282 EEPORT— 1891. 



to class Dr. A. Lesson," whose peculiar views, however, render 

 his otherwise very valuable work of little direct assistance 

 towards the solution of the question. The consensus of 

 modern opinion is, however, unanimous (with the exception of 

 Dr. Lesson) that the race came from the East Indian Archi- 

 pelago. Beyond that, and as to where the people came from 

 before their sojourn in that part of the world, opinions differ 

 materially. Perhaps the time has not yet arrived for settling 

 the question definitely. 



In attemptmg to learn something of the geographical know- 

 ledge of the Polynesians at the period referred to there are 

 certain difficulties which meet us at the outset, over and above 

 that which has been already mentioned as the want of pub- 

 blished works on the traditions, poetry, &c., of some of the 

 groups. The probability is that the people migrated from the 

 Eastern Archipelago in more than one party, or heke — to use an 

 expressive Maori term — and at periods separated by several 

 generations the one from the other, and that they came to the 

 islands where we now find them by different routes, which here 

 and there crossed, or for a time were identical. It thus be- 

 comes apparent that the names given by the first arrivals to 

 places which they discovered on the route would be unknown 

 to those who followed, and so separate and distinct names would 

 be given to places already known. 



We thus have a cause of confusion which it is rarely pos- 

 sible to overcome. Even in the after-intercourse that took 

 place between the first and subsequent Jiekes, when meeting on 

 some of the islands in their voyages, although these differences 

 of nomenclature might for the time have been cleared up to the 

 people themselves, in the process of time each particular heke 

 would retain in its own traditions the names originating with 

 it. There is no doubt that some of the hekes made lengthened 

 stoppages on such of the islands as suited them for the time, 

 until from various reasons they would be driven further afield. 

 Such reasons, amongst others, would be war, famine, the increase 

 of population, or, perhaps, as much as anything, the love of ex- 

 ploration which has evidently been a characteristic of the Poly- 

 nesians from the earliest times. Thus, in the process of time 

 the whole Pacific became peopled, the migrations going on from 

 the earliest times, which, if we follow Fornander, would be about 

 the second century of our era, up to the beginning of this cen- 

 tury. I would remark cfi passant that Fornander arrives at 

 this date by allowing thirty years to a generation, a number 

 which is, to my mind, too high when applied to the Polynesians, 

 as it is known that they married early. Twenty years seems 



* " Les Polynesiens,"par Dr. P. A. Lesson. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1885. 



