They Are
Energetic, Demonstrative, Joyous, And Laughter-Loving, And In All
These Particulars They Differ Widely From The Malay.
I believe, therefore, that the numerous intermediate forms that
occur among the countless islands of the Pacific, are not
Merely
the result of a mixture of these races, but are, to some extent,
truly intermediate or transitional; and that the brown and the
black, the Papuan, the natives of Gilolo and Ceram, the Fijian,
the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands and those of New Zealand,
are all varying forms of one great Oceanic or Polynesian race.
It is, however, quite possible, and perhaps probable, that the
brown Polynesians were originally the produce of a mixture of
Malays, or some lighter coloured Mongol race with the dark
Papuans; but if so, the intermingling took place at such a remote
epoch, and has been so assisted by the continued influence of
physical conditions and of natural selection, leading to the
preservation of a special type suited to those conditions, that
it has become a fixed and stable race with no signs of
mongrelism, and showing such a decided preponderance of Papuan
character, that it can best be classified as a modification of
the Papuan type. The occurrence of a decided Malay element in the
Polynesian languages, has evidently nothing to do with any such
ancient physical connexion. It is altogether a recent phenomenon,
originating in the roaming habits of the chief Malay tribes; and
this is proved by the fact that we find actual modern words of
the Malay and Javanese languages in use in Polynesia, so little
disguised by peculiarities of pronunciation as to be easily
recognisable - not mere Malay roots only to be detected by the
elaborate researches of the philologist, as would certainly have
been the case had their introduction been as
remote as the origin of a very distinct race - a race as different
from the Malay in mental and moral, as it is in physical
characters.
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