While seeking more information about the possible early peopling of Polynesia by Melanesian people (which could have also continued their journey across the Pacific Ocean and reached America thousands of years ago, and admixed there with the Amerindians), I found some intersting information regarding the Marquesas Islands people and a link with Melanesia.
Roslyn Poignant, in her book Oceanic mythology : the myths of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia, published in 1967, mentions on page 13 a similarity between Marquesans and Melanesians: "The Marquesans headband ornament of carved turtleshell overlaying pearlshell provides an important clue to the origin of the Marquesans. It bears a close resemblance to an ornament called a kapkap, found in parts of Melanesia." These Marquesan jewels are known as "uhikana". Adding that:
"The Society Islands were reached by about 200 B.C., but so were the most easterly Marquesas. Excavation in the latter islands showed that the first comers must have arrived direct from western Polynesia at a time when the culture of the area was hardly differentiated from that of Melanesia, for amongst the objects found was a carved pearlshell headdress ornament which in Melanesia is called a kapkap. This style of ornament continued to be worn by the Marquesans until last century. It has been found nowhere else in Polynesia, and the nearest place it reappears is Melanesian Santa Cruz, near the New Hebrides."
Santa Cruz is 6,000 km (3.740 mi.) from the Marshalls. This is a long journey.
The kapkaps of the Melanesians are made in the same manner as those of the Marquesas and it is "worn around the neck or on the forehead... a circular white clamshell disc overlaid with carved dark-brown turtle-shell fretwork". (Source; see also this source).
They were one of the most popular forms of jewelry among Melanesian and all of them were made the same way, by overlaying giant clam shell disks with delicate artwork carved in turtle shell. They were very common along the coast of New Guinea all the way to the Santa Cruz Islands. (Source).
Below are two kapkaps from New Ireland.
Below is a uhikana from the Marquesas, notice how similar the Melanesian and "Polynesian" (Marquesan) objects are!
The headdress pictured above (known as uhikana) were part of the ceremonial clothing used by the tribal chiefs of the Southern Marquesas. In the image we can see a fiber headband with a central disk of pearl shell overlaid with turtle shell, forming a tiki star.
Melanesians
The people of Melanesia used disks on their heads, if inland, they made them from other materials. Below are some images depicting disks and headbands from this region.
The image below shows a Solomon Island chief with a large kapkap on his head.
Marquesan People
The chief from the image below was portrayed during Captain James Cook's Second Voyage (1772-1775) at the island of Tahu Ata (which, when discovered in 1595 by Álvaro de Mendaña was named Santa Cristina) in the Marquesas.
Cook's account records the chief's name as Honoo (now written Honu), and their encounter took place in April 1774.
The image below, taken in 1895 in the Marquesas Islands is captioned: "Postmarked September 17, 1908. 8.8 x 13.8 cm. The figure with the white beard wearing a uhikana headband appears in other photographs by Homes, circa 1895 (Marquesan Chief of Atuona). He is adorned with a mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell uhikana headband, as well as a titi ouoho covering his shoulders and a toke ouoho skirt also made of human hair. The second figure wears a feathered headdress. The seated figure in profile and the one on the right have tattoos."
Below are some "Marquesan Chiefs" in an engraving published in 1871. Note the uhikana on the man on the right captioned "Marquesan Chief (see page 1049)". On that page it adds more context:
"When they wish to be considered as wearing full dress, the better class of men wear a most elaborate cap, made of fibre, feathers, and shells. First, a broad fillet is plaited from cocoa-nut fibre, so as to pass round the forehead, after the manner of a cap without d crown. On the centre of this fillet is fixed a large plate of mother-o'-pearl, decorated with carving. In the middle of this plate is fixed a smaller but similarly shaded plate of tortoise-shell, and in the middle of that a still smaller disc of pearl shell. Some headdresses have three of these ornaments, as is the case with that which is figured in the Marquesan chief on the 1046th page.
In the fillet are also fastened a number of feathers, either from the tail of the cock or from that of the tropic bird, so that when the fillet is bound on the forehead the feathers will stand upright. The feathers of the tropic bird are greatly prized by the natives, who use them for various ornaments, and display great ingenuity in procuring them. Instead of killing the birds, and so stopping the supply of feathers, they steal upon them when they are asleep, and dexterously twitch out the two long tail-feathers. In process of time the feathers grow again, and so the supply is kept up. I mention the custom because it is contrary to the recklessness respecting the future which is usually found among savages."
So there is a unique link between the Marquesans, of all the different Polynesian people, on hundreds of islands spread across the Pacific, that wear a motherpearl inlaid with turtle shell jewel that is almost identical to the one used by Melanesian people in Papua New Guinea, and the Salomons. This suggests that the Melanesians reached the Marquesas Islands before the later wave that replaced them in the islands lying between the Eastern Pacific and Melanesia. Since Melanesians have been around for over 40,000 years. So they had plenty of time to move east, across the Pacific.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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