WHENCE PEOPLED. 123 
islands were first settled. Their genealogies ex¬ 
tend much farther back. I am not aware that 
Tahiti, or the name of any of the southern islands, 
is given to any part of the Sandwich Islands; 
yet in some of their traditions, Hawaii is men¬ 
tioned as the ancient name of Opoa; and Oro, 
who is by some described as both god and man, 
as having two bodies or forms, or being a kind of 
connecting link between the gods and men, is 
described as the first king of Hawaii, or Opoa 
in Raiatea. If it be supposed that any part of 
the American continent was settled by a maritime 
people, whether Malayan or Japanese, a portion 
of the same tribe who settled in Nootka, or 
whose remains are discovered in North America, 
might, in vessels corresponding with those in 
which they passed the straits, proceed southward 
to the Sandwich Islands, and thence spread over 
eastern Polynesia. 
In the practice of tatauing, and in other re¬ 
spects, the Battas of Sumatra, and the tribes found 
in some of the islands to the south-west of Suma¬ 
tra, who are regarded by Marsden as the descen¬ 
dants of the original inhabitants of this archipe¬ 
lago, especially the natives of the Poggi, or 
Nassau Islands, resemble the natives of Poly¬ 
nesia. Resemblances nearly, if not equally as 
strong, are found on the American continent. 
La Perouse describes the inhabitants of the 
country in the neighbourhood of the Baie des 
Fran^ais, as remarkably fair; and in their fea¬ 
tures, complexion, &c. bearing a strong resem¬ 
blance to the inhabitants of Mangeea, or, as the 
natives call it, Maonia, and the lighter coloured 
islanders of the Pacific. About lat. 36. N. the 
natives of the coast visited by Vancouver, are 
