The Origin Of

By What Route Did They Come From Indonesia?

IN May, 1942, we 'published a private 1 letter in which a gentleman who knows something of Pacific history re viewed Dr. Buck’s hook, “Vikings of the Sunrise.” Dealing with Dr. Buck’s theo ries of the origin of the Polynesians, he expressed disappointment, and said that he thought that Dr. Buck had placed too much reliance on the “speculations of a lot of young cubs who have taken a course in anthropology hut know noth ing of the Polynesian languages, and less about native mentality and native cus tom.”

This article brought a spirited reply from the young anthropologists of the Bishop Museum (published in Novem ber), and an interesting, informative let ter from Dr. Buck himself (published in December).

Our contributor now sends along the following comment upon the anthropolo gists’ letter; but, when he wrote (he is an American) he had not seen Dr. Buck’s letter.

I find that I have loaned my copy of “Vikings of the Sunrise” to someone who has forgotten to return it. My recollec

tion of Dr. Buck’s book is that the young ethnologists and anthropologists have not learned how to isolate evidence of the palae-Polynesian period in the Pacific from the confusion caused by later invasions, civil wars and the consequent dispersal of populations.

The palae-Polynesians were the great est and most daring mariners of all human history. Their primal points of settlement, whence colonies were dis persed to the adjacent islands, can be traced across the Pacific: First, Savai’i, then Havai’i (Ra’iatea), Hayaiki (Faka rava in the Tuamotu Archipelago) and Hawaii, in the north; all named from the Havaiki, motherland of the race.

Through the centuries which followed there were, undoubtedly, return voyages —visits of ceremony, voyages of com merce. pilgrimages to national temples, festal expeditions to celebrate alliances between high-chiefly families—from one SSS. a -° ng lhle °l 0 .^ or^ ermg , the great

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wl^, h J9 ual certainty discovered the islands of Micronesia, and left artifacts, palae-Polynesian paepae and. no doubt. palae-Polynesian skulls and bones of those who perished there.

However, an explorer, a millenium hence, who might discover in China a Remington type-writing machine of the nineteenth century, would not be justified in con eluding that the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of North America came to that continent via Eastern Asia.

Isolation of island archipelagoes came centuries later. Evidences of the inter island communication of palae-Polyne sian times have remained to confound investigators who came 600 years after isolation had become complete, following the violent disruption of the Ao-Tea— Ao-Uri confederation.

The charming fairy tale, in Dr. Buck’s book, of a single voyage from the Mar quesas Islands to fetch the sweet potato from South America, ignores the accu mulating evidence of a pre-Polynesian population in the eastern islands of the Pacific who were NOT negroid, and who were sun-worshippers, and who have left their mark on the dialects of South-east ern Polynesia.

These are a few of the reasons why I found Dr. Buck’s book disappointing as a document on Polynesian migrations.

I do not believe any of the above con fusion is to be attributed to Dr. Buck himself, but to the very eminent young scientists whom I mentioned in my ori ginal private letter.

I do not agree with some writers in the “PIM” that there is a negroid element in Polynesian ancestry. The relation ship, in historic times, between Tonga and Fiji undoubtedly brought some Melanesian blood into Tonga. There is, however, not a trace of negroid in the pure Polynesian of the Central and Eastern islands.

Nor is there any sourd foundation for the alleged presence of the Mongoloid, element.

The feverish search for something new and startling to “justify the time and expense” of some junket to the South Sea, has lured young scientists into some weird by-ways. Their banner “Excel sior” has led them (on account of the climate) not through snow and ice, but into quaking bogs of speculation, far removed from the firm ground estab lished by the scholarship of the truly great investigators.

With my kindest regards, most truly yours—

The Author Op The Original

Review.

Dr. S. J. Williams, who was medical officer in Port Moresby until the evacua tion, is now in Suva, Fiji. He has taken up a temporary appointment as an eye specialist to the Government of Fiji.

Mr. Sidney Smith, of the External Affairs Department (War Damage) has been, with other officers, temporarily transferred to Canberra.

“In spite of reports of my death, I wish to say that I am alive and well.” says Mr, F. P. Archer, of Buka, New Guinea, in a letter to the editor of the “PIM.”

Mr. Archer was recently in Sydney. Mr.

Archer had been among those listed as “missing in New Guinea” for nearly a year.