PACIFIC ISLAND PEOPLES.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1921, Page 8

PACIFIC ISLAND PEOPLES.

ORIGIN AND MIGRATION, MISSION OF INVESTIGATION. An investigation of certain of the island groups of the Pacific is being carried out by parties sent out from the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Each party includes an anthropologist, an archaeologist, and a botanist, who collect data .bearing on the origin and migration of the original races of people inhabiting the islands, and upon the flora. Botanical work is concerned primarily with the collection and study of plants of use to the native, such as the taro, breadfruit, flax, cocoanut, and numerous others- Being of essential use to the natives for which they furnish in the way of food, clothing, cordage, or medicine, or connected with religious ceremonies, these plants have accompanied the native races in their migrations from one island group to another, some voyages being over 1500 miles in length. Dr. Forest Brown and his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Brown, of Honolulu, are visiting New Zealand on their way to the Marquesas Islands, where they will make collections and conduct researches upon the flora, including the seed plants and the cryptogams. Very little is known of either the flora of these islands or the native inhabitants, who are rapidly becoming extfnict. The data obtained are to be published by the museum in a report at some time subsequent to the return of the party to Honolulu. During their five weeks’ stay in New Zealand Dr. and Mrs. Brown have studied and collected specimens of New Zealand plants, which have been forwarded to the museum at Honolulu. Dr. Brown stated that there was scarcely any doubt about the relationship between the Maoris and the Hawaiians. The languages are very similar, and there was little or no difference in the habits of the two peoples. The Hawaiians claimed that the Maoris were descendants of their ancestors, who migrated to various island groups in the Pacific, and the research work already carried out by scientists bore out this contention. •