EQUATOEIAL POLYNESIA. 



481 



tions of the natives, so that interminglings could certainly have taken place at 

 various times throughout the vast Pacific basin. 



But although migrations may evidently have occurred in all directions, physical 

 resemblance, speech, usages, and traditions all point to the western lands near Asia 

 as the region whence most of the Polynesian islanders reached their present homes. 

 Ethnologists have also shown that the general eastward movement must be referred 

 to a ver}^ remote epoch, certainly prior to the spread of Hindu influence in 

 Malaysia, for no trace of Sanskrit can be found in the Polynesian languages. 

 According to Hamy their nearest kindred should be sought amongst those tall, 

 light-complexioned Indonesians, who have been driven into the interior by the in- 

 truding Malays, and who under the common name of Alfurus are often confounded 

 with the Negrito or Papuan populations. Attempts have been made to fix the point of 



Fig. 213. — Equatoeiai Polynesia, by Tupaïa. 



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dispersion eastwards at Buru between Celebes and Ceram, or at Baura in the Solomon 

 Archipelago, merely because a vague Samoan tradition speaks of a certain Pulotu 

 (Burotu), an island in the west, as the cradle of their race. 



More probability attaches to the conjectures regarding the second point of dis- 

 persion within the Polynesian area itself. The Maori, Hawaiian, Paratongan, 

 Tahitian, Marquesas, and Tuamotu traditions point uniformly to an island Savaiki, 

 Havaii, Avaiki, Havai, Havaiki, as their ancestral home,* and other traditions 

 describe the migrations from this island to the various oceanic archipelagoes. 

 Savaii, largest of the Samoan group, is regarded by most ethnologists as the Savaiki 

 of the Polynesian legends, and the resemblance of names gives some weight to this 

 view, although in Samoa itself Savaii is regarded as having been colonised by 

 immigrants from Upolu and other parts of the archipelago. According to others 

 Havaiki would simply mean " Fire," so that the tradition would merely refer 

 vaguely to some active volcano or burning mountain as the starting-point of the 

 migrations. 



* A. H. Keane, The Interoceanic Races and Languages. 

 31—0 



