domestic instincts are not greatly elevated above those of the lower animals. In the Papuan mode of government might is right. Both intellectually and religiously the natives are of a low type, and they possess few of the traditions, poems, and songs common to many barbarous races. In arts and commerce they are also backward, although with occasional exceptions. Throughout the whole of the Papuan region, there are traces of more or less mixture of the people with the large brown straight-haired people referred to, whom Mr. Whitmee calls the 'Sawaiori,' and other writers the Mahori races; and this is especially noticeable in Fiji, and in the Solomon Group. The word 'Sawaiori' is taken from the three representative peoples of the race, those belonging to Samoa, Hawaii, and Maori. The Papuans of the Pacific are believed to belong to the same race as those in New Guinea and other parts of the Indian Archipelago; in fact, they may be divided into Eastern and Western Papuans. That they were the earliest occupants of the various places where remnants of the race are now found, and that they have in many places been partly or wholly overrun and displaced by more recent races, is, in my opinion, unquestionable. |