POLYNESIAN RELICS IN MELANESIA. 147 



San Cristoval, and that no land is visible from them. They are 

 islands having the speech quality coefficient of ioo, for they are 

 settled by Polynesians. Such islands we have already learned to 

 look for as the most weatherly achievements of Polynesian voyagers 

 in this great migration movement. In the southern Solomons the 

 course of migration is distinctly marked to windward of Malanta 

 and through the island-dotted channel north of Guadalcanar and 

 San Cristoval. With all these landmarks to point the way it is 

 inconceivable that canoes should leave the coastwise course and 

 head to leeward for islands far beyond their sight and wholly out 

 of their knowledge. Likewise for voyagers passing beyond Moiki- 

 Rennel the closehauled course would not carry them within sight 

 of San Cristoval, but would give them a more distant landfall in 

 the Torres Islands, and thence the land in view would deflect them 

 southeastward on a coasting voyage. 



It is quite clear, therefore, that these two points of approach were 

 gaps not crossed and that the two streams of migration remained 

 largely distinct. The dull canoes of the northern stream, a few set 

 to leeward by gale or other accident, may have reached the southern 

 stream and have escaped notice ; but that there was any accretion to 

 the northern stream from the southern is wholly out of the question. 



No account has yet been made of the two western points of this 

 identification, Moanus 83 north of New Guinea, and Motu 85 in the 

 Gulf of Papua on the southern coast of that great island. With 

 the mass of this almost continental island beween them these two 

 distant points of equal quality must stand apart. Each represents 

 the most westerly identifiable point of a migration swarm and these 

 two swarms must have been wholly distinct. Moanus I regard as 

 the first point of the stream which in part went to windward of 

 New Ireland and in part has left its traces in St. George's Channel, 

 thence has swept along the Solomons, thence past Matema and 

 Ticopia and onward to Rotuma, and still beyond to its lodgment 

 in Samoa — the Samoa Stream. Motu and Moiki likewise establish 

 early points on the migration track which generally parallels the 

 Samoa Stream, but runs some distance southward until it makes 

 the landfall of the northern New Hebrides and then is deflected 

 sharply south by the opportunity and the convenience of sailing 

 coastwise with its double joy of war and victual, which sets forth 

 once more upon empty sea from Aniwa and Fotuna and at last 

 enters Nuclear Polynesia by way of Fiji — the Viti Stream. 



Now it comes to us to discuss briefly the relative age of the 

 Polynesian content identified in Melanesian possession and the same 

 material in Polynesia itself. 



Of two forms in general, one with a final vowel and one with a 

 terminal consonant following the same vowel, which in all proba- 



