ORIGIN. 
431 
Tahiti is the name of the principal island in the 
group, called by Captain Cook the Georgian 
Islands. It is the Otaheite of Cook ; the Taiti of 
Bougainville; and the Taheitee , or Tahitee , of 
Forster. In the language of the Georgian and 
Society Islands, the word tahiti also signifies to 
pull up or take out of the ground, as herbs or 
trees are taken up with a view to transplantation, 
and to select or extract passages from a book or 
language, to be translated into another. Hence 
a book of scripture extracts is called, words, 
tahitihea. 
In the language of the Sandwich Islands, we do 
not know that the word is ever used in the latter 
sense, and very rarely in the former. It is gene¬ 
rally employed to denote any foreign country, and 
seems equivalent to the English word abroad, as 
applied to parts beyond the sea. But though this 
is the signification of the word among the Sand¬ 
wich Islanders at the present time, it is probable 
that it was primarily used to designate the whole 
of the southern group, or the principal island 
among them ; and it may lead us to infer, either 
that Tahiti, and the Georgian and Society Islands, 
were all the foreign countries the Hawaiians were 
acquainted with, or that they considered the Mar- 
quesian Islands contiguous, and politically con¬ 
nected with them, and that these being the only 
foreign countries originally known to them, they 
have applied the term to every other part with 
which they have subsequently become acquainted. 
In some of the ancient traditions of the Society 
Islanders, Opoa in Raiatea, the most celebrated 
place in the islands, the birth-place of Oro, and 
the spot where the human species were created, 
&c. is called Hawaii. 
