"k."[1] It may be, that an "r" has been deleted, and the word might have been Hawa-riki, which of course means "little Hawa." But no Polynesian would, if this had been the case, use the form Hawaiki-nui (the great little Hawa). It seems to me more probable that the name may have been originally, Hawa-ariki or Hawa-the-regal, from ariki, eiki, aka-iki, etc., a high chief, king, firstborn, etc. Crawford in his "History of the Indian Archipelago," Vol. iii., p. 190, says: the name Java was derived from Indian sources, which is some evidence of it having been applied to some part of India itself, at one time.
However this may be, it seems clear, from the fact of finding this name widely spread in Indonesia, and from the other fact that it is connected with the origin of the race, we must seek some country further to the west than Indonesia for the original location of the name. Taken with the other evidence to be adduced, it apparently points to India as the Father-land of the race.
Tawhiti.
This name, under various forms according to the dialect in which it is found, is also a very ancient one, and like Hawaiki, has been applied to various lands occupied by the race. We have seen (page 47) that under the form Tawhiti-nui (or great Tawhiti) it was given to a mountain in the Paparoa-i-Hawaiki. This is probably the most distant locality in which it is found, so far as Maori history is concerned. I do not know if the name occurs in
- ↑ This change—as to the Hawaiian Islands—is known to have taken place in the last few years of the eighteenth century—and, indeed, it is not quite complete yet, for the Kauai people of the N.E. end of the Archipelago still use the "t."
