326 Migrations in the Pacific Ocean. 
that they rose from thence through the efforts of a god beneath 
em.” Commodore Porter heard from the Nukuhivans the tra- 
dition “that Oataia with his wife Anamoona came from Vavau 
eighty eight generations back, (reckoned in the family of Gatta- 
newa himself,) and brought with them bread-fruit and sugar cane, 
and a great variety of other plants.” 
« Allowing for the present, the ordinary estimate of thirty years to a 
generation, it will give us two thousand six hundred and forty years 
since the arrival of Oataia from Vavau. It seems probable however 
that the first part of the royal genealogical list of Nukuhiva will be found 
like that of Hawaii, to be merely mythological ; in which case the 
foregoing computation will require a corresponding correction, and the 
“time elapsed since the settlement of the island will be considerably 
diminished.” 
The Sandwich Islands by a similar course of argument, are 
traced back through the Marquesas to Tahiti and Samoa. The 
word Tahiti means a foreign country in the Hawaiian language, 
and appears to point to some former knowledge of an island of 
that name, which was afterwards lost. Although ignorant of the 
Society Islands, “ Nukuhiva and Fatuhiva, two of the Marquesas 
Islands are mentioned in. their traditionary songs, as among the 
places visited by voyagers from Hawaii in former days.” The 
Sandwich Islands are nearly 2000 miles from the Marquesas, on 
the other side of the equator; yet this long journey must have 
been performed by these savages ; and moreover they carried with 
them dogs and pigs, as is evident from their traditions, and also 
from the breed of these animals being the same as in the other 
groups. The word Hawaii, given to one of their islands, is the 
Savaii of Samoa, an island of similar character in features and 
size. 
The Hawaiians reckon up sirty seven generations since the 
migration from the Marquesas took place, and this genealogy 
forms a kind of verse, in triplets, the father, wife and son, (after- 
wards his successor) in each line. 
_ “Jt might be doubted whether the natives could remember with ac- 
curacy so far back ; but this doubt would cease on hearing one of them 
recite the genealogy in question. As given in the native history, called 
the Moo-olelo, it stands as follows,—beginning with the second king, 
the son of Watea and Hoohotutalani. 
“ 
