Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/170

158 also flourished Rătă-vare—according to Rarotongan history the guardian of the forest in which the canoe was built, but in Maori story the actual builder and navigator of it. Atonga's son was Te-Ara-tanga-nuku, the first navigator to use this wonderful canoe, and he flourished in Upōlu in the year 950. In Atonga's time lived Tupua-ki-Amoa, who was possibly one of the early members of the Tupua family of Samoa, whose descendant is Mataafa, now living.

It is clear that from about this epoch Fiji ceased to play the important part it had done since the times of Tutarangi (A.D. 450), or for 500 years, and that the people had spread out from there to most parts of the Pacific. Since the times of Ui-te-rangiora in 650, if we may judge from the silence of the Native History as to any notable voyages, or the mention of any lands other than those in the Western Pacific, it would appear that there had been a partial cessation of expeditions undertaken for the purpose of colonization, though, no doubt, communication was kept up with Eastern Polynesia. It is also clear that just about the times of Te Ara-tanga-nuku, or in 950, a fresh impulse was given to navigation, and from this time forward for many years these Rarotonga-Maoris were frequently passing from east to west, and to the south, but communication does not appear to have been re-opened yet with Hawaii for nearly two hundred years from the period of Te Ara-tanga-nuku.

We can only surmise the cause of this apparent increase of nautical adventure at this time, for the Native History is silent about it. I would suggest that it was due to the increase of the Melanesian half-caste element in Fiji, which must have been growing for some time past, and that