Walsh. — The Winged Pilot of Rawaiki. 127 



from the massacre, has informed him that her father in his 

 Maoris sketches was always very careful to get the tattooing 

 absolutely correct, as the Natives themselves insisted on every 

 line being drawn and put in its correct place. This explains a 

 good deal, and gives Gilfillan's. representations an added value 

 as true and faithful depictions of historic personages. 



Art. XX. — The Winged Pilot of Hawaiki. 



By Archdeacon Walsh. 



Many centuries before Columbus made his adventurous voy- 

 age across the Atlantic, or Vasco de Gama battled his way 

 round the Cape of Good Hope, the Polynesian navigators were 

 sailing backwards and forwards among the countless islands 

 of the Pacific, their operations gradually extending eastward, 

 northward, and southward from their original home in the west 

 until they reached from the New Hebrides to Easter Island, 

 from Honolulu to New Zealand, and covered an area five 

 thousand miles long by four thousand broad. Besides these 

 voyages, it is known that they occasionally found their way 

 back to " Avaiki," traversing a far greater distance ; and there 

 is more than one record of an expedition to the Antarctic. 



Mr. S. Percy Smith, F.R.G.S., President of the Polynesian 

 Society, in his recent work, ww Hawaiki : the Original Home of 

 the Maori," gives an account of many of these voyages, which 

 he has compiled by a comparison of the independent traditions 

 of various branches of the race that have been cut off from 

 mutual intercourse for hundreds of years, and which may there- 

 fore be considered as authentic history in all essential details. 

 He also relates how the hardy adventurers managed to keep their 

 course by day and night without the aid of those instruments 

 which are considered indispensable by modern navigators when 

 making even a short trip out of sight of land. He states that it 

 is well known that the Polynesians had a very complete know- 

 ledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies, and refers to 

 a statement of the late Mr. John White, that the teaching of 

 astronomy formed a special feature of the old Maori whare-kura, 

 or house of learning (" Hawaiki," p. 137). They had also, he 

 adds, in some instances a kind of rude substitute for a chart, 

 formed of strings stretched on a frame, which showed the position 

 of the islands as well as the direction of the ocean-currents and 

 the regular roll of the seas before the trade-wind. A sketch of 

 one of these charts is given on page 139. Following up the sub- 

 ject, Mr. Percy Smith gives a graphic description (p. 138) of how 



