"Polynesian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... principle, and are therefore consistent in denying all political rights to people of colour. The Australian Colonies have taken an even more drastic method. Most of them forbid the Chinese to enter the country, and admit the dark-skinned Polynesian only as a coolie labourer, to be sent back when his term is complete. France, however, is more indulgent, and in some of her tropical Colonies extends the right of voting, both for local assemblies and for members of the National ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... a marked similarity, almost an identity, between the religious institutions of most of the Polynesian islands; [Footnote: Polynesian Islands: in the Pacific, just east of Australia.] and in all exists the mysterious "Taboo," restricted in its uses to a greater or less extent. So strange and complex in its arrangements is this remarkable system, that I have in several cases met with individuals ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the boundless ocean, out of sight of land, the stars only as our guides, and the sagacity of the Polynesian chief and his followers to depend on. What made us feel most strange was our utter ignorance where we were going. From the quantity of provisions and water the natives had thought it necessary to provide, it was ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... 90 survivors out of a total population of 1200. They subsequently decreased still further. Their language was allied to that of the Maoris of New Zealand, but they differed somewhat from them in physique, and they were probably a cross between an immigrating Polynesian group and a lower indigenous Melanesian stock. The population of the islands includes about 200 whites of various races and the same number of natives (chiefly Maoris). Cattle and sheep are bred, and a trade is carried on in them with the whalers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... of Madagascar.—These are not Africans to the same extent as the Kaffres of the coast. As far back as the time of Reland it was known that the affinities of the Malagasi language were with the Malay and Polynesian tongues of Asia; but it was also known that the similarity in physiognomy was less than that of language. Hence came a conflict of difficulties. The speech indicated one origin, the colour another—whilst the fact of an island so near to Africa, and so far from Malacca, as Madagascar, ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... Judge Fornander's elaborate work on "The Polynesian Race" he has given some old Hawaiian legends which closely resemble the Old Testament history. How shall we account for ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... of leaves had been displaced during the night, but went on straight to Medlicot's Mill. He rode the nine miles in an hour, and at once entered the building in which the canes were crushed. The first man he met was Nokes, who acted as overseer, having a gang of Polynesian laborers under him—sleek, swarthy fellows from the South Sea Islands, with linen trowsers on and nothing else—who crept silently among the vats and machinery, shifting the sugar ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... of night." The Polynesian fear of ghosts and of the dark has been already referred to. Their life is beleaguered ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... institution" of the East. Coffee has become colonized in France and America; the Pipe is a cosmopolite, and his blue, joyous breath congeals under the Arctic Circle, or melts languidly into the soft airs of the Polynesian Isles; but the Bath, that sensuous elysium which cradled the dreams of Plato, and the visions of Zoroaster, and the solemn meditations of Mahomet, is only to be found under an Oriental sky. The naked natives of the Torrid Zone are amphibious; they do not bathe, they ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... brown cassock, and looked like the blue-eyed man who had been refused passage to my destination. Probably, that American in the toga and sandals, exiled from the island he loved so well, had a message for the Tahitians or others of the Polynesian tribes of the South Seas; Essenism, maybe, or something to do with virginal beards and long hair, or sandals and the simple life. I wished he ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the bronzed glowing wood-carvings of Africans, the dark sunsets of Ceylon, the pagodas in which the Chinaman sits and sings of his felicity, his family, his garden. The lyric blue of Chinese art, the tropical forests with their horrid heat and dense growths and cruel animal life, the Polynesian seas of azure tulle, the spice-laden breezes, chant here. The monotony, the melancholy, the bitterness of the East, things that had hitherto sounded only from the darkly shining zither of the Arabs, or from the deathly gongs and tam-tams of the Mongolians, speak through Western instruments. It is ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... him. "Why not, Lewes; why not?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "Think of the gap which separates your intellectual powers from those of a Polynesian savage. Why, after all, should it be impossible that this child's powers should equally transcend our own? A freak, if you will, an abnormality, a curious effect of nature's, like the giant ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... instruction freely placed at his disposal by those connected with the museum, especially by Dr. Brigham, the former director, whose long and busy life has been devoted almost entirely to a study of the Polynesian groups; by Professor Gregory, the present director, who with tireless energy is the impelling force behind various lines of scientific research; by Mr. Stokes, curator of the ethnological department, who for more than a score of years has been surveying, photographing, and collecting in every ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... tattooing should prevail so extensively among some of the primitive tribes as it does, for instance, in the Polynesian islands and some parts of Japan, and we may say as a survival of a superstitious practice of paganism among sailors and others, is a psychological problem difficult to solve. Whether it be owing to perversion of the sexual ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... of Marriage, pp. 120, 201. The usus was similar to the Polynesian marriage, and was the consecration of the free union after a year of cohabitation. By it the wife passed as completely under the manum mariti as if she had ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... This is a traditional Polynesian economy in which more than 90% of the land is communally owned. Economic activity is strongly linked to the US, with which American Samoa conducts the great bulk of its foreign trade. Tuna fishing and tuna processing plants are the backbone of the private ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of the Polynesian dialects sufficient to make himself in some degree understood by the natives of the new island. Under the guidance of the chief he had made a first journey of exploration, and had seen for himself that the place was ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... and favouring winds gradually wore off the panic occasioned by the supernatural appearance, and if not forgotten, it was referred to either in jest or with indifference. They now had run through the Straits of Malacca, and entered the Polynesian Archipelago. Philip's orders were to refresh and call for instructions at the small island of Boton, then in possession of the Dutch. They arrived there in safety, and after remaining two days, again sailed ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... it as highly probable that much of the geometric character exhibited in Polynesian decoration is due to textile dominance. That these peoples are in the habit of employing textile designs in non-textile arts is shown in articles of costume, such as the tapa cloths, made from the bark of the mulberry tree, which are painted or stamped in elaborate ...
— A Study Of The Textile Art In Its Relation To The Development Of Form And Ornament • William H. Holmes
... bound—remember that—patiently and lovingly to relight it for them; to give freely to all their fellow-men of that which God has given to them and to their ancestors; and let God, not man, be judge of how much the Red Indian or the Polynesian, the Caffre or the Chinese, is capable of receiving ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Society Archipelago, Ellis (Consult, on this and other points, the "Polynesian Researches," by the Rev. W. Ellis, an admirable work, full of curious information.) states, that the reefs generally lie at the distance of from one to one and a half miles, and, occasionally, even at more than three miles, from the shore. The central ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... it that the Maories came in the first instance, some thirteen hundred years ago, from the Sandwich Islands. There is reason for believing this to be correct, when one reflects that the beautiful Polynesian race peopled all the archipelago sprinkled throughout ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... in his 'Polynesian Researches,' states that 'these stones are finely polished, highly valued, and carefully preserved, being always oiled or wrapped up in native cloth after having been used. The people are, if possible, more fond of this game than ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... the shifting fate of races. Islands show certain fundamental points of agreement which can be distinguished in the economic, ethnic and historical development of England, Japan, Melanesian Fiji, Polynesian New Zealand, and pre-historic Crete. The great belt of deserts and steppes extending across the Old World gives us a vast territory of rare historical uniformity. From time immemorial they have borne and bred tribes of wandering herdsmen; they have sent ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... that in some of the dialects of modern Sanskrit, in Bengali for instance,[4] the plural is formed, as it is in Chinese, Mongolian, Turkish, Finnish, Burmese, and Siamese, also in the Dravidian and Malayo-Polynesian dialects, by adding a word expressive of plurality, and then appending again the terminations of the singular. We have learnt from French how a future, je parlerai, can be formed by an auxiliary verb: "Ito ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... widow, and a victim slain in war. Notwithstanding the assertion of the natives, I am disposed to think that "Ivi", or Eve, is the only aboriginal part of the story, as far as it respects the mother of the human race. (W. Ellis, "Polynesian Researches", Second Edition (London, 1832), I. 110 sq. "Ivi" or "iwi" is the regular word for "bone" in the various Polynesian languages. See E. Tregear, "The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary" ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... women have always been notorious for their immodesty; and notwithstanding the past labours of English missionaries, the island continues to be the Polynesian Paphos. The moral standard of the population has not been raised since they came under the shadow of a ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... (closely related to Hawaiian and other Polynesian languages), English 2.9%, Tongan 2.4%, other Pacific islander 2.1%, other 2% note: most people ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... both earlier and later, have existed another way of reaching western America from south-eastern Asia through Pacific archipelagoes and islets now sunk below the sea. In any case it seems quite probable that men of Mongolian or Polynesian type reached America on its western coasts long before the European came from the north-east and east, and that they were helped on this long journey by touching at islands since submerged by earthquake shocks or ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... called Jupiter by accident, than the Polynesian Maui, the Samoyede Num, or the Chinese Tien.(42) If we can discover the original meaning of these names, we have reached the first ground of their later growth. I do not say that, if we can explain the first purpose ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... expressions of moral corruption" (Williams, 184). These gods make war, and kill and eat each other just as mortals do. The Polynesians believed, too, that "the spirits of the dead are eaten by the gods or demons" (Ellis, P.R., I., 275). It might be said that since a Polynesian sees no crime in adultery, revenge, murder, or cannibalism, his attributing such qualities to his gods cannot, from his point of view, be considered blasphemous. Quite true; but my point is that men who have made ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... J. Roberts, Little Britain, E.C.), we proceed to appropriate such matters of curiosity as may interest minds neither parochial nor doggedly antiquarian. Parish registers among the civilised peoples of antiquity do not greatly concern us. It seems certain that many Polynesian races have managed to record (in verse, or by some rude marks) the genealogies of their chiefs through many hundreds of years. These oral registers are accepted as fairly truthful by some students, yet ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... these, prevail down to now, on the Mariana, the Philippine and the Polynesian islands; according to Waitz, also among several African tribes. Another custom, prevalent till late on the Balearic islands, and indicative of the right of all men to a woman, was that, on the wedding night, the male kin had access to the bride in order of seniority. The bridegroom came last; ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Edwards bore north-west to investigate the second clue, and in the Union Group he made his first important discovery of new land—Nukunono, inhabited by a branch of the Micronesian race, crossed with Polynesian blood. From thence he ran southward to Samoa, where he came upon traces of the massacre of La Perouse's second in command, M. de Langle, in the shape of accoutrements cut from the uniforms of the French officers. Consistent with his usual concentration upon the object ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... The natives here are much darker than are those at Kerepunu; most of them suffer from a very offensive-looking skin disease, which causes the skin to peel off in scales. In their conversation with one another I recognized several Polynesian words. The water is obtained by digging in the ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... how an analogous change might come about in the existing world. There is, at present, a great difference between the fauna of the Polynesian Islands and that of the west coast of America. The animals which are leaving their spoils in the deposits now forming in these localities are widely different. Hence, if a gradual shifting of the deep sea, which at present bars migration between the easternmost of these islands and America, ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... through my sleep "Come up and be alive," I'd answer—No, unless you'll keep The glass at sixty-five. I might be willing if allowed To wear old Adam's rig, And mix amongst the city crowd Like Polynesian "nig". ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... are often upset in rough weather; but as the South Sea islanders are expert swimmers, they generally manage to right their canoes and scramble into them again. Their only fear on such occasions is being attacked by sharks. Ellis, in his interesting book, "Polynesian Researches," relates an instance of this kind of attack which was made upon a number of chiefs and people—about thirty-two—who were passing from one island to another in a large double canoe:—"They were overtaken by a tempest, the violence of which tore their canoes from the horizontal spars ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... — In Polynesian mythology, the great hero who attempted to overcome Death, which could only be done by passing through Hine-nui-te-po (Great Woman of Night). This Maui attempted to do while she slept. Awakened, however, by the cry of a black fantail, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... moments were filled in at a sewing-machine making pretty clothes. By this time she had become a famous cook, and often prepared dinners fit to set before a king. She little thought then that some day she would break bread with real kings, even though they were but Polynesian monarchs. ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... know them. The lagoons around the Polynesian islands—the still waters within the barrier-reefs, you understand—are lined with most gorgeous and wonderful displays of this kind. One seems to be sailing over a mine of gems—only not in the rough, but already cut and set as no workman ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Eleven months out from Whitby, and, if my memory fails me not, less than a score of full barrels in our hold! So the Captain made up his mind to try south, and working our way across the Equator, we struck in amongst the Polynesian groups, raising the Southern Cross higher and higher, till we were somewhere about latitude 30 deg., ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... enough of the words were familiar to enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They were Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancient form, but in some indefinable way—archaic. Later I was to know that the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... bulging from out circular trenches round their sockets, surveyed Hogarth, weighing, divining him, while his bottom lip, massive as the mouth of Polynesian ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... the Ti plant (Diacaena terminalis) are cultivated in the Polynesian islands. There is, however, but one which is considered farinaceous and edible. In Java the root is considered ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... Chinese 3%, Muong, Thai, Meo, Khmer, Man, Cham Religions: Buddhist, Taoist, Roman Catholic, indigenous beliefs, Islamic, Protestant Languages: Vietnamese (official), French, Chinese, English, Khmer, tribal languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian) Literacy: age 15 and over can read and write (1990) total population: 88% male: 92% female: 84% Labor force: 32.7 million by occupation: agricultural 65%, industrial and service ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the aborigines by the modern Malays—to whom reference will be made later on—is Dyak, and they are divided into numerous tribes, speaking very different dialects of the Malayo-Polynesian stock, and known by distinctive names, the origin of which is generally obscure, at least in British North Borneo, where these names are not, as a rule, derived from those of the rivers on which ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... 1856. In the matter of explanation of the origin and meaning of New Zealand terms, Dr. Hocken of Dunedin, Mr. F. R. Chapman of the same city, and Mr. Edward Tregear of Wellington, author of the Maori Polynesian Dictionary, and Secretary of the Polynesian Society, have rendered valuable and material assistance. Dr. Holden of Bellerive, near Hobart, was perhaps my most valued correspondent. After I had failed in one or two quarters to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... less height of the tertiary bed in this middle part, compared with the northern and southern districts, we might well suspect that it had subsided subsequently to the general elevation by which the whole area has been upraised. Several authors (Ellis, in his "Polynesian Researches," was the first to call attention to these remains (volume i., page 38), and the tradition of the natives concerning them. See also Williams, "Nar. of Missionary Enterprise," page 21; also Tyerman and G. ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly have held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given by Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot skulls. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... more important is language; and if you will think over the actual conditions when one people either visit or settle among another, this greater importance will be obvious. Let us imagine a party of Melanesians visiting a Polynesian island, staying there for a few weeks, and then returning home (and here I am not taking a fictitious occurrence, but one which really happens). We can readily understand that the visitors may take with them their betel-mixture, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... romance maker and discover him taking down, by the lake side of Rotorua, that of Hine- Moa. He rescued it, a Hero and Leander legend, with a variation, from the Maori ages, and placed it, a pearl, among his other delvings from Polynesian mythology. The story captured him, with its naive charm, when first he heard it from the lips of a chief, and many ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... SMITH wants to know more about Polynesian Labour Traffic. The NOBLE BARON who has charge of Colonial affairs in Commons, whilst controverting all his statements, says "everyone must admit that the Hon. Member has spoken from his heart." "Which," NOVAR ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various |
