The great stream of emigration must have left all Melanesia to the south, and have separated into three branches. One would arrive at the Samoa Islands, another at the Tonga Islands, and a third at the Fiji Islands. The two first archipelagos were evidently uninhabited, the latter already possessed by a black population. An alliance was at first made, however, between the aborigines and the emigrants, but before long the war of races broke out, the Malays were expelled, probably leaving behind them some of their women. In this manner the mixed character of the Fijian population was produced, with which all travellers have been struck. The ejected Malays gained the Tonga Islands. Finding them occupied by fellow-countrymen they attacked and defeated them. Instead of massacring or enslaving them they invented serfdom, an institution which has only been met with in this archipelago.
Whilst the Malay colonies founded in the Fiji and Tonga Islands were dispersed and desolated by a fratricidal war, those in the Samoan archipelago prospered. The population became denser: the spirit of adventure was not as yet extinguished, fresh emigrations took to the sea, advancing in the direction which had led to the first discoveries. At this period the island of Savaï played an important part, according to the universal testimony of Polynesian traditions. Its name appears in almost all the archipelagos, scarcely modified by local dialects, in the Sandwich Islands and in New Zealand, in the Marquesas Islands as well as in Tahiti, and as far as the Manaïa Islands. Finally, Tupaïa, in drawing the curious map, which has been preserved by Forster, designates Savaï as the mother of all the others, and represents it as much larger than Tahiti. This is an error, but this very error proves beyond a doubt the importance of this locality from our present point of view.
With the exception of a single emigration, which passed directly from Tonga to the Marquesas Islands, it is from the Samoan archipelago, and from Savaï in particular, that all the great expeditions appear to have started, which formed secondary centres elsewhere. Tahiti and the Manaïa Islands are the two principal. The former peopled the north of the Pomotous and part of the Marquesas, which, in turn, sent out colonists to the Sandwich Islands, where, however, they had been preceded by the Tahitians. The latter, in which there were both Tahitians and Samoans, pushed their colonies as far as Rapa, to the Gambier Islands, to the south-east extremity of Polynesia and to New Zealand in the south-west.
V. We have only isolated and very incomplete accounts of the greater number of these migrations. Though sufficient to remove all doubt as to the fact, they tell us nothing of the circumstances which accompanied or followed them. It is quite otherwise when we come to consider New Zealand. Thanks to the songs collected by Sir George Grey, we possess the detailed history of this colonisation. This exception is doubly fortunate as giving us information upon a number of important points, and precisely in reference to those islands which, from being situated at a great distance from Polynesia, properly so called, favour autochthonic hypotheses more than all the rest of the area. It seems to me, therefore, to be advisable to enter into a few details upon the subject.
It is the inhabitants of Rarotonga, one of the principal islands of Manaïa, who had the honour of discovering and colonising New Zealand. An emigration from Tonga may, however, at some unknown period have possibly joined them.
The Christopher Columbus of this little world was a certain Ngahué, who was compelled to fly from his country to escape the persecutions of a queen, who wished to rob him of a jasper stone. It was doubtless chance which led him to New Zealand. He here discovered several pieces of jasper, which probably restored him to the favour of the female chief, for we do not hear that he was molested on his return to Rarotonga.
During the absence of Ngahué a general war had broken out in his island. The vanquished party followed the advice of the traveller, who persuaded them to go and occupy the recently discovered land with him. Several chiefs joined together and constructed six canoes, the names of which are still preserved. The song translated by Sir George Grey informs us that one of them, the Arawa, was made of a tree which had been felled in Rarotonga, situated on the other side of Hawaïki. This was one of those secondary Savaïs which I have mentioned above, and the place from which the emigrants started. “Once,” says one of those songs already quoted, “our ancestors separated; some were left at Hawaïki, and others came here in canoes.”
The same song describes the accidents of the voyage, the storms which the navigators met with, the care bestowed upon the first culture of the soil, the exploring expeditions undertaken in the new country, and the disagreements which occurred between the different crews. They show that the connection with the mother country continued to exist for some time, so much so indeed that a young woman accomplished the voyage with only a few companions, and warlike expeditions started sometimes from Hawaïki and sometimes from the colony to avenge some of those outrages which were considered by these races as demanding the life of the offender.
There is nothing astonishing in these passages. The Polynesians knew perfectly well how to direct their course at sea by the stars, and the route from one point to another once observed was inscribed, if we may use the expression, in a song which would never be forgotten. They had a very correct general idea of the whole of their maritime world. The map drawn by Tupaïa, which I have reproduced in my book, is equal to those of our savants of the Middle Ages, while it embraces a considerable area. Tupaïa had seen for himself several of the islands which he represents. According to the calculations of Cook, he must have gone westward to a distance of 1,600 miles. But it was from the sacred songs of his country that he acquired his knowledge of the rest of Polynesia, and was able to sketch it with tolerable accuracy.
As to the canoes in question, they were the same as the pirogues, which are mentioned by all travellers with admiration, and are declared by Cook to be very suitable for long voyages. This is a fact which is often established by the very precise details contained in some of the songs translated by Sir George Grey. We see, for example, one of the emigrant chiefs, Ngatoro-i-Rangi, “mount upon the roof of the hut constructed upon the platform which joined the two canoes.” We have only to add that the Arawa and other similar vessels generally carried 140 warriors, and it will at once appear how devoid of foundation are the assertions of those writers who declare these voyages to have been impossible for want of sufficient means of transport.