432 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
It is an opinion generally received, that the 
various tribes inhabiting the islands of the Pacific, 
have an Asiatic, and probably a Malayan, origin. 
Applied to a great part of them, this opinion is 
supported by a variety of facts ; but with respect 
to those groups with which we are acquainted, 
additional evidence appears necessary, to confirm, 
such a conclusion. 
The natives of the eastern part of New Holland, 
and the intertropical islands within thirty degrees 
east, including New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, 
and the Figiis, appear to be one nation, and in 
all probability came originally from the Asiatic 
islands, to the northward, as their skin is black, 
and their hair woolly or crisped, like the inhabit¬ 
ants of the mountainous parts of several of the 
Asiatic islands, But the inhabitants of all the 
islands to the east of the Figiis, including the 
Friendly Islands and New Zealand, though they 
have many characteristics in common with these, 
have a number essentially distinct. 
The natives of Chatham Island and New Zea¬ 
land, in the south; the Sandwich Islands, in the 
north; the Friendly Islands, in the west; and all 
the intermediate islands, as far as Easter Island, 
in the east, are one people. Their mythology, 
traditions, manners and customs, language, and 
physical appearance, in their main features, are, 
so far as we have had an opportunity of becoming 
acquainted with them, identically the same, yet 
differing in many respects from those of the islands 
to the westward of Tongatabu. 
The dress of the Figiians, &c. is not the same 
as that of the natives of New Zealand, Tahiti, and 
the other islands; they do not appear to wear the 
cloak, or the tiputa . In war, they throw long 
