Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/94

82 spirits of the dead to the west. It has been suggested that in this name Pulo-tu, we can see a reference to the very common name—Pulo—of islands in Indonesia; but Pulo, an island, is a Malay word and is not known to the Polynesians as such, consequently this identification must fall through, for the Malays are a more modern people in Indonesia than the Polynesians. It has further been said that Pulotu is identical with Bouru, or Buru, or Buro, a large island to the west of Ceram, and that tu means sacred. But it should first be shown that Bouru is an ancient name dating from before the Malay occupation, and that tu really means sacred—I know of no such meaning in Polynesian. Dr. Carroll traces the name back to "Burattu or Burutu, along the central part of the Euphrates river in Mesopotamia." Beyond this name of Pulotu, Samoans possess very few records of ancient countries, though Fiti (Fiji), Tonga, 'Atafu (Kandavu of the Fiji group), Papatea, Tokelau, Uea (Wallis Island), and a few others are mentioned in their old chants, etc., but all referring to islands in the Pacific. The fact is, as it appears to me, the Samoans and Tongans formed part of the first migration into the Pacific, and they have been there so long that they have forgotten their early history. All the numerous legends as to their origin seem to express their own belief in their being autocthones, created in the Samoan Islands.

Of Tongan traditions we really know very little, beyond what Mariner has written, and a few scattered notices in other publications.

The Tahitians, though having an extensive knowledge of the Pacific, before European intercourse, have no "log" of their migrations, so far as I am aware. Tupaea's chart,