Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/46

34 The Samoan tables, earlier than about 40 generations, are cosmogonies rather than genealogies; the longest I have seen is 55 generations or ages.

The Tongan tables appear to go back only 35 generations, or to just before the island of Tonga was colonized from Samoa or Fiji. This, however, was not the first occupation of that island.

No Tahitian tables are at present available for a greater length than 40 generations. So far as they go, they compare fairly well with Hawaiian and Maori.

The Rotuma tables go back for 106 generations, but contain only perhaps one name identical with Rarotongan ancestors, and he is too far out of place to be the same. The whole of the names indicate a Samoan origin, so psssibly this people entered the Pacific as part of the same migration. Rotuma is just on the route the migration must have followed.

Easter Island lines go back for twenty-three generations by one line, twenty-seven by another (A. Lesson) and appear to be all local, i.e., have lived on that island. Thompson gives the number as fifty-seven from Hotu-matua, who came there "from the east" with his large canoes—from Marae-toehau, and named Easter Island, Te Pito-te-henua. This "coming from the east" is another mystery of this celebrated island, which, together with its enormous statues and incised inscriptions on wooden tablets, renders it one of the most interesting places occupied by the Polynesian race.

The Mangareva Island tables go back for sixty-six generations, but no names are given by A. Lesson in his "Iles Mangareva."

There is thus not much help to be derived from these various genealogies; our main dependance [sic] must be placed