Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 121 



Mexican tambo is unquestionably the same word as the Polynesian 

 taboo, as they both signify the same thing. 



Perhaps, however, the most remarkable feature in the civilisa- 

 tion of the Indo- American nations was their picture writing and 

 their hieroglyphics ; by which they were enabled to transmit to 

 posterity a knowledge of the memorable events of successive ages. 

 The progress made by the Mexicans in these arts of a higher 

 civilisation was truly wonderful, ard the long columns of 

 hieroglyphics, carved in stone on their colossal monuments, and 

 resembling in some measure the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, 

 carry us back, as almost everything else does in Indo-American 

 civilisation, to the remotest period in the history of man. 

 Unfortunately there has as yet been no Champellion, as in Egypt ; 

 no Rawlinson, as in Assyria, to interpret these wonderful remains 

 of an extinct civilisation ; but although there are no such remains 

 as the picture writing of the ancient Mexicans in the South Sea 

 Islands, it is quite evident that the Polynesians were on the right 

 track towards the much higher level of the chroniclers and the 

 picture writers of Mexico, and that all that was wanting for the 

 development of their idea was a suitable field, which the com- 

 paratively narrow limits of the South Sea Islands and their small 

 population did not present. " Along the southern coast of the 

 Island of Hawaii," says Mr. Ellis, in his Polynesian Researches, 

 " both on the east and west sides, we frequently saw a number of 

 straight lines, semi-circles, or concentric rings, with some rude 

 imitations of the human fignre, cut or carved in the compact 

 rocks of lava. They did not appear to have been cut with an 

 iron instrument, but with a stone hatchet, or a stone less fran- 

 gible than the rock on which they were pourtrayed. On inquiry, 

 we found that they had been made by former travellers, from a 

 motive similar to that which induces a person to carve his initials 

 on a stone or tree, or a traveller to record his name in an album 

 — to inform his successors that he has been there. When there 

 were a number of concentric circles with a dot or mark in the 

 centre, the dot signified a man, and the number of rings the 

 number of the party who had circumambulated the island. When 

 there was a ring, and a number of marks, it denoted the same, 

 the number of marks shewing of how many the party consisted, 

 and the ring, that they had travelled completely round the island ; 

 but when there was only a semi-circle, it denoted that they had 

 returned after reaching the place where it was made."* 



I am inclined to differ from Mr. Ellis when he regards these 

 rude specimens of picture writing as the first efforts of an uncivi- 

 lised people towards the construction of a language of symbols. 

 I am inclined to regard them, in common with those colossal 



* 1'olyBesian Researches, vol. iv., 459. 



