THE ETHNOLOGY OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO :

EMBRACING ENQUIRIES INTO THE CONTINENTAL RELATIONS OF THE INDO-PACIFIC ISLANDERS.

BY J. R. LOGAN.

FROM the time of Captain Cook's voyages, an impression has prevailed that a certain degree of relationship connects all the Oceanic tribes from Easter Island to Sumatra, and, reaching directly across the Indian Ocean, embraces the people of Madagascar. This has led to many investigations into the extent and cause of so remarkable a circumstance, but it will suffice at present to advert to those of Marsden, Crawfurd, Humboldt, Bopp and Hale which have been directed almost entirely to philological evidence, and to those of Lesson, one of the ablest of the original enquirers into the analogies of a physical kind. The first held the opinion that all the races were offshoots from one stock, the language of which, the Great Polynesian, originating probably in Sumatra, was preserved to a certain extent by each, while separation had produced all the great and numerous differences which we now find. Mr Crawfurd, on the other hand, believes that each originated in a rude horde speaking a language of its own. The more barbarous races retain original and peculiar languages, while the more improved, still preserving their ancient tongue as the basis or radical portion of their present one, have incorporated with it a number of foreign elements, all of which he resolves into the great Polynesian language, the language of the adjacent tribes, Sanskrit, Arabic, a few words of other Asiatic languages, and a still smaller portion of the languages of Europe. The Great Polynesian language he considered to have been that of an indigenous civilized nation which, in various degrees, disseminated its language and civilization over the rest of the Archipelago, while only a few insulated and corrupted words reached the distant islanders of the Pacific. From the evidence of language he drew several conclusions respecting the state of civilisation of this nation, ascribing to them some progress in agriculture, the use of iron and gold, loom weaving and the possession of the domesticated cow, buffalo, hog, fowl and duck. They had considerable maritime skill, and had probably attained a calendar and the art of writing. All these arts he considered to be of native origin. William von Humboldt, the greatest of all general philologists, concluded from an examination and comparison of all the languages of Oceanica for which he had materials, some of the most valuable relating to the Javanese and Malay being supplied by Mr Crawfurd, that they belonged to one family, having essentially the same structure and a large resemblance in words and roots. His glossarial analysis was chiefly

directed to 130 words in nine languages, which he has presented in a comparative table. Humboldt also believed that the MalayoPolynesian lauguages would be found to be primitively monosyllabic, and that the Polynesian in particular had great grammatical resemblances to the Chinese. In the Tagala he found the peculiar forms of the Malayo-Polynesian structural system most fully and elaborately developed, and he considered that the other languages had degenerated from a similar state, while the Tagala preserved the original organism in full vitality and operation. Professor Bopp, one of the most justly celebrated philologists, has recently endeavoured to prove, chiefly from an examination of numerals and pronouns, that the Malayo-Polynesian languages are disintegrated Sanskrit. Sir William Jones had long before concluded, with a confidence arising from ignorance of the subject, that all these tongues were derivatives from the Sanskrit.* The races and languages of these regions have attracted the attention of many other less original enquirers, but I shall only notice the opinions of Dr Prichard and Chevalier Bunsen. Both have adopted the views of Marsden and Humboldt.+ Prichard considered it as established that there is one MalayoPolynesian race which, at a period before the influx of Hinduism, existed nearly in the state of the present Tahitians and New Zealanders and spread over all the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, having the centre of its mental culture, or at least of the development of its languages, in the northern part of the Philipine Archipelago. He was of opinion that Bopp had failed to prove the Sanskritic derivation of the Oceanic tongues, or even to establish a family relationship between them and the great eastern representative of the Indo-European languages. The resemblance he declared to be even much more remote than that between the Iranian family and the Semitic. Dr Prichard did not himself undertake any original enquiries into the Oceanic languages nor form any independent conclusions respecting them. As in other parts of his laborious and valuable work, his attention was chiefly attracted by the physical part of ethnology and its bearing on the theory of the unity of the human race.

The two opinions respecting the_internal_history of the Malayu-Polynesian races to which I have adverted, may be considered as still before the public in all their antagonism, for no attempt has been made by the advocates of either to modify or reconcile them. I am not aware that any Malayan philologist has critically gone over the same ground as Humboldt. Mr Crawfurd

*With equal facility he declared, at another time, that the Malays were the descendants of Arabian traders and mariners after the age of Mahamad.

+ Sir Stamford Raffles also embraced Marsden's views, but his philological knowledge was too scanty to admit of his being referred to as an independent authority on this subject.

has recently returned to the subject with a great accession of important facts derived from a laborious comparison of entire dictionaries of the Javanese, Malay, Bugis, Tagala, Bisaya, Tahitian, New Zealand and Malagasi. His opinion remains unaffected by the researches of Humboldt.

The history of the Polynesian tribes has frequently been made the subject of separate enquiry and speculation. Different writers derive them from America, the northern part of the Pacific, and the Indian Archipelago. Amongst recent enquirers Mr Williams has strongly and ably maintained their Indonesiant origin, and Mr. Hale, to whose important and valuable labours I shall afterwards fully advert, has adopted the same views. Following up Mr Williams' connection of the Society with the Sandwich Islands, through the identity in the name of two islands, Hawaii, he has shewn that this name may be traced throughout all the greater groups, applied to important islands in which the race is located, to a traditional land of origin, or to a lower region the abode of departed spirits. Mr Williams in his work had inferred that the Society were peopled from the Sandwich islands, but when Mr Hale mentioned to him the probable use that might be made of this name in referring back the different tribes to their original seat, he told him that he had long entertained the opinion, that the Samoan islands were the source of the population of the other groups of Polynesia. Mr Williams was not aware that the name of the largest island of the latter group is Savaii, which Mr Hale concludes to have been the original of all the other Savaiis throughout Polynesia. In his chart of Oceanic migrations he does not allow any line of connection from Micronesia to Polynesia, but abruptly cuts off on the N.E. verge of Melanesia the stream that, according to him, peopled the western groups of Polynesia and thence flowed to the S., E., and N. clusters. He conjectures however that the "On the Malayan and Polynesian Languages and Races " Jour. Ind. Arch. vol. II. p. 183.

The name Indian Archipelago is too long to admit of being used in an adjective or in an ethnographical form. Mr Earl suggests the ethnographical term Indunesians but rejects it in favour of Malayunesians, (ante p. 71). For reasons which will be obvious on reading a subsequent note, I prefer the purely geographical term Indonesia, which is merely a shorter synonym for the Indian Islands or the Indian Archipelago. We thus get Indonesian for Indian Archipelagian or Archipelagic, and Indonesians for Indian Archipelagians or Indian Islanders. I have no affection for the multiplication of semi-grecian words, and would gladly see all the nesias wiped off the map if good Saxon equivalents could be substituted. The term has some claim however to be located in the region, for in the slightly different form of nusa it is perhaps as ancient in the Indian Archipelago as in Greece.

The regular phonetic changes which the word naturally undergoes in the different dialects are:

Bulotu or Purotu of the Tongan and Samoan islanders, a large island to the N.W. where their race originated and where the souls of the deceased nobles and matabulais live as gods, is Buru, one of the Amboyna group, and he considers it within the bounds of probability that this is the spot in the Indian Archipelago from which the Polynesians emigrated.

Lesson, reviving the opinions of La Gobien, separated the Philipine and Micronesian islanders from the Malayo-Polynesians, and, deriving both directly from the Mongolian (Mid-Asian) race, bestowed upon them the appelation of Pelagian Mongoles. Lutke, who, at a later period, explored Micronesia, differs entirely from Lesson's conclusions, maintains that the inhabitants could not have been derived either from the Mongolian part of the Continent or from Japan, and assigns to them an Indonesian origin. He admitted, at the same time, that many of their arts and customs were not Polynesian, but were evidently derived from the Chinese or Japanese. Mr Hale has remarked that the Micronesian tribes are nowhere to be found in a pure state but always with a greater or less mixture of the Malayu-Polynesians, to whom they are superior in character, as well as in many arts evidently derived from a higher civilization than any that has been indigenous in the islands of the latter. He concludes that while the semi-civilization of the Polynesians has been attained by bringing to perfection the rude arts and institutions natural to the savage state, that of the Micronesians has resulted from simplifying and adapting to more restricted circumstances, the inventions and usages of civilization. He entertains no doubt that, by a comparison of language, physical traits, customs and traditions, the origin and migrations of the Micronesian tribes may be traced out, and adds that few more important fields now remain open for ethnographical research. Dr Prichard considered it evident that these tribes were a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian stock, probably more nearly allied to the Philipine than to the Polynesian people, and that their manners had been modified by some foreign intercourse.

The relation of the Malayu-Polynesian tribes to the peoples of other regions has never been systematically investigated. Bopp alone has endeavoured to connect them with the ancient Iranian races. Bunsen merely indicates a belief that the Malay "bears the characters of the not-Iranian branch of the Japhetic family," but he does not advert to Bopp's enquiries nor enter on the subject himself. To Leyden the Malayu seemed in its original formation to have been monosyllabic like the Indian languages. He considered that one of its three glossarial portions was connected not only with the other insular languages but with some of the monosyllabic, as the Burmese and Siamese, while the majority of the words, at least in the maritime dialects, were borrowed from the Sanskrit and the Arabic, the simpler and more essential being however indigenous, or rather corruptions

of the ancient eastern tongues. He also remarked an analogy between the structure of the Malayu and that of the monosyllabic languages. Marsden, at a later period, declared, with reference to Leyden's opinion, that the main portion of the Malay was original, that is not traceable to a foreign source, its affinity to any Continental tongue not having been shewn, and least of all could it be supposed that it was connected with the monosyllabic or Indo-chinese. Dr Prichard, on the authority of Mr Norris, has thrown out a suggestion that the Australian have some connection with the old Indian languages, which however, in his report to the British Association, he treats as still more conjectural than Rask's reference of the latter group to the Turanian family.

The Papua languages are not to be understood as included in the preceding remarks. They are, as Dr Prichard reported to the British Association, for the most part unexplored. "One observation," he adds, "to be made respecting them is that they often partake more or less of the_Polynesian. Whether this arises from the adoption by the Papuans of the Polynesian vocabulary has not been determined, though most persons incline to this last opinion." Bunsen considers that the Papua is an anterior and very primitive formation, and that it will most likely prove to be a degenerated one. Mr Crawfurd has declared that the negro tribes of the Archipelago have different languages and that they all differ completely from those of Madagascar. A strong physical resemblance between the Papuas and the natives of Eastern Africa has long been remarked, and it has naturally led to the conjecture that the former were derived from the latter. M. Lesson considered that the rememblance between the Papuas and the Malagasis was so strong, not only in person but in habits and traditions, as to shew them to be of the same race. According to him the Polynesians were in occupation of the Archipelago before the migration of the Papuas to it. Mr Crawfurd, on the other hand, declares that while all the Malagasis are merely varieties of the African negro, they do not bear any physical analogy to the Malayan race or to any section of the Oriental Negro. It is not unusual to view the negro tribes of Oceanica as one race, but Dr Prichard concludes that their history, and more especially that of their languages, is as yet too little known to justify any assertion as to their mutual relations in a general point of view to each other; and that, though they have many moral and physical qualities in common, these do not amount to a proof of real

* By many writers the Negro tribes have been considered as the aborigines of the Archipelago, and it has been concluded that in the more eastern parts at least they preceded the Malayu-Polynesian race who have partly displaced them. On this subject the reader may consult Mr Earl's excellent description of the Papuas contained in the numbers of this Journal for November and January last, to which I shall hereafter particularly refer.