Online Encyclopedia

MELANESIA

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 90 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MELANESIA  , one of the three

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great divisions of the oceanic islands in the central and western Pacific . It embraces the Bismarck
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Archipelago, N.E. of New
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Guinea, the Louisiade, Solomon,
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Santa Cruz, New Hebrides and
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Loyalty islands, New
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Caledonia, Fiji and intervening small groups . The name (Gr . Ohm, black, and *tor, island) is derived from the black colour of the prevailing native
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race, the Papuan and its allied tribes . Many of these differ widely from the parent race, but all the Melanesian peoples have certain
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common characteristics which distinguish them sharply from the inhabitants of Poly., nesia and Micronesia . Their
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civilization is
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lower . The Melanesians are mostly "
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negroid," nearly black, with crisp, curly hair elaborately dressed; their
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women hold a much lower position than among the Polynesians; their institutions, social, polit' 1 and religious, are simpler, their manners ruder; they have fe or, no traditions;
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cannibalism, in different degrees, is almost universal; but their
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artistic skill and taste, as with some of the lower
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African negroes, are remarkable, and they are amenable to discipline and
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fair treatment . Their
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languages, which exhibit considerable difference among themselves, have features which mark them off clearly from the Polynesian, notwithstanding certain. fundamental relations with the latter . See R . H . Codrington, The Melanesian Languages (Oxford, 1885) and The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891); the articles PAPUANS and PACIFIC OCEAN; also those on the several island-groups, &c .

End of Article: MELANESIA
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