see further E. Tregear, "The Polynesian Bow," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, vol. i. no. 1 (April 1892), pp. 56-59; W.
H. R. Rivers, _The History of Melanesian Society_ (Cambridge,
1914), ii. 446 _sqq._

The question of the origin of the Polynesian race is still unsettled,
but the balance both of evidence and of probability seems to incline in
favour of the view that the people are descended from one of the yellow
Mongoloid races of South-Eastern Asia, who gradually spread eastward
over the Indian Archipelago and intermingling to some extent with the
black aboriginal inhabitants of the islands formed the lighter-tinted
brown race which we call the Polynesian.[4] A strong argument in favour
of this theory is drawn from the Polynesian language, which belongs
essentially to the same family of speech as the Melanesian and Malay
languages spoken by the peoples who occupy the islands that intervene
between Polynesia and the south-eastern extremity of the Asiatic
continent.[5] The black Melanesian race occupies the south-eastern
portion of New Guinea and the chain of islands which stretches in a
great curve round the north-eastern coasts of New Guinea and Australia.
The brown Malays, with the kindred Indonesians and a small admixture of
negritoes, inhabit the islands westward from New Guinea to the Malay
Peninsula.[6] Of the two kindred languages, the Polynesian and the
Melanesian, the older in point of structure appears unquestionably to be
the Melanesian; for it is richer both in sounds and in grammatical forms
than the Polynesian, which may accordingly be regarded as its later and
simplified descendant.[7]

[4] Compare (Sir) E. B. Tylor, _Anthropology_ (London, 1881), p.
102; R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_ (Oxford,
1885), pp. 33 _sqq._; S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki, the Original
Home of the Maori_ (Christchurch, etc., New Zealand, 1910), pp.
85 _sqq._; A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_ (Cambridge,
1919), pp. 34 _sqq._; A. H. Keane, _Man Past and Present_,
revised by A. Hingston-Quiggin and A. C. Haddon (Cambridge,
1920), p. 552.

[5] On the affinity of the Polynesian, Melanesian, and Malay
languages, see R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_
(Oxford, 1885), pp. 10 _sqq._; S. H. Ray, "The Polynesian
Language in Melanesia," _Anthropos_, xiv.-xv. (1919-1920), pp.
46 _sqq._

[6] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_, pp. 482 _s