126 Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 



tiees — tattooing and cuttings for the dead — which were doubtless 

 common in ancient Egypt and among the earlier postdiluvian 

 nations, were expressly forbidden in the laws of Moses to the 

 children of Israel, as we find in the Book of Leviticus, chap. xix. 

 28 ; " Te shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, 

 nor print any marks upon You ; I am the Lord." The practice 

 of tattooing has all along been a national practice among the 

 South Sea Islanders, although long disused in some of the islands ; 

 and the Rev. Mr. West informs us that it is still occasionally 

 observed among the Indians of Hudson's Bay. 



There are various other practices or observances common to 

 the Polynesians and Indo-Americans which I shall merely enu- 

 merate without dwelling upon them at any length. The necessity 

 for utu, or satisfaction for any injury received, and the cherishing 

 of feuds arising in this way for generations, is equally distinctive 

 of the New Zealanders and the Indo-Americans, especially those 

 of the northern continent. The manufacture of an inoxicating 

 beverage from a root, called in the South Sea Islands, cava, and 

 in the equatorial regions of America, cassava, evidently the same 

 word, is equally common to both, as well as the very singular and 

 disgusting mode of its manufacture ; the root being chewed in 

 some instances by boys, in others by young women, and in others 

 again, as among the Cunas, at the Isthmus of Darien, by old 

 women ; the residuum being collected in a large vessel and water 

 poured over it, thereby inducing fermentation, The mode of 

 catching fish also by throwing an intoxicating herb or root into 

 the water: the separation of women, and prohibiting them from 

 touching their food with their own hands for a certain time after 

 childbirth, and the caste of blood being transmissable through 

 the female and not through the male, are also equally common to 

 both of these very ancient races of the family of man. 



I have thus shown, I trust to the satisfaction of the Society, 

 that the forefathers of the Polynesian race were separated from 

 the rest of mankind, in the very infancy of the postdiluvian world, 

 in the remotest ages in the history of man. I have also shewn 

 that at the period at which this separation took place, the world 

 must have been in a comparatively advanced state of civilisation, 

 implying at least very considerable skill in the arts of life, and 

 great ability in the use and management of the mechanical pow- 

 ers. I have shown, moreover, that the impression of this primi- 

 tive civilisation must have been photographed, so to speak, on 

 the Polynesian mind, to be reproduced wherever they went, in 

 every suitable field. I have likewise shown, that after having 

 crossed over almost the whole extent of the broadest part of the 

 Pacific, the amphibious Islanders reached at length the farthest 

 east of the inhabited islands of that ocean, viz : — Easter Island, 

 in latitude 276 S., and from that island, which is only about 



