4 THE SWEET POTATO. 



found by Cook and others in Tahiti and New Zealand. 

 According to native tradition, it is not native to 

 New Zealand, but was introduced from the direction 

 of Tahiti or Samoa (Pickering, Chron. Hist., years 

 1273 and 1740). Its introduction is estimated from 

 indirect evidence to have occurred at about 1740 

 (Pickering, Chron. Hist., under 1740). 



Captain Cook, on his first voyage, took on board 

 a native of Tahiti, by the name of Tupia, who could 

 readily converse with the natives of New Zealand and 

 other islands of that region. From this it appears 

 not only that the New Zealanders and Tahitians 

 were of the same stock, but that their separation 

 must have been comparatively recent. But if it 

 was recent, it could not have been accidental or due 

 to shipwreck, as then both New Zealand and Tahiti 

 could not have been so well populated as Cook found 

 them. So it must have been due either to a whole- 

 sale emigration or to a gradual expansion. But 

 neither mode of separation would account for the 

 striking fact that the New Zealanders were, up to 

 1740, without so important a food plant as the sweet 

 potato. The significance of this becomes the more 

 apparent when we consider that bananas, cocoanuts 

 and yams, which yield staple foods in Tahiti, could 

 be of little importance in New Zealand. In all prob- 

 ability, therefore, the Tahitians became acquainted 

 with the sweet potato only after they had separated 

 from the New Zealanders for so long a time that 

 communication between them had practically ceased. 



It is possible, of course, that the sweet potato was 

 native in Tahiti. In that case it must be supposed 

 that communication by sea between two great 

 branches of a seafaring people stopped at once after 

 separation. The only argument known to the 



