Come?

Whence Did They Come?

Theories of the Polynesian Migrations

By “Mahaena”

IT is, no doubt, presumptuous for a mere layman to question high authority on the controversial subject of Polynesian wanderings. But. after all. the interpre tations of myth and leg°nd relating to events of pre-history lead one’s mind along many diverse pathways. One more expedition can, therefore, do no more than cut a very narrow by-path into the jungle of the unknown.

The legends and traditions of Central Polynesia—so far as they have come to our knowledge, from early records and from the lips of venerable scholars who received them by word of mouth from their forebears —contain no indication of ancestral migration by way of the Micronesian islands.

One cannot easily vision a migration of any magnitude being able to sustain it self along so roundabout a course, over a broad waste of ocean, north of the line ('with only barren atolls as places for re freshment) to arrive fortuitously at the volcanic islands far south of the Equator.

It is most probable that the earliest migration was no precipitant flight of a whole people The Malay conquests of the islands of Indonesia were, doubtless, like most conquests of island realms, a matter of forays, then a foothold on the coast, followed by gradual encroachment into surrounding districts.

Foreseeing the inevitable, the Poly nesian leaders sent out exploring ex peditions to the east and, later, led com panies of settlers to establish bases for fresh explorations. The food plants car ried to and established on the newly discovered islands converted them into an extended line of provision stations. It is most likely that these were the mar ginal islands of Melanesia.

Any attempt at conquest of the thickly inhabited islands of Melanesia would have involved long wars; but it was com paratively easy to drive out or extermin ate the aborigines of the small marginal islands.

When, finally, the fertile, uninhabited lands of Western Polynesia became known, the line of migration had been established and provisioned.

Throughout Polynesia, it has been the custom to give to the main centres of settlement the name of the primitive homeland—Savai’i in the West; Havai’i in the centre; and Hawai’i in the North.

It is logical, then, to assume that Savai’i. in the Samoa archipelago—the most westerly—was the original place of settlement and point whence fresh ex peditions set forth to people the other islands. Havai’i (Ra’iatea) in. turn be came the centre of the settlement and diffusion in Central Polvnesifi.

There were continual comings and go ings and fresh waves of migration along the established routes. The Neo-Polynesian wave came centuries later.

There is no evidence that it came dir ectly from the homeland in Indonesia. A probable theory is that it emanated from Micronesia. The migrants to Micronesia may have been the clans and tribes who held the last districts of mountain and plain, in the homeland, against the Malay invaders. They were hardy of body and trained in the practice of arms. This training in arms was exercised in their

own dominions in repelling incursions of Mongoloid seafarers from the adjacent coasts of Asia.

The heroic age among the old Polynesians had long passed when these new invaders came. The Neo-Polynesians do not appear to have been very numerous.

They were a few high chiefs at the head of their retinues of able warriors, and a priestly caste.

During the centuries of their sojourn in Micronesia (probably on the volcanic islands of Ponape and Kusaie) these Polynesian high chiefs had set up a cult of tangaroa and elevated themselves to the august dignity of direct descendants from the creator of sea and land, and father of gods and men.

When the Mongoloid raider’s had established themselves on island after island, and had amalgamated with the indigenous inhabitants (as has usually been the custom of Mongoloids) the proud

Polynesian high chiefs, jealous of the purity of their blood, withdrew to the south, and contemplated the conquest of the populations of their own race, settled m the far-flung archipelago of Polynesia, The land on which they marshalled their forces, and from which they sent out on their expeditions, appears to have been the island of Rotuma, at the north of the Fiji Group. There they set up the sanctum sanctorum of their cult in a marae which was destined to play a major part in the subsequent history of Central Polynesia.

The first impact on Polynesia proper seems to have been the conquest of Tonga and the founding there of the dynasty of priestly Tui-Tonga rulers; sometime in the tenth century, The expedition which reached Central Polynesia most probably came directly from Rotuma, and was not an offshoot of the invasions into Tonga and Samoa;

for the Ra’iatea traditions clearly indi cate that communication with Rotuma was maintained until a comparatively late period.

Established in their possession of Havai’i (Ra’iatea) the high chiefs from Rotuma discovered that their mastery of Opoa, on that island, gave into their hands the most venerated temple in the islands —the ancestral marae, Feoro.

The corner-stones they had brought from the central temple of their cult in Rotuma were added to the structure of Feoro, which they re-built, re-dedicated and re-named Taputapuatea. They gave out that Oro, tha son of Ta’aroa, had been born at Opoa, and had accepted the re-dedicated marae as the centre of his worship.

In their quality as descendants of Ta’aroa, the Opoa high chiefs held out to the ruling families of other islands the dazzling bait of marriage alliances with the sons and daughters of the gods.

Taputapuatea was elevated to be the Olympus where all the gods of the pan theon were summoned (each by a ghostly messenger despatched by the high priest) to assemble, on the great day of the pai’atua ceremony; Tane, the chief deity of the old Polynesian settlers, holding the place of honour as the first to be sent for. The manner in which the chiefs and high priests of Opoa succeeded, by propa ganda. persuasion and diplomacy, rather than by force of arms, in extending their power and influence over a widely ex tended confederacy, bears witness to the masterly abilities of those leaders of long ago. But that is another story.

Our purpose in this writing has been only to record our idea of how Micronesia came to the central islands of Polynesia.

Dr. G. Barnes, District Medical Officer at Levuka, on Ovalau Island, Fiji, has been transferred to the main island of Viti Levu.

Mr. Tilak Dhari, one of the oldest Indian colonists in Fiji, died in Suva in May. He was 82 years of age. With his parents, he arrived in Fiji in the ship “Syria”, which ended her career on Naselai Reef in 1884. Mr. Dhari was em ployed for many years with the Navua Sugar Refining Co., and after completing

his time engaged in storekeeping and cane planting. During recent years he lived in retirement.

Major C. Duchatel, M.C., who has been in the Morobe District for some 13 years, has left New Guinea for Australia, to join the A.I.P. He was a surveyor in the service of the Administration, at first; then he resigned and took up a mining lease at Sunshine. He disposed of this to a company prior to his departure.