POLYNESIAN VOYAGERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 134, 3 December 1938, Page 27

POLYNESIAN VOYAGERS

PEOPLING THE PACIFIC

Any book by Peter H. Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa). now Director of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, about the wanderings of the early Polynesians, is sure to' find a large .circle of readers in New .Zealand, for with Polynesian history is inseparably bound up that of the Maori, to which magnificent race Mr. Buck belongs. Hence "Vikings of the Sunrise." with its wealth of information, photographic illustrations, and maps, is picked as being likely to be in great demand.

Polynesians were probably the greatest navigators the world } has ever seen. The voyages throughout the Pacific as they peopled island after island were inconceivably daring. Distances of over 2000 miles were covered by the canoes, and their commanders and voyages became the subject of sagas. Mr. Buck in picturesque and

non-technical language captures the romance of the past, and describes in a fascinating way the history, voyaging, and culture of these Polynesian rovers. At times his suggestions and theories do not agree 'with 'those of other authorities; but then Mr. Buck is an authority himself, and his interpretations of the past are as likely to be as correct as those advanced in other quarters—more so, perhaps, in some instances. >

The Pacific's popular riddle (if it is.one) —that of Easter. Island—has considerable space devoted to it. "The Easter Islanders have been badly treated by popular writers," says, Mr. Buck. "Erroneous assertions nave been piled up one after another to make their arts and crafts appear so poor and futile that the making of stone images and of transporting them_ would appear to be beyond the capacity of the ancestors of the present people. The mystery has been deepened by regarding the art tablets, as a form of script and so foreign to Polynesian culture. Because Western people are now incapable of making stone images without steel tools and of transporting them without modern machinery, the very culture of the Easter Islanders has been attributed to a mythical people who never existed. Yet the fact remains that the descendants of Hotu-matua used the raw material of their little island to an extent that the Western mind seans.tQ : -fin4. difficulty it. realising. Thei resurrection of an extinct civilisation from a sunken continent to etc what the Easter Islanders accomplished unaided is surely thej greatest compliment ever paid to an j efficient stone-age people." | But if Mr. Buck summarily dismisses j mystery from Easter Island, he provides a minor substitute—the mystery of Pitcairn. "The mystery of Pitcairn Island remains unsolved. We can readily understand why certain atolls were occupied for a time and then deserted for more attractive islands. Pitcairn, however had all that an atoll, lacked. It had basaltic rock, abundant vegetation, enough fresh water, and fertile soil which grew breadfruit, bananas, and other food plants. The forms and numbers of the stone implements discovered show that' Pitcairn Island was inhabited by intelligent Polynesians for a long period of time. Yet when the mutineers of the Bounty landed in 1789, the previous settlers had become extinct like the moa bird of New Zealand. Did they die out from some mysterious disease, desert the island from some unknown cause, or were they exterminated by a marauding force that returned home? What happened to them. I do not know."