NEW GUINEA EXPLORATION. THE NEW GUINEA NATIVES. [By the Special Correspondent to The Auckland " Star "] Murray Island, March 10, 1884.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 53, 7 June 1884, Page 5

NEW GUINEA EXPLORATION. THE NEW GUINEA NATIVES. [By the Special Correspondent to The Auckland " Star "] Murray Island, March 10, 1884.

We now come to consider the natives of New Guinea, and are met at once by one or two very interesting ethnological questions, upon which some leading anthropologists take different views, owing to the scanty and contradictory nature of the information received. It is unfortunate for the elucidation of these questions that so much is written by many who know so little of the subject. Almost every visitor to New Guinea considers himself qualified to pronounce upon matters which those who have lived amongst thcpeopleforyearsand (studied feel reluctant to hazard an opinion ; and these statements appear not only in newspapers, reviews, and books, but also in papers read before scientific societies. Thus even Captain Moresby, in a paper read before the Iloyal Geographical Society in 1875, spoke of the natives at the cast end of New Guinea as " a race of Malays," and yet in his description of them— as Mr Wallace remarks — "showed that he -was unacquainted with the Malay characteristics." Doctors Meyer, Beccari, Miclucho, Maclay, Si^fnor d'Albei'tis, and Mr Wallace can speak with I authority on these topics, having resided amongst the natives for a considerable time, and made them their special study ; and having done thip at different parts of ! the great island very much enhances tho value of the conclusions to which they have arrived. These, although differing in some respects, all concur in regarding the tribes throughout New Guinea as belonging to one race, notwithstanding the common opinion that they are composed of two distinct races, Papuan and Malayan. Having seen a good deal of the native tribes along the coast from the Baxter River and East Cape since my first acquaintance with them in 1871, and being the only European who has has visited the bush tribes on the great body of the island in the vicinity ot the Fly River, who are regarded by the natives on the coast as their natural enemies, and hunted like kangaroos whenever seen away from their villages, and having paid some attention to these questions, I may, perhaps, without presumption claim a hearing on the ethnology of these people. To know whence the natives are, we must find out who they are ; and this can only be ascertained by observing what they are — what they are chiefly in language, legends, and culte. It is now established by the best philologists that all languages, in their development, proceed from the simple to the complex ; from monosyllables to polysyllables ; from agglutinative to inflectional. Thus considered, the languages of Papua and. Polynesia, through their various dialects, are amongst the oldest living on the face of the earth. Dieffenbach, in his "Travels in New Zealand," states that "the Polynesian language is, in its whole formation and construction, by far more primitive than the Malayan and the rest of the Javano-Tagalo languages. It belongs to a primitive state of society." If this be true of the language of the brown Polynesians, vho are considered a preMalayan race, how much more so of the language of the Papuans, who are evidently a much older race, the dialects of which not only greatly differ from the Polynesian, but differ very muoh from each other. It is by no means an uncommon opinion, even amongst intelligent people, that degraded savages like the Papuans, many of whom are notorious cannibals, have no proper language at all, and that the missionary who settles amongst them has to make one for them. In a well-known magazine just to hand, there is an account of the distinguished African missionary, Dr. Moffat, by a reverend D.D., who states about the missionary hero that " ho set to work by himself and made a language, reduced it to writing, taught it to the natives [! !], and then commenced a translation of the Bible." This idea of a missionary making a language is rather amusing, considering the difiiculty some of us have in acquiring the one wo find in existence. The fact is that a missionary has simply to learn the language of his people, write it out, translate into it, and teach the people to read. It does not follow that because a tribe or nation has no written language that their speech is merely a kind of gibberish, having neither correct sense, sound, nor grammar. I have been living amongst Papuans for more than a quarter of a century, and have reduced four of their languages or dialects to writing, and can testify that in some respects they are even superior to our own. Some of them have a court and a common language, inclusive and exclusive pronouns, dual and trial numbers, and the words are all as precise in their meanings as if they had been defined by Johnson or Jamieson. The grammar is as regular and uniform as if it had been formed by Lindley Murray or Lennie, whilst the pronunciation is as exact as if it had been settled and phonographed by Walker, Webster, or Worcester; thus clearly pointing backward to a higher state of civilisation from which they are falling. How come these cannibals to have such a language if they have not brought it down with them ? If all our civilisation is to be traced to a slow but gradual development from a j state of primitive barbarism and savage ex- ] istence, how are we to account for the state of the natives in New Guinea and the South Seas ? Here are two large sections of pre-historic men who are still in the age of stone and lake villages. Where is the evidence that they are advancing in either civilisation, intelligence, morality, or happinoss? The fact is— however it may disagree with accepted theories— that there is abundant evidence that both races are retrograding, and none whatever that they are advancing, except under influences from without. Since I became acquainted with the bush tribes in the vicinity of the Fly River I have been much interested in the discovery that some of them practise cremation, waiting and mourning till. the body is reduced to ashes, which are placed together in the

form of a human being and left. This its the first time that I have come into contact with the practice of this rite in New Guinea, nor have I heard of its being practised in any other part of the island. Tf it be true that " the custom of burning the dead was well-nigh universal in remote ages in the countries of the Old World," then it ia probable that the Papuans brought this custom as well as others with them. It seems from Homer to have been the general custom in the most refined period in the history of Greece. It was also a Druidic rite, which is said to "agree better than burying with the venerable Druidic theory of transmigration, which is so little understood at the present day, but which is so closely associated with the doctrine of evolution." By the side of cremation may be placed the rite of circumcision, which is practised in some parts of New Guinea, and on some of the South Sea islands. Making fishing-nets might also be referred to as a branch of industry amongst the natives, the knowledge of which was brought from some of the old centres uf civilisation. In difteront parts of Now Guinea my wife has surprised and amused the natives by taking their netting out of their hands and doing a little for them. It is the samo stitch as that of our own country. The stone gods and charms found amongst the natives of New Guinea, and on most of the islands in the South Sea?, some standing erect from one to eight feet in height, others portable and carried about by tho natives, also point to very ancient forms of worship — the Lingam symbolism of the Seiva Culte in India, for instance. Linguists, like the lamented Bishop Pattoson, have also noticed a striking resemblanco between the grammatical structure of the Hebrew language and tho Papuan dialects, especially as to tenses. The poetry of these people seems also more akin to Hebrew than either Greek or Latin. "It is measured by no feet. It is neither rhyme nor blank verse ; nor does it correspond in structure to the Hebrew parallelisms. It seems little else than prose — elevated prose it may be— but cut up into divisions, like verses, and these are followed by choruses, chiefly single syllables with no meaning. This, according- to Dr. Kitto, was tho kind of singing with which Laban wished to send away Jacob. The style of the poetry seems to afford facilities for improvising. Tho music is a kind of chanting. It runs along on the principle of a short note and a long note alternately within a narrow scale." I might also refer to their legends, some of which are remarkably like the records of Old Testament history, and may bo found in my "Story of the Lifu Mis&ion." All these things, and much more of the kind, plainly indicate that these natives have fallen from a higher civilisation, that their progress is downwards, and that they aro merely the remnant of a worn-out race Now let us consider that the first empires that arose in the world were formed by descendants of Ham. Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, went into Assyria and founded Nineveh, and the city which he built and the empire continued for agos to overshadow all Western Asia. Mizraim, the son of Ham, founded the Egyptian monarchy and the Philistian Commonwealth. Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, settled in Palestine, and his descendants founded first theCanaanitish kingdoms, then Tyre, and subsequently Carthage. These were for a very long time the leading nations of the world : they possessed its highest civilisation, and held all but a monopoly of its commerce. These young monarchies no doubt sent forth strong and vigorous colonies, which took possession of the Asiastic Archipelago, Australia, New Guinea, and Western Poly, nesia. From the Asiatic Archipelago they appear to have been driven out by a succeeding and superior race, who also in time, being similarly treated by the Malays, passed on to occupy the islands in Eastern Polynesia, fighting and irineling with the Papuans on their way ; in some cases succeeding in driving them into the interior and forming settlements on the coast, as on the south-east peninsula of Now Guinea, and some of the large islands in the South Seas. This pre-Malay or Polynesian race has left momentoes of it 3 passage in the Polynesian names of various places, and in outlying remnants of their own race on scattered points of the Papuan Archipelago. Perhaps the last and best confirmed attempt of these Polynesian wanderers at permanent settlement on Papuan soil was at the Fiji Islands. The number of Polynesian names by Avhich these islands and places in them are called even now by their Papuan in" habitants argues a permanence of residence that caunot well be disputed. The large infusion of Polynesian vocables in the Fijian language, and the mixture of the two races, especially in the south-eastern part of the group, indicate ajprotracted sojourn, and an intercourse of peace as well as of war. I think the foregoing considerations plainly indicate the whence of the people of New Guinea and Western Polynesia. In a future letter I may treat of their manners and customs. New Guinea Mission House, Torres Strait, March 21.