The Solomon Islands and Their Natives Part 8

The Solomon Island natives are usually referred to the Melanesian group of the Ethiopian division, a group which includes the Papuans of New Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western Pacific; but my observations on the physical characters of these natives have shown that the type of a Solomon Island native varies considerably in different parts of the group, in some islands approaching the pure Papuan, in others possessing Polynesian affinities, and in others showing traces of the Malay. The _prevailing characters_, however, are distinctly Melanesian or Papuan. The Melanesians, who, according to Professor Flower, are chiefly distinguished from the African negroes by the well developed _glabella_ and supra-orbital ridges in the male, greatly excel the true African negroes, the Hottentots and Bushmen, and the Negritos of the Andaman and Philippine Islands, who are included in the Ethiopian division, in all that affects their social condition. In their usuages, their rites, their dwellings, their agriculture, their canoes, and in many other respects, the Melanesian or Papuan peoples display a far greater intellectual capacity than we find exhibited by the other members of the Ethiopian division.

I cannot here enter at length into the question of the peopling of the various groups of islands in the Pacific. It is a question on which conclusions drawn from the linguistic and physical characters of the inhabitants of these islands do not always agree. Professor Keane[82]

holds that the three princ.i.p.al divisions of the varieties of man are represented in this region; the _Caucasian_ in the Polynesians inhabiting the islands of the south-central Pacific (Marquesas, Samoa, Tonga, &c.); the _Mongolian_ in the Micronesians of the islands of the north-central Pacific (Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, Ladrone Islands); and the _Ethiopian_, or as he terms it the Dark Type, in the Papuans of the Western Pacific (to whom he restricts the name Melanesian), New Guinea, and the adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago. It is to the different mingling of these three princ.i.p.al types, that the widely varying characters of the peoples dwelling in the several regions of the Pacific are attributed. According to Professor Keane, the Polynesians of the south-central Pacific are almost purely Caucasian, without a trace of Mongolian blood. This view, however, is not supported by Professor Flower who contends that the combination of the Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters, in varying proportions and under varying conditions, would probably account for all the modifications observed among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands.

[82] _Vide_ a series of three papers in vol. XXIII. of "Nature" on the Indo-Chinese and Oceanic Races.

The theory advanced by Professor Keane with reference to the peopling of the Pacific Islands, is one on which some of my observations in the Solomon Islands, although not directly connected with the subject, have some bearing. The primitive Negrito race, as now exhibited in the Andaman Islander, according to this view is the original stock of all the dark races. From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it extended westwards to Africa across the now lost continent of Lemuria, and eastwards "across a continent of which the South Sea Islands are a remnant--to become slowly differentiated into the present Papuan or Melanesian peoples of those islands." Subsequently, the Caucasians of southern Asia, impelled before the southerly migration of the Mongols from higher Asia, occupied the islands of the Indian Archipelago and extended eastwards to their present homes in the south-central Pacific (Samoa, Tonga, the Marquesas, Society Islands, &c.). The Mongols following close upon them, finally reached the groups of islands together known as Micronesia in the north-central Pacific (Ladrone, Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, &c.).

The reference to the supposed sunken continents in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which served as stepping-stones in these migrations, merits my attention. From our most recent knowledge of the geological structure of tropical islands, to which my observations in the Solomon Islands have in some measure contributed, it may be inferred that there is but little geological evidence to support the view of the existence of these submerged continents. The theory of subsidence, on which Mr.

Darwin's explanations of atolls was based, cannot now be urged in support of prolonged periods of subsidence in the tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The groups of atolls, which there occur, were formed, as shown by recent investigations, around and over oceanic peaks of volcanic formation, and independently of any movement of subsidence.[83]

[83] _Vide_ the writings of Murray, Aga.s.siz, Geikie, and others. In my volume of geological observations, to be shortly published, I have referred at length to this subject.

With reference to the migration eastwards of the Eastern Polynesians, I would allude to a piece of evidence which was advanced by Mr. Hale in support of the view that the island of Bouro in the Malay Archipelago was the starting-point of the migration. Quiros, the Spanish navigator, was informed in 1606 by a native captured at Taumaco, near the Santa Cruz Group, that there was a large country named Pouro in the vicinity of that region. This _Pouro_, however, was without doubt the neighbouring island of St. Christoval (one of the Solomon Group) which retains the native name of _Bauro_ at the present day, and as we learn from Gallego's journal,[84] was called by the natives _Paubro_ rather over three centuries ago. Mr. Hale, however, who of course was not acquainted with the native name of St. Christoval, endeavours to ident.i.ty this Pouro, of which Quiros was informed, with the distant Bouro of the Indian Archipelago. (_Vide_ note xv. of the Geographical Appendix)... . The foregoing remarks have not been offered with any object of criticising a view on which I am not competent to speak. The misconception having come under my notice, I considered it my duty to refer to it.

[84] _Vide_ page 229 of this work.

In the course of my researches I came upon a circ.u.mstance which appears to point in an unmistakeable manner to the Indian Archipelago as being the highway by which the Eastern Polynesians have reached the Pacific.

The circ.u.mstance, to which I refer, is that it is possible to trace the native names of some of the common littoral trees, such as the _Panda.n.u.s_, _Barringtonia speciosa_, &c., from the Indian Archipelago across the central Pacific to the Austral and Society Islands. In ill.u.s.tration, I will take _Barringtonia speciosa_, referring the reader, however, for the other trees to page 186 of this work. In the Indian Archipelago, I find the native names of this tree to be _Boewa boeton_ and _Poetoen_.[85] In the islands of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, it is known as _Puputu_. In Fiji, it is known as _Vutu_;[86] in the Tongan Group, as _Futu_;[87] and in the Hervey and Society Islands as _E-Hoodu_[88] or _Utu_.[89] It is interesting to notice the modifications which the name of this tree undergoes, as one follows it eastward from the Indian Archipelago to the centre of the Pacific Ocean, a distance of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles; and it is equally instructive to reflect that without the intermediate changes, intermediate it should be added in a geographical as well as in an etymological sense, the names at the end of the series would scarcely seem to be related. The Indian Archipelago would appear to be the home of this littoral tree, which on account of the buoyancy of its fruits has not only been spread over Polynesia, but has reached Ceylon and Madagascar.[90] From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it has therefore extended to the eastward as far as the central Pacific, and to the westward nearly across the Indian Ocean... . It is obvious that much information of this kind might be collected which would be of considerable value to philologists; and even in the case of this single tree I have only, so to speak, broken the ground. The tedious character of the research necessary to collect the scanty information I have obtained on this subject, will be amply compensated for, if my remarks should prove suggestive to residents in the different islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

[85] "De Inlandsche Plantennamen," by G. J. Filet (_vide_ reference on page 186).

[86] "Year in Fiji," by J. Horne: p. 70. (1881.)

[87] "Ten years in South-Central Polynesia," by the Rev. T. West: p.

146. (1865.)

[88] "Observations made during a Voyage round the World," by J. R.

Forster. (1778.)

[89] "Jottings from the Pacific," by Wyatt Gill: p. 198. (1885.)

[90] "Report on the Botany of the Challenger," by W. Botting Hemsley: vol. I., part iii., p. 152.

_The physical characters of a typical Solomon Islander._--Notwithstanding the variety in some of the characters of these natives, it is not a difficult matter to describe a typical individual who combines their most prominent and most prevalent characteristics. Such a man would have a well-proportioned physique, a good carriage, and well-rounded limbs. His height would be about 5 feet 4 inches; his chest-girth between 34 and 35 inches; and his weight between 125 and 130 pounds. The colour of his skin would be a deep brown, corresponding with number 35 of the colour-types of M. Broca;[91]

and he would wear his hair in the style of a bushy periwig in which all the hairs are entangled independently into a loose frizzled ma.s.s. His face would have a moderate degree of subnasal prognathism, with projecting brows, deeply sunk orbits, short, straight nose, much depressed at the root but sometimes arched, lips of moderate thickness and rather prominent, chin somewhat receding. His hairless face would have an expression of good humour, which is in accord with the cheerful temperament of these islanders. The form of his skull would be probably mesocephalic. The proportion of the length of the span of the extended arms to the height of the body, taking the latter as 100, would be represented by the index 1067. The length of the upper limb would be exactly one-third the height of the body; and the tip of his middle finger would reach down to a point about 3? inches above the patella.

The length of the lower limb would be slightly under one-half (49/100) of the height of the body; and the relations of the lengths of the upper and lower limbs to each other would be represented by the intermembral index 68. I was only able to obtain the measurement of six women who belonged to the small islands of Ugi and Santa Anna, off the St.

Christoval coast. Their average height was 4 feet 10 inches, which corresponds with the rule given by Topinard in his "Anthropology," that for a race of this stature 7 per cent of the height of the man (5 feet 3 inches, in this part of the group) must be subtracted to obtain the true proportional height of the woman. The hair of the women has the same characters as that of the men. Their figures have not usually that breadth of hip which the European model would possess. The general appearance of the younger women is not unattractive, but they soon lose their good looks after marriage. In Bougainville Straits, it was often possible to notice amongst the wives of the chiefs two castes of women of very different appearance, the one with elegant figure and carriage, slim limbs and more delicately cut features, the other more clumsily proportioned with stout ungainly limbs and a coa.r.s.e type of features.

[91] The colour-types employed were those given in the "Anthropological Notes and Queries," published by the British a.s.sociation in 1874.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1

3

2

4

1. WOMEN OF SANTA ANNA.

2. MEN OF UGI WEARING SUNSHADES.

3. MAN OF UGI.

4. MAN OF UGI.

(_To face page 102._)]

I found that two constant variations in the type of the Solomon Island native are presented by the natives of the islands of Bougainville Straits (including Choiseul Bay), and the natives of St. Christoval and its adjoining islands at the opposite end of the group. In the former region there exists a taller, darker, more robust, and more brachycephalic race; whilst in the latter locality the average native is shorter, less vigorous, of a lighter hue, and his skull has a more dolichocephalic index. From 35 to 40 natives were examined in each region, and some of the princ.i.p.al distinctions may be thus tabulated:

Average Colour of Skin. Cephalic Index Height. of living subject.

St. Christoval, 5 ft. 3 in. Colour-types, 35 & 28 76 Bougainville Straits, 5 4 35 & 42 807

In the districts of Urasi and the Uta Pa.s.s on the north coast of Malaita,[92] there would appear to exist an almost brachycephalic race, of a lighter hue than is possessed by the natives of Bougainville Straits. Differences are in fact constant in their localities throughout the group, the most marked that came under my observation being between the natives of Bougainville Straits and those of St. Christoval at the opposite end of the group, as already alluded to. D'Urville, the French navigator, who visited this group in 1838, contrasts in a similar way the natives of St. Christoval and Isabel with those of Bougainville. The former appeared to him small and feeble in comparison with the more vigorous, st.u.r.dier, and much blacker natives of the latter island. He was particularly struck with the diminutive and wretched appearance of the natives of Isabel around "Thousand-Ships Bay," as compared with the vigorous well-made natives of Bougainville.[93] ..... In some islands of small size, we find the natives markedly different from those around them. In the small island of Santa Catalina, off the eastern end of St. Christoval, the natives are distinguished from all others in this part of the group, by their finer physique, lighter colour, and greater height. They do not appear to intermarry much with the surrounding tribes; but they are, strange to relate, in friendly communication with the natives of some district on the coast of Malaita, with whom they probably intermarry. On the coasts of Guadalcanar there would appear to be some of the finest types of the Solomon Islander.

Unfortunately, I had but little opportunity of observing them.

[92] I was indebted to the Hon. Curzon-Howe, Government Agent of the labour schooner "Lavina," for the opportunity of examining these Malaita natives.

[93] "Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l'Oceanie," (Tome V., p. 105, hist.

du voyage.)

Having briefly referred to some of the general facts resulting from my observations on the physical characters of these islanders, I now come to refer to the observations themselves. They were confined for the most part to the natives of the opposite extremities of the group--at the eastern extremity to the natives of St. Christoval and of the adjoining small islands of Ugi, Santa Anna, and Santa Catalina; and towards the opposite extremity to the natives of the islands of Bougainville Straits, which include Treasury Island, the Shortland Islands, Faro Island, together with Choiseul Bay. Observations, although fewer in number, were also made on the natives of the following intermediate islands, viz., Malaita, the Florida Islands, and Simbo or Eddystone Island.

All the measurements, unless otherwise stated, refer to male adults.

STATURE.

Height in feet and inches. Number of Measurements.

4 feet 11 inches to 5 feet 0 inches. 2 5 0 -- 5 1 5 5 1 -- 5 2 6 5 2 -- 5 3 13 5 3 -- 5 4 18 5 4 -- 5 5 9 5 5 -- 5 6 10 5 6 -- 5 7 6 5 7 -- 5 8 2 5 8 -- 5 8 1 -- Total, 72

The foregoing table includes all the measurements of height which I obtained in the various parts of the group. The range of these 72 measurements is 4 feet 11 inches to 5 feet 8 inches. Fifty of these are gathered together between 5 feet 2 inches and 5 feet 6 inches.

Arranging the whole series in order, I find that the value of the central number (36th) is 5 feet 4 inches; of the quarter-points, the value of the 18th is 5 feet 3 inches, and of the 54th, 5 feet 5 inches; and the values of the 9th and 63rd in the scale are 5 feet 1 inches, and 5 feet 6 inches respectively. There is a disturbing element in this series, which is probably the result of combining in the same series the natives of the Bougainville Straits islands and those of St. Christoval, the latter being rather shorter, as noticed below. We may, however, take the value of the median as representing the average height of a native of the Solomon Islands, viz., 5 feet 4 inches, or 1625 metres, which is somewhat below the medium height of the human race, as stated by Topinard at 165 metres. It is, however, in a marked degree in excess of the height which Mayer gives for the Papuans, viz., 1536 metres (_vide_ Topinard's Anthropology).

Deviations of a constant character are found in different parts of the group, and often in different districts of the same island. The natives of the islands of Bougainville Straits, for instance, are noticeably taller than those of St. Christoval at the opposite end of the group, the averages of about thirty measurements in each region, differing by from one half to three quarters of an inch. This difference of height in these two localities is accompanied by other important changes in the physical characters which will be subsequently referred to.

The range of my measurements may be contrasted with those obtained by Miklouho-Maclay on the coast of New Guinea (_vide_ "Nature," Dec. 7th, 1882).

Papua-Koviay coast, 175 to 148 metres.

Maclay coast, 174 to 142 Solomon Islands, 174 to 151

CHEST-GIRTH.