﻿J. T. Thomson. — The Whence of the Mao7i. , 45 



does lie appear to have been imbued with the habit, that when he actually 

 visited the haunts of these vei'y lUanuns that I now mention, he did not 

 consider the subject worthy of notice. 



The next cause is over-population and wars of extrusion caused by this. 

 The worsted party, or remnants of such, are too frequently the subjects of 

 tradition or history to i-equire illustration. ^neas fled to Latium ; and even 

 in ISTew Zealand here we are not without examples, though humble and 

 obscure. Thus Reko, well known to old Otago settlers, fled from the bloody 

 inroad of Rauparaha, in his native place, Kaiapoi, to Tuturau, a distance of 240 

 miles — thus, with his family and followers, founding a new settlement in one 

 generation, at a distance from his birth place of one-third the whole length of 

 New Zealand. This is a very small distance compared with the modern 

 migrations of the whites, yet to a savage people such are more difficult than 

 passages by sea, and in the distance between South India and New Zealand via 

 Hawaiki, supposing such was the measure of migrations in each generation, it 

 would require only thirty-three to carry them ; so counting a generation thirty 

 years, the time would be 990 years. The traditions of the Maoris, as related 

 in the " Story ot New Zealand," by Dr. Thomson, set forth that they left 

 Hawaiki owing to civil war causing a chief named Ngahue to flee the covintry. 

 His accounts of the new country on his return incited others to migrate, and 

 the names of the canoes that carried the exjoedition were even given. These 

 were of the double construction now long disused ; yet they were held in use 

 till the time of Van Diemen, who encountered them in the year of his 

 discovery of the islands, 1642, and they appear, from his account, to have been 

 very formidable. The date of the first landing of the Maori in New Zealand, 

 as given by Dr. Thomson, is about the year 1419. 



The third cause, viz., storms, drifting, and loss of course, though very 

 frequent, cannot have had the extensive influence that the two preceding have 

 had, especially on distant points. 



The fourth cause, viz., mercantile adventux'e, would not aflfect a rude tribe, 

 though it may be mentioned that the Bugis extend their voyages from North 

 Australia to Sumatra, a distance equal to that from Ternati to Hawaiki, and 

 from the latter place to the extreme islands of Polynesia. 



The only place in Polynesia in which American remnants have been found 

 is Easter Island ; these consist of huge images, but the people who constructed 

 them have passed away, and have been succeeded by a race having a common 

 origin with the Maori, Sandwich, and Marquesas Islanders, all referable to 

 Hawaiki. The distance of the Sandwich Islands from Hawaiki, as the crow 

 flies, is 1,440 geographical miles, and between which there are such frequent 

 intermediate islands as to present favourable resting places, and for wooding 

 and watering. Looking at the prevailing winds, however, the course taken 



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