Polynesian Origin

Letter to the Editor.

MR. FITZHERBERT’S erudite article in De cember issue is delightful to me as a worker in the field of Polynesian archaelogy; but IS language always a safe, or complete, guide? Is it not a glove easily transferred to an alien hand?

Witness Santo Domingo, the Berbers, etc. Even the “English” of Australia’s youth is changing under the influence of American films! We have, near Sydney, rock-carvings of Indian “Hares’ (Moon-symbols), and Sumerian Cup-marks; in New Zealand and New Caledonia, numerous Sun symbolisms of Indian origin; in Fiji, dozens of examples of Indo-Chine (Muong) “graffiti,” and great ancient Chinese inscriptions—of an age equal to that of our Stonehenge. Is it not wiser to recognise the truth of the great Waddell’s teach ing, that Man and his civilisation is far, far older than our sacerdotalists have insisted? That many civilizations have lived and died that we know nothing about at present, and that thousands of years ago fleets crossed our Pacific manned by members of that Great Race which left the same words in northern Europe as in Pacific Islands: “Wai” for water (Wales, Ireland, Madagascar, Pacific), “Cuff” and “Collar” (Sanscrit and Lon don); the German “Ge” and the Scotch “Mac”— as no doubt Mr. Fitzherbert has already observed.

I am, etc.,

Arthur J. Vogan.

Pymble, 26/1/35.