4 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
expectéd to do, the probability that all the islanders were once one people, 
and possibly, also, derived at some very remote period, from the distant 
continents of Asia or America. Bes 
If these separate lines of research can be shewn to be convergent, it 1s 
hoped that some conclusions more or less definite, may be obtained as to 
the real ancestry of the native population of New Zealand. 
To take, then,— 
(1.) Tuerr own Traprrions. 
Now, here, it is interesting to see that a very general uniformity pre- 
vails among the legends of all the tribes, the testimony they offer, being, 
_ for the most part, that their ancestors found their way to New Zealand 
from the North or North-East, in certain canoes, the names of which have 
been preserved ; there being also, in the island still existing families, who 
assert of themselves, that they are lineal descendents of the first immi- 
grants. Some of the natives, I should add, however, believe that they came 
from the Chatham Islands, the land, geographically, the nearest to New 
Zealand ; but, by far the most prevailing tradition is, that their original 
ancestralhome was Hawaiki, a name, the real or probable meaning of 
which, I shall fully consider in the later pages of this paper. 
Now, if the genealogies of the chiefs can be trusted (and, certainly, @ 
priori, there seems no reason for doubting their substantial accuracy), the 
existing population has oceupied these islands but little more than 500 
years ; while, there would, also, at the same time, seem to be no reliable 
evidence, that there were any other people settled in them previously, 
although Mr. Colenso* and some other writers, have warmly advocated the 
view, that there had been an earlier race there, during a period no man can 
guess how many ages ago. I think it may be further conjectured that the 
whole number of original comers was not large, a fact, indeed, we should 
expeet, as they had, in any case, to traverse a considerable breadth of 
ocean before they could reach these islands: moreover, their method of 
colonization, by separating into different tribes and families (so as to form 
distinct settlements, at considerable distances apart the one from the other), 
agreeing as this does with Captain Cook’s account of them, 100 years ago, 
SUE RECA, also, the probability, that oceupation was by successive waves of 
unmigrants, no one of these, most likely, having been very numerous. 
There are many anecdotes in their various legends of their first advent 
to New Zealand, which seem to me to bear the stamp of truth upon them : 
thus, the story of their finding, 
at two different places, a sperm whale 
* ON. Z. Insta Vole 
