Page 306 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

Austronesian (Oceania): Melanesia [Papua, Solomon Island, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuwatu, New
Caledonia], Polynesia [New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii], Micronesia [Pacific Region]. These
divisions have been challenged. Hopefully there will be many ethnographic studies and the
first reflection of oral tradition can contribute significantly to both schools of thoughts .
At least there are two findings. First, proto-Austronesian is divided into (1) Proto-
Western Austronesian and Proto-Oceania; Proto-Western Austronesian is divided further
into two, (i) Proto-Eastern Indonesia and (ii) Proto-Hesperonesian. Proto-Hesperonesian
is divided into two (a) Proto-Western Indonesia and (b) the proto-Northern Indonesia.
The former ones have turned into the languages of Malaysia, Sumatra, south Kalimantan,
Madagascar, and some languages in Vietnam. The latter includes Formosa and the
languages of the Philippines, Sulawesi, and Kalimantan.
Secondly, there are theories and findings with simpler structure of division which
states that the primary Proto-Austronesian is divided into 6 branches of language
families: (1) Atayalic or Formosa, (2) Hesperonesian, outside Ayalic, (3), (4) and (5) the
languages of Eastern Indonesian and Papua, and (6) Proto-Oceania. This work is done
by linguists. Our job is to see the collective memory network of Oceania’s people in the
dimension of anthropology, which has bridged the population with different languages
from generation to generation. For hundreds of years, travellers arriving in this region
tried to make specific descriptions of the behavior of the people in the region.
One possibility that cannot disputed is that in addition to the cultural transmission
in general because of resettlement of people from one area to another area, the
important dimensions in the frame ‘human culture’ have also moved and definitely
changed according to the context where people live and move. In particular, language
transmission, which takes into account the dynamics of cultural transmission in general,
determines the cultural context where the inhabitants of Melanesia live. In the framework
of anthropology, with reflection, a primary understanding of Oceania has been gained
from the insight of the races found in Melanesia, which will be discussed in the following
description.
The results of genetic studies in the 21st century were challenging when they revealed
that there is a strong link between the peoples of Taiwan, Aboriginal ancestral Melanesia,
Polynesia and Micronesia. There is a finding indicating the migration of early generations
when sailors or fishermen from mainland Asia ventured to Micronesia, and passed
through Melanesia toward East Asia and moved towards various parts of the Pacific as
far as America. The accounts from these trips can provide proof of the integrity of the

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