OCEANIC MIGRATIONS. ]29 



(Taiohae), but soon becoming very populous, they went off to the 

 other parts of the island. Captain Porter, by an oversight unusual 

 with him, is led to give only fifteen or sixteen years to a generation. 

 He says (p. 49, note), "it must be observed that a man is here a 

 grandfather at the age of fifty, and sometimes much less, arid hence 

 three generations exist within that period." Now it is not uncommon 

 for men in any country to be grandfathers at fifty, but this makes only 

 two generations of twenty-five years each. Moreover, in such a com- 

 putation, we are not to consider only the age at which the first 

 children are bom, but that of the whole number. On this point 

 some observations will be offered in treating of the Sandwich Islands. 

 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 genea- 

 logical 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. 



HAWAII, OR THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



No one who has carefully compared the languages and customs of 

 the two groups, has ever doubted that the natives of the Sandwich 

 Islands were derived, either directly or indirectly, from the Society 

 Group. The traditions of the natives seem, at first sight, to confirm 

 this belief, for they generally state that the original settlers were from 

 Tahiti (mat tahiti). We find, however, on further inquiry, that tahiti, 

 in this language, means foreign, abroad. In the Hawaiian Vocabu- 

 lary of Mr. Andrews, it is rendered "a foreign country;" and it is 

 uncertain if the natives had, when they were first visited by whites, 

 any knowledge of a particular island called by this name; while 

 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.* Nevertheless, the word Tahiti may, 

 as Mr. Ellis suggests, have been originally used with reference to 

 this island. We shall have occasion to remark, in the terms Avaiki 



forth," as well as " to be born." Captain Porter, hearing the phrase hanau-po applied 

 to Oataia and his consort would naturally translate the word in its active sense. 

 * See EHis's Tour round Hawaii, pp. 287, and 313. 



