Abstract
White Immigrants in Polynesian Tradition.—Mr. W. Ivens, in Man for March, discusses a number of traditions relating to white beings which occur in various parts of the Pacific. Malekula, New Hebrides, is said once to have been inhabited by a race called Ambat, who were white, and when Europeans first arrived on the island, they were believed to belong to that race and called by the same name. The Maoris believed in the existence of a white ra*ce of atua, and on Motu Island, Banks group, Bishop Selwyn and Bishop Patteson were taken for Kwat, the legendary hero, the origin of the association possibly being that he may have been supposed to be white. On North Mala, Solomon Islands, immigrants, white in colour, are said to have arrived in outrigger canoes at a place called Suuna Rii. They wore clothes and coverings to conceal their hair. Their hair was red, but for anyone to see it meant death at their hands. No name is given them, but they are accredited with the introduction of fighting, of magic, and of food plants, including the areca nut. They are worshipped on North Mala as agalo i mae, ghosts of war. The head covering of the agalo i mae survives in the pigtail of the statues of south-east Solomons, and the carved figures on Vanua Leva, Banks Islands, have a decided pigtail. In the Paumotus and Tahiti there are traditions of red-headed women who rose up from the floor of the lagoon. If, as seems possible, any connexion is to be seen between all these legends, the people to whom they relate may represent a movement into the Pacific at a very early date.
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Research Items. Nature 125, 614–616 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/125614a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/125614a0