The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-02-16
TIE PACIFIC
GOmmertlalAOOert
SATURDA Y. FEBRUARY I6.
" ORIGIN AND MIGRATION OF THE
POLYNESIAN NATION:

POLYNESIAN NATION;
Demonsn attng their original discovery and pro
gressiUe settlement Of the Continent of Ameri
ca. By John Dunmore Lang, d. D. A. NJ.
Senior Minister Of the Scots Church, Sydneq
and for many gears one Of the Representative
Of the City Of Sydney an the Parliament o
-Neio South Wales; Honorary Member of III
african Institute Of France, of the American
Oriental Society, and of the LITERARY Inst
tae ofhe University of Ohnda in The BraziIs
Second Edition, greatly extended and inpror
ed. Sydney, australia; printed for Sampson
LO0, MarstOH, LOo, and SeGrIe, London
1877" 8D1o, pp. 328.
The above is the title of a work that has lateI,
come under our notice; and as we are Polynesianl
by adoption, if not by birth, we opened its page,
with u lively interest and no small hope of seeing
at last the question definitely answered, in regard
to the Polynesians, which have puzzled learned
men Of all nations for the last hundred wears
These questions were: who are they; whence came
they; when came they; how came they? Doctor
Lang undertakes to answer all these, and offers
the further information that in the early DAYS OF
mankind, a few centuries after the flood, a canoe
load Of Polynesians were driven by Westerly
gales from Easter Island in the Pacific to the
coast of South America in the neighborhood OF
CopiapO and thence, moving Southwark and
Northward, occupied the entire American CONT
nent from Terra del Fuego in the South to the
Esquimaux countries in the North; and thus, in
fact, were the first original inhabitants of that
portion of the Globe and the progenitors of the
present American Indians, North and South.
With this latter portion of the Doctors book we
shall have little to do; it occupies two-thirds of
the book, and will probably be received by the
literatl of America to the Doctors hearts content;
but on the previous questions affecting the Polv-
nesians We wish to offer a few remarks.
The Doctor claims that, during ten wears resi-
dence in the Australian Colonies prior to 1884, he
had made three grand discoveries which he an
nounced to the world in a book published that
year in London, with nearly the same title as the
book now under review; Uie: first, '' that the
Polynesians, or South Sea Islanders, were of
Asiatic origin and Malayan race;' second, s. that
there was a belt Of ocean in the Pacific in which
1t was quite as practicable, at certain seasons. to
sail to the Eastward as to the Westward;'' third.
- that the way in which America had been ORR
glnally discovered and progressively settled, was by
Polynesians from Easter Island, crossing the in
tcrvening tract of Ocean, of about 1000 miles.
under a sudden and violent tempest of Westerly
wind"
In regard to Doctor Lang's first discovery.
published in 1884, the Doctor says that he con-
ceiVed 1t to be ga great and important discovery;
Tor no previous effort had ever been made, either
to identity the POlynesians with the Malays, or
to trace their subsequent history and migrations."
And the Doctor complains bitterly of Rev. Messrs.
Ellis and Williams for 90 piratine his discovery
OF the Asiatic origin and Malayan descent of the
Polynesians, in the Narration of Missionary
Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, thereby
him for forty years of the honor and
credit of this grand discovery.
1t is quite possible that Doctor Lang has not
read, or, having read, has not needed what others
before him have said upon the subject Of .sidenti-
Tying the Polynesians with the Malavs." 1t is a
singular but frequently observed trait in human
that a mans positiyeness and dogma
tlsm are generally on n level with his ,onoo
Ut the subject under discussion; and we regret to
say that the Doctor is no exception. We have
not the first edition of the Doctors book, pub
Lished in 1884, before us, and it may be that, re-
siding IN Sydney up to that time, the Doctor had
read or heard what had been previously said
on the subject by such men as Forster, Anderson.
Iiervas, Marsden and Sir Stamford Rafies, whose
anne and works had reached even us in the Haw-
aiian Islands. But when the Doctor in the sec
md enlarged and improved edition of his book,
in 1877, alter. such men as G.. L. d.
Domeny de Rienzi, j. Dumont d'Uryile. A. Won
J~hamisso, w. Won Humboldt, F. Boff. H. Hale
the Us Exploring Expedition), and a host
others, following more or less in their footsteps,
not to mention the Rev. Messrs. Ellis and Will
Jams, whom he accuses of plagiarism and piracy
rom his previous edition-had from independent
ources come to the same opinion regarding the
origin and Malayan affinity; when the
Doctor then still claims the discovery, we think
lis modesty is slngularly at fault. Domeny de
work 8" Oceanic, =" to Judge from the pre-
ace, was ready in August, 1884, though it was
lot published in Paris ill 1886. Dumont dur
ills Report on the Philology of the French Ex-
$50, before the first edition of the Doctors
'ook appeared. Won Chamisso's work on the
and POlynesian language was published
Berlin 1887; but Chamisso collected his data
With the Russian Exploration Expedition under
1otzebqe l8l5-lS. In 1898 appeared VIM: Won
iumboldtis great work Ueber die Kawi
but it was Il work on which the author
ad been employed for many years previous, and
humboldt certainly owes nothing to Doctor Lang.
III these gentlemen came to their conclusions,
the Malays and the Polynesians, pre-
lously to, or simultaneously with Doctor Lang,
nd have as much right to claim the credit of the
us he. Although Professor Max Muller
snores the claim of Doctor Lang and assigns the
to the abb Lorenzo Hervas, as the one
no first established the Malayo-Polynesian fam
y OF speech Is Lectures on the Science of Lam
9Th ed. PIP. 149.) We coincide with
~rofessor W. d. Alexander Introduction to Hon.
orrln Andrews Hawaiian Dictionary in giving
lie palm of the discovery to Forster and Ander-
~ .9.4a.f-
In regard to the Doctors second discovery
that there was a belt of ocean in the Pacific in
hich 1t was quite as practicable, at certain
asons, to sail to the Eastward as to the West
ard he refutes his own claim to the discoy-
J W IeIerrlDS 10 La IcrOuse and Admiral Hun
+ and Mrs. E. S. Hill as his authorities, D. %.
e might have added Kotzebue's g Voyage of
Iscovery. into the South Sea, &c" published in
vi, and Beechey's g Narrative of a Voyage to
e Pacific published in 1881, had he read
EN-. Had the Doctor, moreover, been CONVEX
MT with the natives of any group within the
oplcs, or with foreigners who for any length of
had resided there or frequently crossed those
tltudes, he would have learned that " the prac- s
ability " OF sailing to Eastward as well as to g
e estWard " at certain seasons - of the wear s
as no new discovery, but a well known fact a
3;quentiy availed of in their intercourse with /
her groups. ~ .
concerning the Doctors third discoyery-tbat
NUMBER OF native Polynesians were blown off t
their course from Easter Island, by a Wester- $
gaze OF wind, and landed at Copiapo or it's C
lgnDorhood IN South America, and thus became n
c nrst inhabitants of that Continent and the y
OF the American lndians-thouob il !;
possible yet is it a fact? We might say 81 r
z zero, e 0en t'oUGtO,' but we fail to be con- Il
nced by the Doctors arguments in favor of the 7
)lynesian origin of the american Indians. We =