Identifier: handbooktoethnog00brit (find matches)
Title: Handbook to the ethnographical collections
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: British Museum. Dept. of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography Joyce, Thomas Athol, 1878-1942 Dalton, O. M. (Ormonde Maddock), 1866-1945
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Publisher: (London) : Printed by order of the Trustees
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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f Avhich they are made is notmore difficult to carve than the wood of which the large figuresof the Maori were made. Some connection between the statuemakers and the present islanders may perhaps be inferred fromthe general re.semljlance Ijetween these great stone carvings andthe small carved wooden figures (fig, 147) which are certainly moremodern. It may also be noted that .-imid the carvings on the backof one of the statues, the paddle-shaped objects used in dancing arerepresented. The statues do not appear to have Ijeen wor.shipped,but to have l^een erected to commenioiate important men, A mostinteresting fact connected with Easter island was the di.scovery 170 OCEANIA of a number of wooden tablets on which lines of hieroglyphs werecarved. These tablets are now widely scattered, the BritishMuseum possessing a single example. It has been claimed thatthese characters are legible and translations of several tabletshave been published, but the results have not found generalacceptance.
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Fig. 149.—Native chart from the Marshall Islands. Micronesia Micronesia, derived from the Greek words milros small, andnesos island, is composed of several groups lying north ofMelanesia; the most important are the Gilbert or KingsmillIslands, the Carolines, the Marshall Islands, the Mariannes orLadrones and the Pelew Islands. Nearh all the islands are ofcoralline formation. As might be expected from their geographicalsituation, the islanders of Micronesia have been less isolated andmore exposed to foreign influences than the Polynesians. Physi- POLYNESIANS AND MICRONESIANS 171 cally they have Malayan, Polynesian, and Melanesian affinities.Ethnographically, they display the same blending of differentcharacteristics. Thus the institution of club-houses is universal,society is divided into classes much as in Polynesia ; the priesthoodis powerful, and the tahu is a great force in religious and sociallife. Commerce and trade early reached a high development, andsociety was based more di

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