Tuomson.— Whence of the Maori. lix 
in Madagascar over 3,400 years ago. The date of their migration eastward must 
rest on other grounds than history. That it was very much more remote in 
past ages than that to Madagascar may be inferred from the incomplete 
articulations of the Polynesians, who, as the first outpourings, bore away only 
the first and earlier attempts of a primitive people to express their circum- 
scribed wants in language. When, or at what time, these wonderful people— 
the Barata—were themselves extruded and obliterated from their original 
seat by the Thibetan and Arian incursions on Hindustan, we neéd not now 
surmise. We may only so far remark that the physiognomy of the modern 
Malagasi is more Thibetan than Arian. 
But, returning to the more immediate object of this paper, it may be truly 
said that there is no example of a tribe or nation accepting foreign words for 
their own primary ones. Take, for instance, our own English words for our 
near relations, the parts of the body, such as head, ears, nose, mouth, etc., or 
for common objects, such as cow, horse, pig, corn, etc. ; all these Teutonic 
fossil words are indelibly fixed in our language, notwithstanding all its present 
high culture and the acceptation of French, Latin, and Greek exotics. бо it 
is with the family of languages or dialects under review. The Maori, Malay, 
and Malagasi, by their fossil-primary words, prove the common origin of their 
races, i.e., emanation from one focus of dispersion. Again, philology supports 
our previous ethnological reasons, not only by the above data, but by common 
idiomatic structure and phonology ; and the Tamilian affinities of the Malagasi, 
disclosed in this enquiry, add evidence to the theory that that focus was in 
South Hindustan. 
Another circumstance may be mentioned, but I do not give great weight to 
it, viz.: in races so nearly allied by name—the Malayala of South India, the 
Malaya of Sumatra, and the Malagasi of Madagascar—having each their seats 
in the mountains of their respective countries, similar conditions may have 
promoted the migrations, and similar conditions preserved the remnants. 
Thus, had Madagascar not existed, or had it not been populated by its 
present race, our search for the whence of the Maori, as we proceeded westward, 
might have stopped at the Silong tribe of Mergui, on the eastern shores of the 
Bay of Bengal ; but the above circumstances we have set forth force us to 
proceed across the bay, and point out, as I did in my former paper, that 
peninsula, fecund of people, viz., South Hindustan, alone commanding all 
possible eastern or western maritime migrations, as the only possible “ whence” 
of the Maori. 
—— 
ee 
Sofola. This, in a measure, indicates the influence of ancient India, and proves her the 
centre of great movements. 
