Man, Past and Present by Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (free reads .TXT) 📕

Throughout Polynesia the community is divided into nobles or chiefs, freemen and slaves, which divisions are, by reason of tabu, as sharp as those of caste. They fall into those which participate in the divine, and those which are wholly excluded from it. Women have a high position, and men do their fair share of work. Polygyny is universal, being limited only by the wealth of the husband, or the numerical preponderance of the men. Priests have considerable influence, there are numerous gods, sometimes worshipped in the outward form of idols, and ancestors are deified.

Polynesian culture has been analysed by W. H. R. Rivers[1349], and the following briefly summarises his results. At first sight the culture appears very simple, especially as regards language and social structure, while there is a considerable degree of uniformity in religious belief. Everywhere we find the same kind of higher being or god and the resemblance extends even to the name, usually some form of the word atua. In material culture also there are striking similarities, though here the variations are more definite and obvious, and the apparent uniformity is probably due to the attention given to the customs of chiefs, overlooking the culture of the ordinary people where more diversity is discoverable.

There is much that points to the twofold nature of Polynesian culture. The evidence from the study of the ritual indicates the presence of two peoples, an earlier who interred their dead in a sitting posture like the dual people of Melanesia[1350], and a later, who became chiefs and believed in the need for the preservation of the dead among the living. All the evidence available, physical and cultural, points to the conjecture that the early stratum of the population of Polynesia was formed by an immigrant people who also found their way to Melanesia.

The later stream of settlers can be identified with the kava-people[1350]. Kava was drunk especially by the chiefs, and the accompanying ceremonial shows its connection with the higher ranks of the people. The close association of the Areoi (secret society) of eastern Polynesia with the chiefs is further proof. Thus both in Melanesia and in Polynesia the chiefs who preserved their dead are identified with the founders of secret societies--organisations which came into being through the desire of an immigrant people to practise their religious rites in secret. Burial in the extended position occurs in Tikopia, Tonga and Samoa--perhaps it may have been the custom of some special group of the kava-people. Chiefs were placed in vaults constructed of large stones--a feature unknown elsewhere in Oceania. It is safe also to ascribe the human design which has undergone conventionalisation in Polynesia to the kava-people. The geometric art through which the conventionalisation was produced belonged to the earlier inhabitants who interred their dead in the sitting position.

Money, if it exists at all, occupies a very unimportant place in the culture of the people. There is no evidence of the use of any object in Polynesia with the definite scale of values which is possessed by several kinds of money in Melanesia. The Polynesians are largely communistic, probably more so than the Melanesians, and afford one of the best examples of communism in property with which we are acquainted. This feature may be ascribed to the earlier settlers. The suggestion that the kava-people never formed independent communities in Polynesia, but were accepted at once as chiefs of those among whom they settled would account for the absence of money (for which there was no need), and the failure to disturb in any great measure the communism of the earlier inhabitants. Communism in property was associated with sexual communism. There is evidence that Polynesian chiefs rarely had more than one wife, while the licentiousness which probably stood in a definite relation to the communism of the people is said to have been more pronounced among the lower strata of the community. Both communism and licentiousness appear to have been much less marked in the Samoan and Tongan islands, and here there is no evidence of interment in the sitting position. These and other facts support the view that the influence of the kava-people was greater here than in the more eastern islands: probably it was greatest in Tikopia, which in many respects differs from other parts of Polynesia.

Magic is altogether absent from the culture of Tikopia and it probably took a relatively unimportant place throughout Polynesia. In Tikopia the ghosts of dead ancestors and relatives as well as animals are atua and this connotation of the word appears to be general in other parts of Polynesia. These may be regarded as the representatives of the ghosts and spirits of Melanesia. The vui of Melanesia may be represented by the tii of Tahiti, beings not greatly respected, who had to some extent a local character. This comparison suggests that the ancestral ghosts belong to the culture of the kava-people, and that the local spirits are derived from the culture of the people who interred their dead in the sitting position, from which people the dual people of Melanesia derived their beliefs and practices.

To sum up. Polynesian culture is made up of at least two elements, an earlier, associated with the practice of interring the dead in a sitting position, communism, geometric art, local spirits and magical rites, and a later, which practised preservation of the dead. These latter may be identified with the kava-people while the earlier Polynesian stratum is that which entered into the composition of the dual-people of Melanesia at a still earlier date, and introduced the Austronesian language into Oceania[1351].

FOOTNOTES:

[1194] Cf. J. Dechelette, Manuel d'archeologie prehistorique, Vol. II. 1910, p. 2, and for neolithic trade routes, ib. Vol. I. p. 626.

[1195] The Tell-el-Amarna correspondence contains names of chieftains in Syria and Palestine about 1400 B.C., including the name of Tushratta, king of Mitanni; the Boghaz Keui document with Iranian divine names, and Babylonian records of Iranian names from the Persian highlands, are a little later in date.

[1196] J. L. Myres, The Dawn of History, 1911, p. 200.

[1197] Cf. P. Giles, Art. "Indo-European Languages" in Ency. Brit.1911.

[1198] S. Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen, 1913, pp. 40 and 486-528.

[1199] O. Schrader, Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, 3rd ed. 1906-7.

[1200] G. Kossinna, Die Herkunft der Germanen, 1911.

[1201] H. Hirt, Die Indogermanen, ihre Verbreitung, ihre Urheimat und ihre Kultur, 1905-7.

[1202] S. Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen, 1913, pp. 40 and 486-528.

[1203] Deutsche Altertumskunde, I. 1913, p. 49.

[1204] See Note 3, p. 441 above.

[1205] Art. "Indo-European Languages," Ency. Brit. 1911, p. 500.

[1206] Centum (hard guttural) group is the name applied to the Western and entirely European branches of the Indo-European family, as opposed to the satem (sibilant) group, situated mainly in Asia.

[1207] The Races of Europe, 1900, p. 17 and chap. XVII. European origins: Race and Language: The Aryan Question.

[1208] S. Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen, 1913, pp. 497, 501 ff.

[1209] Cf. T. Rice Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, 1911, p. 273.

[1210] E. de Michelis, L'origine degli Indo-Europei, 1905.

[1211] Even Sweden, regarded as the home of the purest Nordic type, already had a brachycephalic mixture in the Stone Age. See G. Retzius, "The So-called North European Race of Mankind," Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. XXXIX. 1909, p. 304.

[1212] Cf. E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, 1909, l. 2, Sec. 551.

[1213] For the working out of this hypothesis see T. Peisker, "The Expansion of the Slavs," Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. II. 1913.

[1214] H. M. Chadwick, Art. "Teutonic Peoples" in Ency. Brit. 1911. Cf. S. Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung und Herkunft der Indogermanen, 1913, p. 480.

[1215] See R. Much, Art. "Germanen," J. Hoops' Reallexikon d. Germ. Altertumskunde, 1914.

[1216] H. M. Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation, 1907, pp. 210-215. For a full account of the affinities of the Cimbri and Teutoni see T. Rice Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, 1911, pp. 546-553.

[1217] Paper read at the Meeting of the Ger. Anthrop. Soc., Spiers, 1896. Figures of Bastarnae from the Adamklissi monument and elsewhere are reproduced in H. Hahne's Das Vorgeschichtliche Europa: Kulturen und Voelker, 1910, figs. 144, 149. Cf. T. Peisker, "The Expansion of the Slavs," Camb. Med. Hist. Vol. II. 1913, p. 430.

[1218] Cf. H. M. Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation, 1907, pp. 174 and 219.

[1219] Monuments runiques in Mem. Soc. R. Ant. du Nord, 1893.

[1220] "Lactea cutis" (Sidonius Apollinaris).

[1221] W. Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, 1900, p. 205 ff. See also O. Montelius, Kulturgeschichte Schwedens, 1906; G. Retzius and C. M. Fuerst, Anthropologica Suecica, 1902.

[1222] Commonly called the Borreby type from skulls found at Borreby in the island of Falster, which resemble Round Barrow skulls in Britain.

[1223] For Denmark consult Meddelelser om Danmarks Antropologi udgivne af den Antropologiske Komite, with English summaries, Bd. I. 1907-1911, Bd. II. 1913.

[1224] The results were tabulated by Virchow and may be seen, without going to German sources, in W. Z. Ripley's map, p. 222, of The Races of Europe, 1900, where the whole question is fully dealt with.

[1225] See Ripley's Craniological chart in "Une carte de l'Indice Cephalique en Europe," L'Anthropologie, VII. 1896, p. 513.

[1226] The case is stated in uncompromising language by Alfred Fouillee: "Une autre loi, plus generalement admise, c'est que depuis les temps prehistoriques, les brachycephales tendent a eliminer les dolichocephales par l'invasion progressive des couches inferieures et l'absorption des aristocraties dans les democraties, ou elles viennent se noyer" (Rev. des Deux Mondes, March 15, 1895).

[1227] Recherches Anthrop. sur le Probleme de la Depopulation, in Rev. d'Economie politique, IX. p. 1002; X. p. 132 (1895-6).

[1228] Nature, 1897, p. 487. Cf. also A. Thomson, "Consideration of ... factors concerned in production of Man's Cranial Form," Journ. Anthr. Inst. XXXIII. 1903, and A. Keith, "The Bronze Age Invaders of Britain," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XLV. 1915.

[1229] Livi's results for Italy (Antropometria Militare) differ in some respects from those of de Lapouge and Ammon for France and Baden. Thus he finds that in the brachy districts the urban population is less brachy than the rural, while in the dolicho districts the towns are more brachy than the plains.

[1230] Dealing with some studies of the Lithuanian race, Deniker writes: "Ainsi donc, contrairement aux idees de MM. de Lapouge et Ammon, en Pologne, comme d'ailleurs en Italie, les classes les plus instruites, dirigeantes, urbaines, sont plus brachy que les paysans" (L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 351). Similar contradictions occur in connection with light and dark hair, eyes, etc.

[1231] "E qui non posso tralasciare di avvertire un errore assai diffuso fra gli antropologi ... i quali vorrebbero ammettere una trasformazione del cranio da dolicocefalo in brachicefalo" (Arii e Italici, p. 155).

[1232] W. Z. Ripley's The Races of Europe, 1900, p. 544 ff.

[1233] This specialist insists "dass von einer mongolischen Einwanderung in Europa keine Rede mehr sein koenne" (Der europaeische Mensch. u. die Tiroler, 1896). He is of course speaking of prehistoric times, not of the late (historical) Mongol irruptions. Cf. T. Peisker, "The Expansion of the Slavs," Camb. Med. Hist. Vol. II. 1913, p. 452, with reference to mongoloid traits in Bavaria.

[1234] "Malgre les nombreuses invasions des populations germaniques, le Tyrolien est reste, quant a sa conformation cranienne, le Rasene ou Rhaetien des temps antiques--hyperbrachycephale" (Les Aryens, p. 7). The mean index of the so-called Disentis type of Rhaetian skulls is about 86 (His and Ruetimeyer, Crania Helvetica, p. 29 and Plate E. 1).

[1235] "The Tyrrhenians in Greece and Italy," in Journ. Anthrop. Inst.1897, p. 258. In this splendidly illustrated paper the date of the immigration is referred to the 11th century B.C. on the ground that the first Etruscan saeculum was considered as beginning about 1050 B.C., presumably the date of their arrival in Italy (p. 259). But Sergi thinks they did not arrive till about the end of the 8th century (Arii e Italici, p. 149).

[1236] See R. S. Conway, Art. Etruria: Language, Ency. Brit. 1911.

[1237] Op. cit. p. 151. By German he means the