Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/88

76 speaking race, from the period when the latter occupied the mid-Ganges in B.C. 800, down to the probable time of the Polynesians leaving India about the fourth or fifth century B.C., which is the date we arrived at by aid of the Rarotonga traditions.

It is highly probable that some remains of the Polynesian Race may still be traced in parts of India that have not been so much influenced by the later Aryan and other ethnic waves. Indeed a long correspondence between the late S. H. Peal, F.R.G.S. of Assam and myself of some years ago, seems to prove that the tribes occupying the hill country of Eastern India have many Polynesian customs, and moreover a few words of the language seem to have survived the many linguistic invasions they have been subject to. As these pages are being written, I notice in Dr. W. H. Furness's paper on the "Ethnology of the Naga Hills," a reference to several customs that are closely allied to Polynesian; the tatoo marks on the face of the Sema division is apparently just like the old Maori moko-kuri, whilst the description of the ceremonies connected with tatooing, and the tools used, might be taken as descriptive of those of the Polynesians to-day. In plate No. xl. of the same volume is shown an old Siamese man, who is to all intents and purposes an old Maori.