SAWAIORI MIGRATIONS. 17 



the other hand there never came folk from the Philippines to the Palaus, 

 but only from Celebes and the Celebes Sea (equatorial countercurrent) . 

 The journey against these streams is possible only with very favorable 

 winds; they are so considerable that even in the present time the sailing 

 vessels of the white men have to take them very largely into the reckoning. 

 The schooner in which I went to Ninigo traveled the long stretch from New 

 Hanover to Ninigo only with the south equatorial current, and most of the 

 time against the stormy but certainly light northwest wind. On the return 

 voyage the current was so strong against us that we had a great notion to 

 work up to 4 N., where we could catch the countercurrent which would 

 help us to an easting from which we could reach southward — that is, back 

 to the Gazelle Peninsula. 



The early Polynesians coming out of the Celebes Sea drifted in all prob- 

 ability along the southern edge of the Carolines toward the east. With 

 this current, not exposed to strong contrary winds, they could reach the 

 Gilbert Islands, where local currents make their appearance ; among them 

 such as would set them southeast, even through the Ellice group. Accord- 

 ingly, on meteorological grounds, the Polynesians voyaged, not along the 

 Melanesian islands, but by a straight course through Micronesia, and 

 reached Samoa, whose Savai'i may have been the prototype of Hawaiki. 

 Perhaps the boats drifted still farther to Fanning Island, in order to reach 

 Samoa. There are many possibilities in a region where the countercurrent 

 has less force than between the Moluccas and the Gilberts. This is not the 

 place to follow out the further distribution of the wanderers after they had 

 once reached the present Polynesia. But that an importance attaches to 

 the countercurrent for migration theories, particularly in its western part, 

 is clear from the phenomena of the flora. Its distribution is such that the 

 botanical boundary incloses central Polynesia, Viti in part, next the Ellice 

 and Gilbert groups, finally the Carolines, as closer to India, while Melanesia 

 forms a province of its own. The men and the plants of Polynesia, there- 

 fore, must be regarded as having migrated along the same track. Would it 

 not be intelligible that to the Polynesian, who came from the rich Moluccas, 

 the atolls would be less pleasurable and after a short sojourn they swept 

 farther along until at last they reached again a better endowed, a moun- 

 tainous, and a greater island, Samoa? 



Considerations such as these, of which much is lacking to the theory, 

 suggest themselves with divers variations. Here, before all things, should 

 there be but a single probability, it would be of significance for the further 

 fate of the early Polynesians who reached the equatorial counterstream, 

 and for the case that they migrated from Halmahera, in favor of which are 

 many good arguments. 



The initial point of the wandering is of great importance for our chain 

 of islands, for upon that it depends with great probability that the early 

 Polynesians did not come to Nuguria, etc. This would not be altered by 

 the arrival in Liueniua of the boat from Kapingamarangi, for the conditions 

 of current allow us to recognize with certainty such voyages as exceptional. 

 We can make our account always and only with typical phenomena. Wind 

 and current conditions do not allow a decision at variance with the tradi- 

 tions of our islanders, which seem all the more credible since the industrial 

 products as yet met with on the islands quite confirm the essential points 

 of all these statements. The peopling of the northwestern Polynesian 

 islands quite uniformly has its origin in small beginnings, through the 

 coming to shore of crews of for the most part single boats, and through 

 infrequent raiding expeditions. The great majority of the immigrants 



