Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/233

Rh the same order on both Maori and Moriori tables; but in the latter they are included amongst the gods, or deified ancestors perhaps. I cannot help thinking that these people are misplaced on the Moriori lines, and that this is due to the important position they held in New Zealand as living immediately before the Morioris left this country. According to the New Zealand tables (printed p. 182 of vol. iv., Journal of the Polynesian Society) Toi lived, by the mean of a large number of lines, twenty-eight generations ago, and by Moriori tradition, that people left through wars in the time of Rauru, his son; and as they do not know any Maori ancestors later than Whatonga, Rauru's son, I think we may safely assume that the migration took place twenty-seven generations ago, according to the Maori lines, or twenty-eight by those of the Morioris. This would be about the year 1175.

The Moriori traditions mention more than one incident in Polynesian History before this date, but only one, I think, that is supposed to have occurred since, and this is very doubtful. I refer to the story of Manaia, who, by one Maori account was captain of the Tokomaru canoe that came here in 1350. Many old Maoris whose ancestors are supposed to have come in the Tokomaru canoe, do not know this ancestor at all, and will not allow that he came in that canoe. This seems to indicate that it is an old Polynesian story, that has in process of time been accredited to the voyage of the Tokomaru canoe, but in reality the incident took place long before. I would add, that if the period of Toi be taken from the table published in the Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. vii., p. 40, then if the time of Rauru be taken as that at which the Morioris left New Zealand, the number of generations will be twenty-nine back from 1850, or one more than I have shown above.