230 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
I do not propose now to enter minutely into a discussion of the assump- 
tion that all the Maori or Mahori populations have been derived from the 
same stock as the Malay, or that even somehow—via Papua—Samoa may 
have received its first inhabitants, except that, whilst the similarity of 
speech and idiom prevailing throughout the whole of that part of the 
Southern Ocean with which we are now dealing demonstrates, I may say, to 
a certainty, that if all these races sprang at some time or another from a 
common origin, the discrepancies and differences between Malayan and 
Samoan forms of speech are so great as to cause a difficulty. The argu- 
ments would stand in this way: that as identity of language proves identity 
of race between Samoa and the rest of the islands, yet that difference of 
language between Samoan and Malayan is no bar to the supposition that 
Samoa was peopled by a race cognate with the Malay in addition to the 
change of tongue, for it is nothing less. There are only two per cent. of 
Malay words in Maori, and these are Javanese. The structure of the 
languages in formation, grammar, and pronunciation, is utterly distinct. 
The Mahori had lost the arts of writing and metallurgy, which were known 
to the Malay. : 
But having once established his people at Samoa, Mr. Ranken proceeds 
to distribute them, and relates several traditions bearing on this subject. 
One of these—the account of the voyage of Tangiia—seems feasible enough. 
The party sailed from Avaiki, Savii perhaps, to Tonga, then to Vavao ; 
were blown away in attempting to return, got too far south, were caught by 
the westerly winds outside the tropics (22° 40' S., 152° 90' W.), and first 
made Rimitara, thence to Tubuai, again to Akau and the Paumotu Isles ; 
on down the wind to Tahiti. Ultimately Tangiia moved on and settled 
at Rarotonga. Such a voyage, though a protracted one for a canoe, is 
natural enough with the ordinary winds. We have thus a legend of direct 
settlement at Rarotonga, of people who had themselves left Au Avaiki, 
said to be Savaii, at Samoa, and therefore would expect to find a great 
resemblance between the dialects of these two islands. Such, however, is 
not the case, the diversities between Samoan and Rarotongan being greater 
perhaps than between any two islands in the South Seas. Of course I 
mean islands peopled by the race of men of whom we are speaking. 
I spent during the years 1844 and 1845 rather more than twelve months 
amongst the South Sea Islands, chiefly at Tahiti and the neighbouring 
island of Eimeo or Moarea, making several trips between these two places, 
the nearest portions of which are some eighteen miles apart. I usually 
made the voyages in whaleboats ; and if leaving Papetoai, the chief settle- 
ment on Eimeo, for Papeiti, would start in the afternoon, pull some five 
miles to the eastern point of the island, and then, hauling up our boat, wait 
