Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/48

36 uncle, Pou-tea, it will be seen that it begins with Tu, whose son was Tu-tavake. Now, in the times of Tu-tarangi there lived a man named Tu-tavake, as related by the traditions, and it will be noticed that in the table he is shown to be only one generation after Tu-tarangi, or a difference of one generation in the thirty-one that separates Tu-tarangi from Tangiia. There are no means of ascertaining if the Tu-tavake on both lines are identical, but they both lived in Fiji, and the inference is that they are the same. Assuming that this is so, then the period of Tu-tarangi may be fixed at about the year A.D. 450.

Passing downwards on the line from Tu-tarangi, at the forty-eighth generation from now, we come to the name of Ui-te-rangiora. Unfortunately we have no means of checking the period of this man, but he was perhaps the most distinguished and daring navigator of the Polynesian race, as will be seen when we come to deal with him. According to the table, he lived about the year 650.

Another check on this long line may be shown as follows: according to the table at the end hereof, we shall find the Rarotongan ancestors Taaki and Karii (in Maori: Tawhaki and Karihi) to be brothers who flourished forty-six generations ago. Turning to the table published in the "Journal of the Polynesian Society" vol. vii., p. 40, we there find these two brothers, according to Maori account, to have lived forty-nine generations ago. With respect to this Maori table, the compiler Mr. Hare Hongi, says he is prepared to uphold its accuracy against all comers. The difference of three generations is not too much as between Maori and Rarotongan history. On Mr. Hongi's table will also be found the following names in the order given; Ru-tapatapa-awha, Ueuenuku, Ueuerangi. Now the same names are shown in the same order on the general