Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/42

30 who are not known to the records of other islands by the same name.

Taken altogether, we see that these genealogical lines, from New Zealand, Tahiti, Rarotonga, Hawaii, all tend to prove one another, and that we may deduce from them a fairly accurate date for the period of Tangiia, viz.: the year 1250, which will agree with the period of Whiro; and these two men were contemporaries, as we shall see later on.

In order to show the data relied on for dates, a reference must now be made to the large general table of Rarotonga ancestors at the end of this book, for on it depends the dates of events in Rarotongan and Polynesian history as herein deduced. That table, starting from the earliest traditionary period when the people lived in Atia-te-varinga-nui, comes down to the time of the occupation of Rarotonga in 1250. We are now getting into the "misty past" and cannot expect such agreement in the lines as has been shown in those of later epochs, and of which other examples might be adduced.

We must first consider the agreement or otherwise of the two long lines shown in the table with one another and with a third to be found in vol. iv. of the "Journal of the Polynesian Society," page 129. The latter was conmumicated to the late Rev. J. B. Stair, in 1842, by Matatia, of Rarotonga, and should therefore have a considerable value attached to it, considering its date. All these three lines commence at the same ancestor, Te Nga-taito-ariki, and come down to Tangiia, or to his contemporary, Iro (or Whiro, of Maori history). I shall have to point out directly that the Iro and Tangiia lines differ in places as to the order of names, and they also differ in the names themselves, so much so that they must be different lines of descent, not two editions of the same.