"Polynesians" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the day, as I sat writing up my journal, the cabin was filled from end to end with Marquesans: three brown-skinned generations, squatted cross-legged upon the floor, and regarding me in silence with embarrassing eyes. The eyes of all Polynesians are large, luminous, and melting; they are like the eyes of animals and some Italians. A kind of despair came over me, to sit there helpless under all these staring orbs, and be thus blocked in a corner of my cabin by this ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... see. We all think life is especially the sort of life we are not living ourselves. The hard-worked University professor thinks that "Life" is to be found in a French cafe; the polished London journalist looks for "Life" among the naked Polynesians. The cult of savagery, and even of simplicity, in every form, simply spells complex civilization and diminished ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... of moral necessity. The object of these devoted men was to redeem the natives from no mere speculative unbelief, but from superstitions the most sanguinary and licentious. Even those who were careless as to the great truths which the Polynesians had to learn, must feel, upon reflection, that merely to unteach the brutal and defiling lesson of ages of darkness was to confer a priceless blessing. Every prejudice should surely be in favour of the men who have by general confession accomplished the first and apparently most laborious part of ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... remarkable coincidence in many points, yet the differences in coloring, detail, and presentation are too great to suppose the legend borrowed by one from either of the others. It probably descended to the Chaldeans, Polynesians, and Hebrews alike, from a source or people anterior to themselves, of whom history ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... what things might be in store for her, would she not, herself, prefer death, an honorable death, at the friendly hands of a tenderhearted fellow-countryman, to the unspeakable insults of these man-eating Polynesians? If only he had the courage to release her by one blow, as she lay there, from the coming ill! But he hadn't; he hadn't. Even on board the Australasian he had been vaguely aware that he was getting very fond of that pretty little Miss Ellis. And now that he sat there, after that desperate ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... Quatrefages is strongly of the opinion that the negro is of Indian origin, and reached Africa through migration. He bases his opinion on the negroid characters of existing tribes in India, Persia, and elsewhere in Asia, and on the similar characters of the aboriginal Polynesians. As regards the Pygmies, they probably spread over the whole of this section of the earth at a period of remote antiquity, and very long ago developed the racial differences which appear to exist between separate tribes. Distinctions of this kind can be ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... Polynesians can't be really called savages; they are a very decent lot I've knocked about amongst them a good while, and a kanaka is as white as a white man—which is not saying much, but it's something. Most of the islands are civilised now. Of course there are ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... paralysed knees and drank squareface gin all day and most of the night, out of grief, sheer grief. She, my princess, was the only issue, her brother having been lost in their double canoe in a hurricane while coming up from a voyage to Samoa. And among the Polynesians the royal women have equal right with the men to rule. In fact, they trace their genealogies always by the ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... immense thing about him was the power with which he ruled. Oolong Atoll was one hundred and forty miles in circumference. One steered by compass course in its lagoon. It was populated by five thousand Polynesians, all strapping men and women, many of them standing six feet in height and weighing a couple of hundred pounds. Oolong was two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land. Twice a year a little schooner called to collect copra. ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the Samoans so often moving about in their canoes, named the group "The Navigators." A stranger in the distance, judging from the name, may suppose that the Samoans are noted among the Polynesians as enterprising navigators. This is not the case. They are quite a domestic people, and rarely venture out of sight of land. The group, however, is extensive, and gives them some scope for travel. It numbers ten inhabited islands, and stretches ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... itself with labour from the South Sea Islands, and the men employed are called Polynesians, or canakers, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris |
