Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/57

Rh that the spirit passes to the west to the ancestral home of the people. If enquiries were instituted in the other islands inhabited by the Polynesians, I have no doubt we should find traces of the same belief. Numbers of illustrations might be given from the ancient poetry of the Maoris of their belief in the return of the spirit to Hawaiki, the first home of their ancestors. Enough, however, has been said, to prove the belief of the race that their ancestral home was in the far west, and that Hawaiki was, if not the principal, at any rate one of its chief names.

At this date, and after so many people have studied the traditions of the Polynesian people, it would seem superfluous to adduce any argument in favour of the western origin of the race. But I notice that an Australian gentleman of scientific acquirements, has lately resuscitated the idea of an eastern origin. To those, like myself, who have studied the race, its language, manners and customs, and above all, its traditions, for over forty years, this idea cannot be admitted as valid. Dr. Lang of Sydney, was the first, I think, to originate this theory; but he based it on such ridiculous arguments, that no one knowing anything of the race could treat his work seriously.

With laudable pride and affection, with a strong belief in the sacredness, the beauty, the prolificness of the Father-land, the Polynesians have carried this great name Hawaiki in their wanderings, and applied it to many of their later homes. We thus have the following islands and places, etc., named in memory of it, or where a knowledge of it exists:—

Jawa, the Bugis name of the Moluccas (J. E. Logan).

Java, (Hawa)—see later on in reference to this.

Sava-i, a place in the Island of Seran, Ceran, Celam, or Ceram, Indonesia.