P. 14), commencing
to the east of the Philippine Islands, thence along the western
coast of Gilolo, through the island of Bouru, and curving round
the west end of Mores, then bending back by Sandalwood Island to
take in Rotti, we shall divide the Archipelago into two portions,
the races of which have strongly marked distinctive
peculiarities. This line will separate the Malayan and all the
Asiatic races, from the Papuans and all that inhabit the Pacific;
and though along the line of junction intermigration and
commixture have taken place, yet the division is on the whole
almost as well defined and strongly contrasted, as is the
corresponding zoological division of the Archipelago, into an
Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan region.
I must briefly explain the reasons that have led me to consider
this division of the Oceanic races to be a true and natural one.
The Malayan race, as a whole, undoubtedly very closely resembles
the East Asian populations, from Siam to Mandchouria. I was much
struck with this, when in the island of Bali I saw Chinese
traders who had adopted the costume of that country, and who
could then hardly be distinguished from Malays; and, on the other
hand, I have seen natives of Java who, as far as physiognomy was
concerned, would pass very well for Chinese. Then, again, we have
the most typical of the Malayan tribes inhabiting a portion of
the Asiatic continent itself, together with those great islands
which, possessing the same species of large Mammalia with the
adjacent parts of the continent, have in all probability formed a
connected portion of Asia during the human period. The Negritos
are, no doubt, quite a distinct race from the Malay; but yet, as
some of them inhabit a portion of the continent, and others the
Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, they must be considered to
have had, in all probability, an Asiatic rather than a Polynesian
origin.
Now, turning to the eastern parts of the Archipelago, I find, by
comparing my own observations with those of the most trustworthy
travellers and missionaries, that a race identical in all its
chief features with the Papuan, is found in all the islands as
far east as the Fijis; beyond this the brown Polynesian race, or
some intermediate type, is spread everywhere over the Pacific.
The descriptions of these latter often agree exactly with the
characters of the brown indigenes of Gilolo and Ceram.
It is to be especially remarked that the brown and the black
Polynesian races closely resemble each other. Their features are
almost identical, so that portraits of a New Zealander or
Otaheitan will often serve accurately to represent a Papuan or
Timorese, the darker colour and more frizzly hair of the latter
being the only differences. They are both tall races. They agree
in their love of art and the style of their decorations. They are
energetic, demonstrative, joyous, and laughter-loving, and in all
these particulars they differ widely from the Malay.
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