20 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



by the weight of the authority. Skilled as were these distin- 

 guished students, I can not avoid the conclusion that their results 

 are vitiated by two sources of error : Polynesia was known to them 

 from scanty and not always accurate information, and Melanesia 

 was scarcely known at all. In the course of the present work we 

 shall have to animadvert upon this Indonesian link in its philologic 

 bearings and, from the material which is about to engage our 

 attention and exact our best powers of analysis, we shall essay to 

 draw certain conclusions which will point to the need of revising 

 the estimate which served as the foundation for the name Malayo- 

 Polynesian, under which designation these languages of the ocean 

 have entered into the classification of linguistic systems. 



In its most concise form the general migration theory could not 

 be stated more clearly than in the words of that master of Polynesian 

 lore, Edward Tregear, recently president of the Polynesian Society : 



We must leave the fascinating subject of the whence of the Maori as 

 an open question, to be settled hereafter when more full and perfect knowl- 

 edge enables the student of the future to gather up the ravelled strands of 

 evidence and twist them into a cord that will bear the strain of scientific 

 investigation. In the meantime the Polynesian Society is doing much to 

 gather together the facts and preserve the knowledge fading fast with the 

 elders of the Maori people. It may be of interest to put before the reader 

 the hypothesis most generally accepted by Polynesian scholars as to the 

 advent of the Maori in the Pacific. It is as follows: 



The Polynesians are a people which either originated in India or in 

 central Asia and passed through India. Leaving the mainland they 

 journeyed eastward through the Malay Archipelago, occupying perhaps 

 many generations in the voyages from island to island. At the time of 

 their passage the archipelago was not occupied by Malays, who are a sub- 

 sequent migration from the Mongolian seaboard. The Maori expedition 

 or expeditions passed by the Melanesian and Papuan islands, inhabited by 

 black people (New Guinea, New Caledonia, etc.), and reached the Fiji 

 Group, where they settled for a long time. From Fiji as a center they 

 colonized Samoa, Tonga, Hawaii, the Marquesas, Mangareva, and extended 

 their colonies even so far as Easter Island. In process of time they either 

 hived off or were expelled from Fiji and the waves of migration passed to 

 and fro among the groups of islands. (Tregear: "The Maori Race," 

 page 558.) 



So much in the general aspect of the case. Now let us note from 

 another scholar, S. Percy Smith, the present incumbent of the 

 presidency of the Polynesian Society, the traversing in detail of 

 some of the elements of the problem upon which Thilenius founds 

 his argument. These are cited from "Hawaiki" in its second 

 edition. I refer to this edition because it is intended as the defini- 

 tive statement of the author's position and because it will be the 

 edition most readily accessible. For myself I have a fond prefer- 

 ence for the earlier edition, the same materials treated in a different 

 manner. That first " Hawaiki" appeals to me with a personal note 



