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Essay on Origins of Polynesian People
The population of Samoa is 178,631 (2002 estimate), giving the country an overall population density of 63 persons per sq km (163 per sq mi). The population is unevenly distributed, however, and about two-thirds of the people live on Upolu, primarily in oceanside villages of less than 500 people. Apia, with a population of 33,000 at the 1995 census, is the only urban area. More than 90 percent of the population are Samoans, a Polynesian people.( Kirch, P. and R. Green, 2001) Only about 7 percent of the population consists of other Pacific Islanders, Europeans, and Chinese. English and Samoan are the official languages, although Samoan is preferred. English is normally only used in business and government. The Samoas arguably represent the largest population of polynesian people and they take pride in a strong culture that has survived outside incursions amazingly well.
The Polynesians are not indigenous to Polynesia; ethnologists differ as to their origin, but the most accepted view is that they were established in the Malay Archipelago about the 2nd century bc, when they were driven eastward by Malayan invaders. By the 13th and 14th centuries ad they occupied the territory they now inhabit.According to native tradition, the Samoa Islands were the original home of the Polynesian race, from which colonists peopled the other Polynesian islands of the Pacific. Ethnologists, however, now believe that two separate waves of immigrants populated the islands, the first group probably originating in southeastern Asia.
The later migration displaced the original Samoans, who then began to colonize the more easterly islands of Polynesia. The first European to visit the islands in 1722 was Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutch navigator. In 1768 Louis Antoine de Bougainville, a French explorer, named the group the Navigators Islands.( Spriggs, M. and A. Anderson, 1993)During the 19th century Germany, Britain, and the United States established commercial posts on the islands......
