Oceanic languages, aboriginal languages spoken in the region known as Oceania. If Oceania is restricted to the Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian islands, the indigenous tongues spoken on...

Australasia, islands of the South Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and adjacent islands. The term is sometimes used to include all of Oceania.

Micronesia, one of the three main divisions of Oceania, in W Pacific Ocean, north of the equator. Micronesia includes the Caroline Islands, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands (see Northern Mari...

Museum of Primitive Art, New York City, a privately supported institution, established in 1957. It was devoted entirely to the arts of the indigenous cultures of Africa, Oceania, and the Ameri...

Melanesia, one of the three main divisions of Oceania, in the SW Pacific Ocean, NE of Australia and S of the equator. Melanesia includes the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Tuvalu, th...

Polynesia [Gr.,=many islands], one of the three main divisions of Oceania, in the central and S Pacific Ocean. The larger islands are volcanic; the smaller ones are generally coral formations....

South Seas, name given by early explorers to the whole of the Pacific Ocean. In recent times the name has been used to mean only the central Pacific, the S Pacific, and the SW Pacific. More pa...

Schmidt, Wilhelm, 1868–1954, German linguist and anthropologist, a Roman Catholic priest. Educated at the universities of Berlin and Vienna, he entered the Society of the Divine Word in 1890. ...

Dumont d'Urville, Jules Sébastien César, 1790–1842, French navigator. While on duty (1819–20) in the E Mediterranean, he saw and recognized the importance of the newly discovered Venus of Milo...

Suttee [Skt. sati=faithful wife], former Indian funeral practice in which the widow immolated herself on her husband's funeral pyre. The practice of killing a favorite wife on her husband's gr...