ETHNOLOGY HEDLEY. 231 



regarded the Tahitian as an offspring of the Hawaiian stock, the 

 longer genealologies of the latter indicating superior antiquity.* 



Had the Polynesian migration taken the route usually ascribed 

 to it, why should not its influence have been as strongly impressed 

 on the west as it is on the east of the Melanesian tribes ; why 

 should that influence rapidly increase eastward, and above all why 

 should the brown man, while leaving his mark on the susceptible 

 black, yet have entirely escaped reciprocal treatment ? 



An alternative hypothesis, which would avoid these objections 

 but which does not appear to have been examined, is that the 

 Polynesian travelled from Asia, first to the Hawaiian Groupf 

 and after, perhaps, considerable sojourn there, migrated to Tahiti 

 and thence to Samoa. 



Physique, language and tradition alike point to Samoa as the 

 immediate ancestral home of the Tokelau People Estimated by 

 the chronological standard of European history it is possible that 

 this archipelago has been but recently colonised. 



Pritchard relates a tradition of Vaitupu, which places the arrival 

 of the first comers at seventeen generations back.J 



Communication with the Gilbert Islands to the north probably 

 wrought in the life of the Ellice Islanders a change comparable 

 with the later change induced by European contact. A social 

 revolution must have been effected by the acclimatisation of the 

 coconut alone, involving as it did the introduction of the Gilbert 

 Island system of land tenure. The tattoo patterns certainly 

 followed the same route, and doubtless various social and religious 

 practices accompanied these. 



* Ellis Polynesian Researches, i., 1832, p. 123. 



f Two suggestive facts may here be mentioned ; one is that Hillebrand 

 considers the Broussonetia or tappa plant, the most peculiar possession 

 of the Polynesian, to be a native of Japan ; the other that Japanese junks 

 have drifted to Hawaii with occupants still living. 



I Pritchard Polynesian Eeminiscences, 1866, p. 403. Of the Gilbert 

 Group, Wilkes wrote : That the islands have been peopled within a 

 period not very remote is believed by the natives themselves" (loc. cit., 

 v. p. 86). Kotzebue considered with regard to Bomanzoff Atoll in the 

 Marshall Group, that, " all the islands had been but lately inhabited," 

 (Voy. Discovery ii., 1821, p. 45). And Gill declared that, " The result of 

 my researches is the belief that the Hervey Islands have been inhabited 

 not more than six centuries," (Journ. Anthrop. Inst vi., 1877, p. 7). It 

 is stated (ante p. 61) that the presence of phosphate in the gardens is 

 inexplicable to me. Dr. Guppy's observations on the Keeling Islands 

 (Scot. Geogr. Mag., v., 1889, p. 292) have now made it clear to me 

 that this phosphate is a relic of the bird guano deposited before the 

 arrival of man. If the rate at which these phosphates disappear could 

 be ascertained, data would be available for calculating the time the islet 

 has been inhabited. On Cocos Keeling half a century had reduced it to 

 a trace. 



Compare the account on p. 61 ante with Journ. Polyn. Soc., i., p. 266 

 and with Wilkes U.S. Explor. Exped., v., Chap. III. 



