Contours of Culture in Indonesia

Extract

The islands of Indonesia are of exceeding interest to the ethnologist for a variety of reasons. This is an ancient area of human habitation, where the history of man runs back to its very beginnings. Java Man stands at the head of Indonesian genealogy, and he lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. Since then, countless waves of migrants have moved into the islands. The ancestors of the primitive Tasmaniane and Australians, the Oceanic Negroes of Melanesia, and the Polynesians of the Pacific all trod the soil of the Indies in long past ages. The texture of history is deep here, deeper than almost anywhere else on earth.