Islands of the south by Austin Coates

Islands of the south Reviews

• 
  Bob Newman

  "Could have, but didn't"
  
  There's a whole genre out there of "weird history". (I'll be polite and not insist that it's "crackpot history".) Of course, von Danikin comes to mind, then there's Gavin Menzies' two books on the Chinese fleet that discovered America and arrived in Italy, sparking off the Renaissance. You have Thor Heyerdahl trying to show that the Pacific islands were colonized from South America, various old volumes on Atlantis and Mu, and I recall an Indian author who wrote "The Taj Mahal is a Hindu Temple". I'm afraid that ISLANDS OF THE SOUTH fits all too well into this category which covers history that "could have happened" but actually didn't.
  
  To write history, you should be conversant with whatever known facts exist. One way that you get those facts is to study the works of others. You may peruse documents, records, etc. of older times too. You can then interpret the facts whatever way you like. The way NOT to write history is to think, "well, these things look similar-----I reckon they must be related." You should not argue for `superior races', you should not argue for `mysterious visitors who pass on superior knowledge' and above all you should not think that some branches of the human race invent, while others only copy. If you do, you will inevitably fall into the diffusionist school, a school discredited almost 100 years ago. Diffusionists used to argue that if, for example, pyramids existed in Egypt and in Central America, then some Egyptians must have sailed west and handed over their expertise. If Egyptians had boomerangs and Australian Aborigines also had them, well then......you see what I mean. The second bunch in each case were just not capable of coming up with stuff on their own ! Coates still operated on this wavelength when he wrote this book in the 1970s. I imagined him an interesting and thoughtful person who had a) very little acquaintance with academia and its procedures and b) a vast practical experience of living and working in Asia and the Pacific as a military and colonial officer.
  
  In short, his book posits that due to overpopulation of the Pacific atolls, like those in Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), Austronesians (island people) sailed west to Indonesia, the Philippines, the Malay peninsula and even Sri Lanka, bringing their culture with them. All this happened far, far back, before 3000 BC. There is no memory, he says. And for sure, there are no records. How does he wind up with this theory then ? We read of the island Asian people's "inability to handle money", their "inferior cooking", the fact that "cereal crops require mana, so men grow only them; no vegetables being raised to speak of", people in Java "still think like those on atolls". And a fair bit more. Atoll culture pre-figured island SE Asian culture, he says. I won't take your time in popping each of these balloons, but they left me incredulous. How you can develop this overarching theory with so little support is beyond me. If it intrigues you, I can recommend the book, but though he includes known historical facts about SE Asia in more modern times and is certainly familiar with Pacific, Chinese, and Southeast Asian cultures, they are never connected, in any provable way, to his theory. I mean, sure, Pacific islanders could have colonized the coasts of Indonesia etc., but as far as we know, they didn't.