122 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
rica, sailed either from California or Mexico across 
the Pacific, under the favouring influence of the 
regular easterly winds, peopled Easter Island, and 
continued under the steady easterly or trade-winds 
advancing westward till they met the tide of emigra¬ 
tion flowing from the larger groups or islands, in 
which the Malays form the majority of the popula¬ 
tion—it is not now easy to determine. But a variety 
of facts connected with the past and present circum¬ 
stances of the inhabitants of these countries, autho¬ 
rize the conclusion, that, either part of the present 
inhabitants of the South Sea Islands came origi¬ 
nally from America, or that tribes of the Polyne¬ 
sians have, at some remote period, found their way 
to the continent. 
If the opinion of some American antiquaries be 
correct, that the skeletons found in the caverns of 
Kentucky and Tennessee are those of a Malay tribe, 
and some of the bodies were wrapped in feather 
cloaks, similar to those used “in the Sandwich and 
Figi islands,'” and “the best defined specimens of 
art among the antiquities of Ohio and Kentucky are 
clearly of a Polynesian characterit would appear 
that the North Americans, Polynesians, and Malays 
were formerly the same people, or had one common 
origin. The difficulties in the passage of the first 
inhabitants from the American continent, to the 
most eastern islands of the Pacific, are not greater 
than must have attended the passage of the same 
tribe between the Society and Sandwich Islands ; 
and yet the identity of the inhabitants of these is 
unequivocal. It is difficult to say which group 
was first peopled. Evidence of great antiquity, 
compared with the peopling of smaller islands, may 
be adduced in favour of each; but I am, for 
various reasons, disposed to think the northern 
