Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/202

190 on the Manu'a line, being possibly a nephew or other relative of Le Lolonga's, and that 'Ali'a (or Karika) was really one of the Maori-Rarotongans, and not a true Samoan. He was probably a member of one of the families who at that time occupied the coast lands of a considerable part of Samoa. The Rarotonga account of his doings in Samoa seems rather to point to this.

It has been shown on a former page that the period of Karika and Tangiia (circa 1250) is that also of the first Malietoa in Samoa, in whose time the Samoans appear to have first got the upper hand of the so-called Tonga-Fijians, or in other words, the Maori-Rarotongans. It seems to me that this is the probable reason of Karika's leaving Samoa, his relationship to the Rarotonga people who were then living in Samoa and Fiji, made it advisable for him to leave, together with others. It is stated that he made eight different voyages between Rarotonga and Avaiki, which would here include both Samoa and Fiji, and for part of this time he was engaged in wars in Avaiki and other islands in the neighbourhood. The name of his double-canoe was Te-au-ki-Iti and Te-au-ki-Tonga.

From this period (1250) the Rarotonga history does not mention a single voyage back to Samoa or Fiji, though some are noted to the nearer group of Tahiti, etc. So far as we can judge, communication with Western Polynesia ceased, and the reason I suggest is, that the Samoans had expelled the Rarotongan-Maori branch of the race from their group. As for Fiji, it is probable that some of the latter people still remained there, and that they, in the course of the 600 years that have since elapsed, have played an important part in modifying the original Melanesian Fijians, so that they are now a cross between the two races.