who possibly may be identified with the Rarotonga Te Tumu {the "origin or root") who married Papa ("earth, foundation") as being most reliable. From him to the present day are 93 generations, which as Te Tumu was the father of Te Nga-taito-ariki, is exactly the same as the Rarotongan. I apprehend, however, this very close agreement to be accidental—it might well have differed 7 or 8 generations, and yet the individuals might be the same. From Kumuhonua to Wakea, whose wife was Papa, there are 37 generations, and Wakea is possibly the Atea shown on Rarotonga lines as the brother of Te Nga-taito-ariki; if so, there is a discrepancy of 37 generations.
If the Marquesan Atea is the same as the Rarotongan, then we get greater discrepancies still. Mr. Lawson gives the number from Atea to the present day as 74 generations; Mr. Christian as 123, and 140; and Commodore Porter as 88. Commodore Porter spent several months in the Marquesas in 1813, in command of an American squadron, and learnt a good deal about the natives. It will not be too much to add two generations to his number, which will make the period of Aotea 90 generations back from 1850 as against the 92 of Rarotongan, a difference not too great to allow of their being the same person. But the Marquesan genealogies in their earlier parts contain the names of islands,[1] and otherwise do not seem reliable. There is nothing but the name, moreover, to connect this Atea with that of Rarotonga.[2]
- ↑ It is of course possible that names of islands might have been borne by their ancestors, of which other illustrations might be given; but the order in which they come, causes me to be doubtful of them.
- ↑ Since the above was in type, information has come to hand in reference to Atea, the ancestor of the Aitutaki islanders, who flourished 64 generations ago; and this Atea I take to be identical with the Marquesan ancestor, of 74 generations ago, who did not live in the ancient Hawaiki, but in one of the stopping places in Indonesia—Papa-nui, referred to later on.
