OCEANIC MIGRATIONS. 



course of the emigrants here was directly contrary to that of the 

 trade-winds. True, the distance is not great; but it must be remem- 

 bered that the voyage was made on rafts, the only means of trans- 

 portation possessed by the Mangarevans, bearing about the same 

 relation, as regards safety and speed, to a canoe, as the latter does to 

 a steam-ship. 



RAP A. 



This island, in our general summary, was included in the Austral 

 Group, though not, perhaps, with strict propriety, as it is situated 

 four degrees apart from the rest, and a different dialect is spoken on 

 it. It lies fifteen degrees southeast of the Hervey Islands, from which 

 it probably derived its population. I obtained at Tahiti, from a native 

 of Rapa, a brief vocabulary of the language spoken there, which 

 turns out to be, with a few verbal exceptions, pure Rarotongan, and 

 this in its minute peculiarities. The Rarotongan, for example, uses 

 mei for the directive particle signifying motion towards a person, 

 where the other dialects have mat ; the Rapan has the same. The 

 particle ka is used before verbs in the same manner by both, &,c. 



THE AUSTRAL ISL AN DS RI M AT AR A, RURUTU, TUPUAI, 

 AND RAIVAVAI. 



These islands lie south of the Society Group, and west of Rarc- 

 tonga, and are nearly equidistant from both. The probability is that 

 they were settled from both directions, and at a very late day. The 

 evidence in favor of this view is the following. Tupuai is situated 

 between Rurutu and Raivavai, and about eighty miles from each. 

 Mr. Ellis (Polynesian Researches, p. 281) says: "Tupuai is stated, 

 in the introduction to the Voyage of the Duff, to have been at that 

 time but recently peopled by some natives of an island to the west- 

 ward, probably Rimatara, who, when sailing to a spot they were 

 accustomed to visit, were driven by strong and unfavorable winds 

 on Tupuai. A few years after this, a canoe sailing from Raiatea to 

 Tahiti, conveying a chief who was ancestor to Idia, Pomare's mother, 

 was drifted on this island, and the chief admitted to the supreme 

 authority." Mr. Ellis adds " The subsequent visits of missionaries, 

 with the residence of native teachers among the people, have fur- 

 nished additional evidence, that the present Tupuaian population is 

 but of modern origin, compared with that inhabiting the island of 



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