visit of Captain Cook in 1778, the islanders remained isolated from the rest of the world. Recent researches, since the time of Fornander, however, go to prove that a Spanish navigator, Juan Gaetano, really discovered the group in the year 1555.[1] It has been a matter of some enquiry as to what was the cause of this cessation of vovages to Hawaii, after they had endured for some one hundred and seventy-five years, or from the year 1150 to 1325. This story has shown the great probability that some of these voyagers were the Rarotonga-Maori branch of the race then residing in Tahiti, Marquesas and the Eastern Pacific. In 1250 a large party of these bold adventurers settled in Rarotonga, and in 1350 others removed to New Zealand. This being so, it seems to me that new outlets having been found for their energies, and the boldest navigators of the race having found fresh lands on which to settle, there no longer remained the strong inducement to keep up communication with Hawaii that had previously existed—they no longer required the Hawaiian lands on which to settle, and so the voyages ceased.
The expedition of Onokura to Iva, (Marquesas) described above, is not the only one we hear of at this period. In the times of Onokura (circa 1100) according to the genealogies, there lived in Rangi-ura—one of the islands to the north of Fiji—a chief named Anga-takurua, whose ancestor Rua-taunga, seven generations before him, or say about the year 925, was still living in Avaiki-atia, or Indonesia. Whilst living at Rangi-ura, there came on a visit to Anga-takurua, a chief named Makea, which is the first of that celebrated family we hear of, under that name,, in the Native History. Makea's visit was to obtain men
- ↑ W. D. Alexander's "A Brief History of the Hawaiian People, 1891."
