EFATE AND VITI AND POLYNESIA. 49 



cent, i in every 5, 69 words in all, are common to Efate and Nuclear 

 Polynesia and are not to be found in the languages deriving from 

 the Tongafiti or cadet branch of the family ; that in the close sub- 

 division of the Nuclear Polynesian 18 words of these 69 are to be 

 found in Samoa alone, and that only 7 in all fail of Samoan identi- 

 fication, and even of these 7 there are 2 which might readily be 

 identified in Samoan. The conclusion is irresistible that the Poly- 

 nesian content of Efate is Proto-Samoan. 



Assuming the validity of the migration down along the Melanesian 

 chain from Indonesia to the Pacific we have no hesitation in declar- 

 ing as proved that the Proto-Samoan swarm had to do with Efate* 

 and that the Tongafiti swarm did not touch there. I have used 

 discretely the term "had to do" in reference to this transaction, 

 for we are without data upon which to base a more definite determi- 

 nation. The main body of the Proto-Samoans may have rested 

 upon Efate through such a lapse of time as to impress their better 

 speech upon the ruder autochthons, or a considerable unit of the 

 swarm may have deviated from the voyage and have colonized the 

 island. In either case the physical results of such commingling are 

 not apparent. 



D. 



We now come to the last items in the tabular grouping of the 

 data, the eastward extension of this material which we now know 

 to be Proto-Samoan and its discovery in territory now occupied by 

 Tongafiti descendants. We shall here touch upon it very lightly, 

 for it does not bear upon the proof as relating to Efate. We are 

 not to assume that the swarming impulse which set the Proto- 

 Samoans in motion from ancestral Hawaiki (whether that be in the 

 Hindu-Kushor in the Hadramaut) , which drove them into and out 

 of Indonesia, which pushed them through Efate* and into Nuclear 

 Polynesia — we have no reason to assume that this quest of the 

 sunrise deserted them when they reached the green hills and the 

 gray sands of Samoa. We read their stories but blindly if we miss 

 the departure of hardy voyagers in search of sea and sea and haply 

 land beyond. Until the Tongafiti came and drove them from the 

 coasts the sea was theirs for voyaging. In these memoranda we 

 think we find record of the ports some of them made. 



There is confirmation peripheral as well. Hawaii has record* of 

 voyages from Samoa direct, and in New Zealand f there is a similar 

 tale. The Samoans say that their ancestors started on voyages 

 from Samoa, the Hawaiians and the Maori record that voyagers from 

 Samoa arrived. Here in the philological record we seem to have the 



*2 Fornander "Polynesian Race," 33. fS. Percy Smith in litt. 



