Vaux.—On the Frobable Origin of the Maori Races. 55 
pronunciation.* Tongan has been clearly shown by Mr. Thomson to have 
many remarkable resemblances to Malay, and may some day prove to be an 
intermediate link by way of the Marianne and Caroline Islands, at least, 
this I take to be the drift of M. Freycinet’s researches. We have no 
historical, or even traditional, records on this subject ; but a glance at the ~ 
map suggests the probability that Melanesians from New Caledonia (the 
nearest Negro islands) may have found their way to Fiji, if not to Tonga, 
As both these populations were equally illiterate, the success of one over the 
other, if not the result of trade between them, must have been due simply 
to brute force ; it would not have been like that of the letter-less Franks 
over the comparatively civilized and refined Gallo-Romans. I may add that 
the existence, both in Viti and Tongan, of many consonantal sounds, 
unpronounceable by any pure Polynesian, but at the same time not averse 
to the genius of other languages, point, necessarily, to such an intermixture 
as I have suggested ; but when or how this came about, I doubt if we shall 
ever be able to determine. 
To recur to the native traditions: I have already stated the prevalent 
beliefs in New Zealand that the ancestors of the existing Maoris came from 
Hawaiki, and in all, or almost all, the islands a somewhat similar tradition 
is prevalent ; in the Marquesas, indeed, the same name occurs unaltered. 
In general, however, this word has been slightly altered according to the 
consonantal system of each island, the varieties, according to Mr. Logan, 
being as follows :— 
In Samoa Savai 
op LEDIE “ccs cre ces ses Havaii 
,, sandwich ...... Hawaii 
,, Rarotonga ..... . Avaiki 
», Nukuhiva ...... Havaiki 
,, New Zealand ... Hawaiki. 
~ Captain Cook (Vol. III. p. 69) evidently refers to the same place in the name 
he writes, Heawige. Generally, it may be stated, that the popular idea is that 
this Hawaiki was somewhere wnder the islands—a sort of Inferno, confirm 
* There is another hypothesis which, I think, ought not to be wholly discarded, and 
this is, that there has, at some period, been an emigration from America, westwards. If, 
as has been suggested, the idols on Easter Island have a considerable resemblance to 
those found in Mexico, it is not at all impossible that some of the earlier peoplers of 
Easter Island, or their kinsmen, may have reached Tahiti or even Tongatabu. Mr. 
Colenso, too, I see, thinks that the carving of the New Zealanders may be, perhaps, 
derived originally from America. 
