Far superior to the Papuan race is the Micronesian population, which, as regards its racial traits, is intermediate between the Melanesians and the Polynesians. Migration and racial fusion here become increasingly important cultural factors. In their beginnings, these factors already manifest themselves in the wanderings of the Papuan and Negrito tribes. One of the most striking discoveries of modern ethnology is the finding of distinct traces of Papuan-Negritic culture in regions, such as the west coast of Africa, which are very remote from the original home of the culture in question. The Papuan races likewise wandered far across the Indian Ocean. Obviously there were Papuan migrations, probably in repeated trains, from New Guinea across the Torres Strait to Northern Australia, where they seem to have influenced social institutions and customs as well as external culture. Above the level of the Negrito and Papuan peoples, who, in their numerous fusions, themselves form several strata, we finally have the Malayo-Polynesian population. The Malayo-Polynesians are widely spread over the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the earth. Because of their significance for the particular stage of totemism now under discussion, we have called the entire cultural period by their name. The fragments of the Negrito and Papuan races, which are scattered here and there over limited sections of the broad territory covered by the wanderings of these tribes, apparently represent remnants of the original inhabitants. As the result of long isolation, certain groups of these peoples have remained on a very primitive plane, as have, for example, the above-described inland tribes of Malacca, or the peoples of Ceylon and of other islands of the Indian archipelago. Others have mingled with the Malays, who have come in from the mainland of India, and with them have formed the numerous levels and divisions of the Malayo-Polynesian race. This accounts for the fact that this Oceanic group of peoples includes a great many forms of culture, which are not, however, susceptible of any sharp demarcation. The culture of the Negritos and the Papuans, on the one hand, is as primitive as is that of the Australians--indeed, isolated fragments of perished races were even more primitive than are the Australians; on the other hand, however, some of the Malayo-Polynesian peoples are already decidedly in advance of any other people whose culture falls within the totemic age.