CHAPTER IV.
THE POLYNESIANS ORIGINATED IN INDIA.
In considering the traditions of the various branches of the Potynesian race, as to their origin, it is undoubtedly the case, that these all point to the west as the direction by which they entered the Pacific. Those authors who have had a sufficient knowlege of the race and their traditions to be able to form an opinion on the subject, have all agreed in this particular.[1] Ellis, in his "Polynesian Researches," 1829, after several years residence in Tahiti, came to this conclusion; though he subsequently seems rather to have modified it by suggesting that they first crossed the Pacific to the coasts of North America and thence back to the islands. Fornander in his "Polynesian Race," 1878, who has certainly studied the traditions available to him, more than most writers, also believed they came from India, but prior to that from Saba, on the south-east coast of Arabia. F. D. Fenton, late Chief Judge of the Native Land Court, N.Z., in his "Suggestions for
- ↑ Whilst I would include Mr. A. Lesson amongst those who have studied the race in their homes, and who, in his four large volumes "Les Polynésiens" (containing a very large amount of information about them) has come to an opposite conclusion, I should scarce allow him to have a comprehensive understanding of the traditions. His theory is, that the Polynesians are autocthones, originating in the South Island of New Zealand, which, he thinks, is the Hawaiki of tradition. For this there is no foundation at all.
