Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol 4, No. 6. June 18, 1941

[Introduction]

B2 was fairly well filled by enthusiasts who braved a drenching downpour last Tuesday to hear Dr. Ernest Beaglehole give the second of the series of lectures on Pacific problems, "The Peoples of the Pacific."

Dr. Beaglehole made an orthodox beginning by referring to the enormity of his subject, which embraced at least 102 different peoples numbering 750 million representatives if ah the main racial classifications.

At this stage Dr. Beaglehole laid down and elaborated upon three conclusions that anthropologists have come to on the subject of race. These are that there is no such thing [unclear: s] a pure race, that no racial type is stable, and that no race is either superior to or more primitive than another.

The first of these facts was brought clearly home to those who sought to establish the purity of the Nordic race, which even in its home in Sweden is in a minority, and they were reduced to postulating Nordic souls in non-Nordic bodies and non-Nordic souls in Nordic bodies.

The lack of stability in racial types when there is intermixture with a change of environment and diet can be seen in the Pacific even in one or two generations, for example in Hawaii, where the Japanese already show marked differences in height, head-shape, weight, etc., as compared with their fellows in Japan.

Finally, the idea of a superior race is supported neither by biology nor by history nor by intelligence tests. It cannot be said that any one race has contributed more to culture and civilization than another. Race, language and culture are three independent variables which may connect with one another at different times for different reasons, but never permanently. In the case of intelligence tests, allowance must of course be made for differences in environment, and Dr. Beaglehole gave some amusing illustrations of how unsuitable tests designed for one people might be if applied to another.