Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/174

162 with having introduced the custom there. In the early years of last century they were as inveterate cannibals as either Maori or Rarotongan. It is very clear, from the Rarotonga histories, that the connection between the Marquesans and the Maori-Rarotongans is very close, and has been continued from early days down to the thirteenth century. The connection was that of blood relations, and also frequently as bitter enemies—conditions which do not conflict in Polynesia.

With regard to cannibalism amongst the Maoris, there are several clear allusions in their traditions to one of their female ancestors named Whaitiri, the wife of Kai-tangata, having been the first cannibal. Maori and Hawaiian genealogies are concordant as to the position these people occupy in their histories,

which is as noted in the margin. It has already been shown that the period of Tawhaki as deduced from both Maori and Rarotongan sources, is 46 and 48 generations ago, or in other words, about the year A.D. 700. This date is about from 200 to 250 years after the first occupation of the Fiji group by the Polynesians, and it therefore seems a fair inference that the tradition as to Whaitiri being the first cannibal, is true, and that it was in Fiji that she and her husband lived. It is probable that she was a Melanesian, and that she induced her husband to become a cannibal and thus receive the distinguishing name of Kai-tangata, or man-eater.

It is a somewhat remarkable thing that, in the numerous Polynesian traditions with which we are now acquainted, so few positive statements can be found in reference to the black Melanesian race, with which the Polynesians must so