C.

THE OCEANIC MONGOLIDÆ.

The epithet _Oceanic_ is applied to this group because, with the exception of the Peninsula of Malacca, the tribes belonging to it are the inhabitants of _islands_ exclusively.

DIVISIONS.

1. THE AMPHINESIAN[49] STOCK. 2. THE KELÆNONESIAN[49] STOCK.

The ocean is the highway between tribe and tribe, or nation and nation, just in proportion as there is the skill, the experience, the courage and the necessary equipment for using it. As long as the mariner's compass was undiscovered the New World was isolated from the Old. To the Turk on the Hellespont, in the deficiency of even the rudest elements of water-transport, the narrow stream was an obstacle. Hence the unscientific character of all _a priori_ generalizations respecting the influence of land or water as the means of national intercommunication, or as elements of ethnographical dispersions. The desert, the prairie, or the ocean, are boundaries that limit, or paths that extend, the diffusion of tribes and nations, just in proportion as there is the camel, the horse, or the ship to make them available.

How nations may effect an extension over continuous tracts of land, has been seen in the examination of the Great Turk area; how nations may effect an extension where the land is disconnected, and where the ocean alone is the means of communication, will be seen in the examination of the great Oceanic area. These two forms of extension stand in strong contrast to one another.

The best way to appreciate the magnitude of the great Oceanic area, is to state that with the exception of the Mauritius, the Isle of Bourbon, Ceylon, the Seychelles, the Maldives, and the Laccadives in the Indian Ocean, and the Japanese empire with the islands to the north thereof, in the Chinese Sea, every inhabited spot of land in the Indian and Pacific Oceans is inhabited by tribes of one and the same race.

Or taking the localities more in detail, we may say that from Madagascar, on the west, to Easter Island, half way between Asia and America, and from Formosa to the north, to New Zealand southwards, in the great islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and New Guinea, in the almost continental extent of Australia, in groups like the Philippines and the Moluccas, and in scattered clusters like the Mariannes or the other islands of the South Sea, the race is one and the same--and that race _Oceanic_.

Add to all this, that those tribes which are found so widely spread over the face of the ocean, are so spread almost _exclusively_. They are not only _everywhere in the islands_, but they are well-nigh _nowhere on the continent_. In the Peninsula of Malacca, and on no other part of the main land of Asia, is an Oceanic tribe to be detected.

In an ethnographical distribution such as this, so remarkable for both its negative and positive phænomena, there is ample ground for speculation; and of this there has been abundance. I prefer, however, at present, to suggest a distinction between the Oceanic area of dispersion and the Turk.

In respect to the former, the _later_ the date we assign to it the more explicable are the phænomena; in other words, the more advanced the art of navigation the easier the extension from island to island.

The converse is the case with the latter. The earlier a land migration takes place, the less is the resistance of the nations around it, and, consequently, the greater the facilities of its propagation.

_Divisions of the Oceanic Mongolidæ._--I think that if we base our primary divisions of the great Oceanic stock upon difference of physical form, they will not be more than _two_; although, by raising the value of certain sub-divisions, the number may be raised to three, four, five, or six.

Now as the value of the members of the Oceanic groups is a point upon which there is a variety of opinion, and as the opinion of the present writer as to its unity as a whole, is at variance with the systems of ethnologists, with whom he is diffident of disagreeing, it will be well to take more than usual pains to give prominence to the leading facts upon which the current opinions are based; and for the sake of fuller illustration to carry the reader over the subject by two ways.

_A._ One class of the Oceanic islanders is yellow, olive, brunette, or brown, rather than black, with long black and straight hair; and when any member of this division is compared with a native of the continental portions of the world, it is generally with the Mongol.

_B._ Another class of the Oceanic islanders is black rather than yellow, olive, brunette, or brown; and when any member of this division is compared with a native of the continental portions of the world, it is generally with the Negro. As to the hair of this latter group, it is always long, sometimes strong and straight; but, in other cases, crisp, curly, frizzy, or even woolly. Upon these differences, especially that of the hair, we shall see, in the sequel, that sub-divisional groups have been formed.

The social, moral, and intellectual difference between these two classes, in their typical form, is, certainly, not _less_ than the physical--probably more. The _continuous_ geographical area is,--for the black division, New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania, New Ireland, and the islands between it and New Caledonia. For the brown division, all the rest of the Oceanic area,--Sumatra, Borneo, Java, the Moluccas, the Philippines, the South Sea Islands, the Carolines, &c.

Now this is one way of viewing the subject, and it is the way which gives us the contrast in the most marked manner; the typical instances of each group being put forward.

But another point of view limits the breadth of difference.

It may have been noticed by the reader, that in speaking of the area occupied by the black and brown nations respectively, I used the word _continuous_. This was done for the sake of preparing the way for a new series of facts. In many of the countries proper and peculiar to the brown or straight-haired occupants, there are to be found, side by side with them, darker complexioned fellow-inhabitants; blackish and black tribes; tribes with crisp hair; tribes with woolly hair; and tribes with hair and hue of every intermediate variety. Furthermore, wherever the two varieties come in contact, the black and blackish tribes are the lower in civilization; generally inhabiting the more inaccessible parts of their respective countries, and, in the eyes of even cautious theorists, wearing the appearance of being aboriginal.

1. _Names._--For the lighter-complexioned, straighter-haired type--_Malay_.

2. For the type that partakes of the character of the African Negro inhabiting New Guinea, Australia, and what may be called the continuous localities for the unmixed Black--_Negrito_.

3. The tribes with any or all of the Negrito characters, dwelling side by side with Malays in Malay localities, or in localities disconnected with the true Negrito area--_the Blacks of the Malayan area_.