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Vikings of the Sunrise
A regional survey of Polynesia was undertaken by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum under the guidance of its Director, Professor
The project was so appealing to one of Polynesian blood that I relinquished my position as Director of Maori Hygiene in New Zealand and joined the staff of the Bishop Museum as an ethnologist to aid in the fieldwork. The reports of fieldworkers are of necessity somewhat technical, and, though of the greatest value to science, they do not reach the general reader. This work is an attempt to make known to the general public some of the romance associated with the settlement of Polynesia by a stone-age people who deserve to rank among the world's great navigators.
I have tried to tell the tale from the evidence in Polynesian myths regarding the creation of man and of islands, and in legends and traditions of the great seafaring ancestors and their voyages. Though the story is not intended for critical anthropologists, I have mentioned various customs and usages that I deem of interest to them and to the general reader. I have introduced personal incidents, wherever possible, to give the story a more human atmosphere.
I have drawn freely from the works published by the Museum, and I am greatly indebted to the staff of the Museum for their assistance and above all for their criticism. While it is invidious to select from so many advisers, I must acknowledge my gratitude to
Of Polynesian words and names, I have kept to the spelling of the particular group and used the hamza or inverted comma for. consonants that have been dropped, even though the present written language takes no note of them. The inclusion of the glottal in Hawai‘i shows more clearly its affinity with Hawai‘i in central Polynesia than the present official spelling of Hawaii.
I am grateful to Bob Davis of the New York Sun for encouraging me to make this presentation of the Polynesian romance to the English-reading public. The Sun's man has travelled 1,250,000 miles around the world without reference to the rising or the setting of the sun. He has written nine travel books and his opinion that there was need for a book dealing with old-time travels across the Pacific in the trail of the rising sun has greatly stimulated the production of this work.
I may be criticized for applying the term vikings to the Polynesian ancestors, but the term has come to mean bold, intrepid mariners and so is not the monopoly of the hardy Norsemen of the North Atlantic. To the Polynesians, the sunset symbolized death and the spirit land to which they returned, but the sunrise was the symbol of life, hope, and new lands that awaited discovery. I am hopeful that Vikings of the Sunrise will reach my kinsmen in the
Stone image from Raivavae near Papeete Museum, Tahiti; with the author beside it
Tahiti
Tatakoto, Tuamotu
Talking chief, Samoa
Rurutu, Austral Islands
Hawaii
Hawaii
Hao, Tuamotu
Amanau, Tuamotu
Tongan double canoe, showing lateen sail with apex down at bow
Tahitian double canoe with vertical spritsail
High chief of Rennell Island ready to receive guests
A high chief of Rennell Island in Melanesia. The island is inhabited by a tattooed people speaking a Polynesian dialect
People of Porapora (Vavau) assembled for a dance
The coronation pillar named Te Papa-ia-ruea at Taputapu-atea, with
Temple altar of Faretai at Maeva on Huahine; similar to Taputapu-atea
Ancient Vavau (Porapora), the first high volcanic island sighted on eastward voyages to central Polynesia
Tahitian fleet mobilized for an expedition
The unique temple of Mahaiatea, erected in 1769, which gave rise to mistaken theories of affinity with the pyramids of Egypt
Chiefs of the Makea-Karika tribe of Rarotonga, clad in bark cloth
Rarotongan high priest on the temple of Arai-te-tonga with the pillar of investiture named Taumakeva
Corner pillar of Rauhara temple, in Tongareva. Note the curb stones set on edge
Outrigger fishing canoe from Mitiaro, Cook Islands, showing method of carrying
Altar of temple of Te Reinga on Penrhyn Island
Marquesan stone image
Partly tattooed warrior from the Marquesas; note hair, club, and shell trumpet
Western curve of Hao atoll Te Taitau Fort, Rapa
Phase in ceremony to promote abundance of food at Vahitahi, Tuamotu
Investiture pillars on the Ramapohia temple, Fagatau atoll
Plank fishing canoe from Tatakoto, Tuamotu; note inner lagoon and coconut covered islets
Outrigger canoes with mat sails on the Lagoon of Napuka atoll
Mangareva Island, showing Mt. Duff
Temple ruin on Temoe atoll; built by Mangarevan fugitives
The bird islet of Moto-nui seen from the crater village of Orongo
Tattooed Easter Islander
Carved rocks at Orongo showing bird man holding an egg
Tattooed Maori, showing curvilinear designs peculiar to New Zealand
Easter Island image on slopes of Rano Raruku
Hawaiian canoes going out to meet Captain
Walled temple (heiau) at Waimea, Kauai, Hawaiian Islands
Poki, Hawaiian high chief, and wife Liliha in native garments
Hawaiian temple image in wood
House panel, New Zealand; showing excellence of carver's work
New Zealand war canoe; note carved bow and stern pieces
Maori river canoe; note flax plants from which clothing was made
Maori carver at work on a door lintel
Young Maori woman of good type
Maori woman with tattooed chin and wearing native garments
Maori woman weaving; men sparring with clubs
The great trilithon, Tongatabu
Tomb of the Tongan kings, Tongatabu
Interior of Samoan house, showing three central pillars and curved rafters on either side
Samoan round house with chiefs sitting in council
Excavation for planting taro on an atoll
Samoan feast; with typical houses in the background
Irrigated taro plantation on a volcanic island; coconut leaves laid over young plants to prevent the growth of weeds
Vikings of the Sunrise
The fame of your canoes can never be dimmedThe canoes which crossed the ocean depths,The purple sea, the Great-Ocean-of-Kiwa,Which lay stretched before them.Maori Lament
The Mediterranean Sea, locked in by land on all sides like a lake, except for its narrow western opening between the Pillars of Hercules, was the great sea of the Caucasian ancients. On the shores of the ‘Purple Sea’, as Homer called it, early civilizations rose and fell. The Phœnician sailors who reached the zenith of seacraft in that area ran no risk of being lost on wide expanses of angry waters. On their most daring expeditions they hugged the western coasts of Spain and France and slipped across the English Channel to exploit the tin mines of Cornwall. Even if ‘once upon a time’ they groped their way around the continent of Africa, it is doubtful whether that particular Odyssey ever lost sight of land. They could call in at any time to replenish food supplies and water and drop anchor near land until storms passed by. They followed the shoreline and had no need of consulting the stars above the open seas. In spite of having metal tools with which to build seagoing ships, the Phœnicians were coastwise folk.
When history dawned on the shores of the North Sea, it
More courageous Vikings sailed out of the narrow seas into the unknown north Atlantic. They discovered and colonized Iceland and Greenland. On a voyage to Greenland, a Viking was driven to the west and reported sighting an island upon which he did not land. Leif Ericsson, a son of Eric the Red, intrigued by the tale of land to the west, sailed forth in 1003 a.d. and reached the eastern coast of North America. He coasted south to some part of what is now New England and named it Vineland. This was a dazzling achievement, and yet the Vikings, with all the courage needed to breed deep-sea sailors, kept to the familiar northern seas and were not lured by the beckoning stars toward the wider expanses of the southern ocean.
The widest part of the Atlantic was eventually crossed by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Europe was attracted by reports of the wealth of the Great Khan and the riches of Cipango and far-away Cathay. The transport of goods by land took too long, and so Columbus, inspired by a superb conviction that the world was round, sought to shorten the time of transport by sailing west across the Atlantic to reach the distant east. He set forth with a letter from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to the Great Khan to establish commercial contact between India and Spain. The seamen did not share their leader's theory about the shape of the world, and, as they sailed farther and farther from land, their fears of dropping over the edge of a square world brought them
Startling and momentous as were the discovery of a vast new continent and the confirmation of Columbus' new theory, the conquest of the seas by Europeans had scarcely begun. Between America and Asia stretched the largest of all oceans, beside which the explorations on other oceans seem puny by comparison. When later Balboa stood ‘silent upon a peak in Darien’ and gazed on the Pacific with a ‘wild surmise’, he was justified, for he was the first European to behold the Great Ocean stretching out to infinity from the shores of the new continent. Yet long before Columbus made his great voyage, a stone-age people, in efficient crafts, had crossed the Pacific from continent to continent across its widest part and had colonized every habitable island within its vast interior.
After the discovery of America, the continent was explored, settled, and exploited by Europeans. It gave refuge to those seeking freedom from the oppression of the older countries, and tales of wealth and rich resources lured adventurers, traders, and buccaneers. New lands were developed on the eastern shores of North America in addition to the older gold-seeking colonies in South America. Commerce grew, and the maritime centre of gravity which had swung from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Sea, passed on to the Atlantic Ocean.
Finally European interest and curiosity expanded westward to embrace the Pacific. Belated exploration of the Pacific by European navigators, equipped at least with compass and sextant, opened up new commercial prospects. Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Americans, and British, all made their contributions in rediscoveries and imposed their own names on islands already named by the original native discoverers. Great Britain, by colonizing Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, supplied the present human boundaries to the south Pacific. Between Australia and Asia, Holland established her rule over a large indigenous population. Great Britain and France extended their influence to the southeast corner of the continent of Asia. Spain, after colonizing the Philippines and Marianas Islands, relinquished her possessions and left the United States to puzzle over a problem. The Asiatic western boundary remained under the power of the original Mongoloid settlers, but Russia crept in on the extreme north. The western coast of South America had been infused by peoples of Spanish stock. The western coast of North America had been peopled by Anglo-Saxons who spread from the Atlantic coast and maintained contact with the eastern seaboard through railways.
Today the shores of the Pacific are peopled by teeming millions beside which the population of Europe dwindles ever into less importance. Increased trade and an ever-increasing population in eastern Asia are causing the centre of world interest to swing from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Small islands in its vast interior, hitherto of no economic interest, have assumed an extraordinary value because of their strategic position with regard to airway transport. Great countries have come to realize that islands in the Pacific can be used as outposts of defence for their huge continental
The Pacific Ocean is bounded on the west by the continent of Asia and on the southwest by the closely set islands of Indonesia and the large island of New Guinea. South of New Guinea lies the continent of Australia, and southeast of New Guinea stretch the high islands of Melanesia, extending nearly 2000 miles into the Pacific to end in Fiji. Geologists hold that the islands of Indonesia, New Guinea, and Melanesia are continental islands which form a southeastern extension of the ancient land mass of Asia with which they were connected in remote ages. They have had their various ups and downs, and at the dawn of human history they formed a broken Asiatic corridor into the Pacific.
The eastern boundary of the Pacific is formed by the western coast of the two Americas, which stretch in unbroken continuity from Bering Sea to Cape Horn. Bering Strait in the north interposes but thirty-six miles of water between Asia and America. In past geological times, this ocean gap may have been further closed by a land bridge, whose broken-down pillars may be represented by the Diomede Islands. Farther to the south, the Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutian chain of islands, the Komondorski, and the Bering Islands form a series of stepping-stones from Asia to America. Even without these land bridges, the frozen sea in winter could provide a broad pathway for the migrations of early man without any need for a knowledge of seacraft.
After man appeared on this earth of ours, he grew and multiplied. When numbers grew too large for the food supplies of the region originally occupied, groups were forced to venture farther afield. Some groups were forced to move by the surge of hordes behind them; others ventured
Early man probably originated somewhere in ancient Asia, and, through causes as yet but dimly understood, developed into different types. These have been grouped into three main divisions: Mongoloid, Negroid, and Europoid (Caucasian). The Mongoloids peopled the entire eastern coast of Asia, spreading north to cross dry-shod over the narrow northern extremity of the Pacific and colonizing the two Americas from Alaska to Cape Horn. In the age-long wanderings before the southern outposts were established, they skirted wide rivers and mountain ranges, but ever they travelled on foot to the regions they were destined to occupy. Thus the continental boundaries stretching for thousands of miles on either side of the Great Ocean were peopled primarily by pedestrians of Mongoloid stock.
The Negroids early divided into two branches: the Continental Negroids who moved west and south into Africa, and the Oceanic Negroids who wandered east and were forced by peoples behind them down the Asiatic corridor into the Pacific. Each of the Negroid branches had a pygmy or Negrito branch. The Negrito branch of the Oceanic Negroids is held to have been the earliest group to be pushed off the mainland of Asia. They were shoved aside by later waves of people and survive today in the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman Islands, and the mountains of the Philippines and New Guinea.
The next people to move down the Asiatic corridor were the Australian aborigines, who reached New Guinea and crossed to Australia. They belong to Dravidian stock, and their nearest relatives are the Veddas of Ceylon. Their hair is straight or wavy but never frizzy or woolly. In spite of their dark colour, scientific investigation as to their blood grouping proves conclusively that they are not Negroids but that their next of kin are among the races of the north and west of the Mediterranean area. Wood Jones sums up the problem by saying that Australia received its primitive animals such as the monotremes and marsupials when Australia was connected with the Asiatic land masses, but became separated ‘before the higher mammals, like cats and deer, and rabbits and monkeys had arrived in southern Asia’. Australia was, therefore, ‘an island continent before man or any of his poor relations could avail themselves of land bridges’. The Australian aborigines, with their women and their dogs, must, therefore, have reached Australia by sea, ‘not as a castaway, but as the navigator of a seaworthy boat’. The aborigine deserves all honour for his achievement early in the stone age.
Next down the Asiatic corridor came the Oceanic Negroids who, by massing in New Guinea, drove the Negritos into the mountain fastnesses and perhaps completed the evacuation of the Australian aborigines. In response to the urge to seek out new lands, a section of the Negroids moved down along the chain of continental islands now known as Melanesia to the southeast of New Guinea. Those who remained behind are known as the Papuans and those who moved on are designated as Melanesians. Between the high volcanic islands the sea distances are comparatively short and could be crossed by primitive craft without venturing into wide
The most travelled group of the Negroids are those who by will or accident found their way to the island of Tasmania, south of Australia. The Tasmanians have woolly hair and come of a stock distinct from the Australian aboriginals. The people most like them in physical appearance are the Melanesians of New Caledonia. The evidence is all against the hypothesis that the Tasmanians traversed by foot the entire length of the Australian continent to arrive at Bass Strait which separates Tasmania from Australia. A long sea voyage from New Caledonia to Tasmania seems equally impossible. It appears certain, however, that the Tasmanians must have reached the eastern coast of Australia by some form of craft from a Melanesian island and perhaps by short coastal voyages reached Bass Strait and crossed over to the unoccupied island of Tasmania. They successfully survived the ordeals of the sea, but they were brutally exterminated by the Europoids who came centuries later.
The Europoids migrated from the Asiatic centre westward into Europe, and types exist in India, hither Asia, and northern Africa. Except for the Australian aborigines and the equally puzzling Ainu of Japan, the Europoids apparently had little to do with the early peopling of the Pacific boundaries. Their main hordes had turned their backs on the Orient and arrived at the Occident. Thus East remained East and West became West.
The western and eastern boundaries of the Great Ocean were thus settled by landsmen. The Asiatic corridor was peopled also by landsmen who were coastwise folk. They had neither sufficient push from behind nor the inward urge
For untold centuries after the boundaries of the Pacific had been peopled by man, these islands remained isolated and unoccupied save by land shells, insects, reptiles, and birds. Even the native flora was meagre as regards potential food for man. The coconut palm, the banana, and the breadfruit, now so characteristic of the oceanic flora, awaited human transport. The westerly winds and the constant trades blew over empty seas, for no primitive navigator had yet dared to raise a matting sail to waft him to waiting islands. Years after countless years, the Pleiades rose on the eastern horizon, but no man hailed their coming with dance and song as the sign of the new year. The stars rose and travelled across the sky, but no craft groped its way across unknown waters by their aid. The moon waxed and waned, but its phases went unstudied. Fish spawned, increased, and went their unhampered way through reef channels into silent and unlit lagoons. The Ocean Maid in her tumultuous
Waves of the ocean are breasted by the bow of the canoe,Waves of men are surmounted by human courage.Maori Proverb
What manner of men were they who, by surpassing the achievements of the Phœnicians in the Mediterranean and the Vikings of the north Atlantic, are worthy of being called the supreme navigators of history?
The tourist's opinion as to race distinction, based so often on personal prejudices, is of little worth. It is only fair to human beings that they should be studied with the same courtesy that is extended to plants, insects, fish, birds, and lower mammals. What would we think of an alleged botanist who stated that a plant was a new species of a particular genus without publishing a careful description of the plant and giving his reasons for assigning it to its place in the plant kingdom? Yet a statement has been made in an official Government handbook that the Samoans are the purest branch of the Polynesians. Those who realize the amount of careful work that must be done cannot but be astounded at the confidence of lay statements which apparently issue from some form of popular inspiration that requires no proof. No statement as to the manner of men can be accepted by intelligent people unless it is based upon a sufficiently large
Much importance has been attached to what has been termed the cephalic index. This index is merely the ratio of the greatest breadth of the head from side to side to the greatest length from before back. If the breadth is 75 per cent of the length or less, the head is proportionally long. If it is 80 per cent and more, it is proportionally short or, what is the same thing, broad. People are thus classified as long headed (dolichocephalic) and short or broad headed (brachycephalic). The heads between 75 and 80 per cent fall into a kind of no man's land that can be exploited from either trench. The classifications are established from exact measurements made by trained observers with special instruments designed for the purpose. The same need for meticulous accuracy applies to the measurements of the nose, face, and other parts of the human body. Among any group of people there is a wide range, and it is necessary to measure a sufficiently large number of individuals to correct individual abnormalities. The opinions of untrained men without a scientific technique are worthless. There is only one way by which we can arrive at an understanding of the physical characters of a people and that is by measurements, measurements, and yet more measurements.
Human beings, as the result of innumerable measurements and careful observations by trained scientists, may be divided into the three main divisions already mentioned: Negroids, Mongoloids, and Europoids. Without going into tiresome details, let us take a few outstanding characters that distinguish the three divisions. The Negroid is characterized by a long head, woolly hair, black skin, short wide nose with
Until recent years our knowledge of the racial characteristics of the Polynesians was extremely scanty. Students had to rely on the comparatively few skulls that had been secretly filched from burial places and had found their way into modern mausoleums provided by museums. Professor
After acquiring a knowledge of human anatomy, however, I determined to contribute to the material on Polynesian somatology by measuring the heads of a number of my living countrymen. Six years as a member of Parliament and four years' service as medical officer with New Zealand troops during the Great War temporarily distracted me. With the
Bishop Museum of Honolulu, Hawai‘i, was the first scientific institution to study the problem of measuring living Polynesians on a comprehensive scale. For its programme of research work on the native people of Polynesia, commenced in 1920 through the Bayard Dominick fund and aided later by the Rockefeller Foundation and local patrons, the field workers were equipped with instruments and cards and worked out a uniform method of procedure. The cards returned by expeditions were collated by Dr. Louis Sullivan and after his death in 1925 by Dr.
The taking of measurements in the field is rather difficult for the student specializing in some other branch of the study of man, such as functionalism. People have to be brought together and their interest maintained during the long monotonous process of recording data and measuring. Individuals with a very dark skin or an unusually broad nose are susceptible to the witticisms of the waiting audience. Interest in a strange technique wanes, and those who have satisfied their curiosity but have not been measured are apt to go off fishing. On the Island of Mangaia in the Cook group, where I temporarily occupied the position of magistrate, I
As a result of the studies made on the living in all parts of Polynesia, it is evident that the master mariners of the Pacific must be Europoid for they are not characterized by the woolly hair, black skins, and thin lower legs of the Negroids nor by the flat face, short stature, and drooping inner eyefold of the Mongoloids. Like other Europoids, the Polynesians show a wide range of variation in head form. Shapiro has pointed out remarkable homogeneity in certain characters that result in a relatively narrow and high forehead with a wide face. In general, however, there is a preponderance of short heads in central Polynesia, in Hawai‘i, and to some extent in Samoa and Tonga; and an extreme of long heads in New Zealand, which becomes modified in Mangaia and the atolls of Manihiki and Rakahanga in the Cook Islands, appears in the Marquesas, eastern Tuamotus, Mangareva, and becomes extreme in the eastern outpost of
That this intermixture took place with invading hordes of Mongoloids in Indonesia may be admitted. It may even be possible that a Mongoloid vanguard followed the Polynesians
The significance of head form may be left to the specialists to decide, when the measurements of the entire area come to be analyzed. Both long and short heads may have been inherited from a varied Europoid ancestry. Sufficient for the day is the fact that a tall, athletic people without woolly hair or a Mongoloid eyefold had the ability and courage to penetrate into the hitherto untraversed seaways of the central and eastern Pacific.
We came from Hawaiki-the-GreatFrom Hawaiki-the-Long, from Hawaiki-the-Distant.Maori Legend
Hawaiki is a symbol of the distant home whence came the ancestors of the first discoverers of the heart of the Pacific. The peoples on the western base of the Polynesian triangle at Samoa and Tonga speak of Pulotu as the land to which the soul of man returns ‘along the slippery path, the sliding path of death’. Most of those who penetrated farther into the triangle cherish the memory of a homeland in distant Hawaiki. From Hawaiki, their ancestors set out on the trail of the rising sun, and to Hawaiki the souls of their dead return along the golden train cast on the ocean by the dying rays of the setting sun. It is as it should be; the morning sun for youth and adventure, the setting sun for age and rest.
Whither the souls of our ancestors arrived we may not know, for the Maori poet says, ‘They have passed along the path that beckons the thousands, the path that calls the myriads, the path that sends no messenger to the rear.’ On almost every island from Samoa to Easter, from Hawai‘i to New Zealand, there is a traditional departing-place-of-spirits, from which the human soul sets out on its return journey to the west. There is no recorded instance of the Polynesian
Such an indefinite idea of a land of origin does not satisfy those of another culture who have studied us. From a wider horizon of comparative study, they can interpret our language, myths, traditions, genealogies, and historical narratives in a manner that is impossible to a native people embedded in the isolation created by lack of written records. How could we know that our word ra for the sun, by coinciding with ra in Ammon Ra, the Egyptian sun god, could be accepted as evidence that we came from Egypt? A Maori reference to dwelling in the Land of Uru has been interpreted as pointing to a sojourn in Ur of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia. Perhaps it is beside the point to remark that Uru in the dialect of the tale merely means west. The occurrence of names similar to Polynesian for a district named Ora and a port named Mana in the ancient kingdom of Irania has been suggested as proof that we once dwelt in Baluchistan. A tradition of living in Irihia has moved us a stage farther east into Vrihia, an ancient name for a part of India. A Rarotongan legend states that an ancestor named Tu-te-rangi-marama dwelt in the land of Atia-te-varinga-nui which means Atia-where-vari-was-abundant. In Rarotonga, the word vari means mud, but a connection has been seen between vari and the south Indian word padi meaning rice. It has thus been thought that the Polynesian ancestors lived in a land where rice was grown in mud and that after they had left the rice lands behind them, they applied the word vari to the mud of taro swamps.
Another approach to elucidating the past has been the interpretation of Polynesian genealogies. Probably no people have been prouder of their lineages than the mariners of the Pacific. In Polynesian mythology, the god Tane moulded the first woman out of earth, brought her to life by magic power, and made her the mother of the first human being. The descendants of this first union thus partook of divine attributes by direct physiological inheritance. This may appear irrational to scientists who claim descent from anthropoid apes, but it gave great confidence to chiefly leaders, who in moments of stress could call upon their divine ancestors for assistance whereas western man may expect little help from his remote arboreal progenitors. Faith in the Divine breeds confidence and dissipates fear, which after all is what man needs when facing the unknown. The European applied his faith to guiding him into a safe haven in the journey after death, but the Polynesian applied his faith to inspire confidence in this life to voyage into unknown seas.
The oral transmission and memorizing of genealogies was a routine part of the Polynesian system of education. Succession to chieftainship rested on priority of birth in the senior male line, which was closer to the famous ancestors, the culture heroes, and the gods themselves than were the junior lines. The relationship terms which grouped parents, uncles and aunts, and senior cousins under a similar term were meant to bind people together in a unity of co-operation and blood kinship. The finer degrees of physiological relationship were distinguished by a knowledge of genealogies.
The recital of genealogies was an established technique in social life and served as a chronology of historical events associated with the sequence of ancestors. How far back this sequence may be relief upon depends not only on the limitations of human memory but also on the interruptions that may have occurred to direct and orderly transmission of titles. Most islands have their own genealogies covering the period from the present back approximately five hundred years to the arrival of the colonizing ancestors who took up their permanent abode on the island. Beyond this settlement period is the migrational period of indefinite length during which remote progenitors felt their way from island to island, exploring the unknown spaces of the sea. The names of these ancestors, who dwelt in land designated as Hawaiki, Tahiti, Vavau, ‘Uporu, Manuka, Iva, and numerous others, are common to the genealogies of such widely spread groups as New Zealand, Cook, Society, Tuamotu, Austral, Marquesas,
Beyond the period of heroic ancestors and their voyages, the genealogies take us into the realm of sheer myth. The lineage of heroes and demigods link up with the gods. The gods themselves carry back the genealogies in ordered sequence to various natural phenomena that were personified as if they were actual human ancestors. Thus we have the Void, Abyss, Night, Gloom, Dawn, Light, Thought, Conception, and various other ideas recited as a genealogy, not because the learned men really thought that they were human ancestors, but because the genealogical recital was the literary technique for recording not only historical events but also the order in which nature presumably came into being.
Genealogies, after they pass the settlement period and the latter part of the migrational period, cannot be relied upon for the exact or even approximate times at which the Polynesian ancestors occupied various mainlands and island groups in their voyages from Asia to the scattered islands of Polynesia. Even within the settlement period all manner of contradictions occur. Rarotongan genealogies state that the ancestor, Tangiia, who was the last ancestor to arrive at Rarotonga, landed on the island twenty-six generations back from 1900. Accepting twenty-five years as the average span of a generation, Tangiia must have arrived about 1250 a.d. Genealogies of the neighbouring island of Mangaia state that the sons of the god Rongo occupied that island for the first time seventeen generations back from 1900, thereby placing the origin of man on Mangaia two hundred and twenty-five years after the last settlement in nearby Rarotonga. Thus it is evident that when human memory failed, the gods crossed the forgotten years and came closer to the sons of men.
The longer genealogies have been studied by European scholars, whose faith in these feats of memory has led them to overlook certain flaws which exist in the alleged human sequences. In some, the names of various lands at which the ancestors sojourned have been included, perhaps accidentally, as human beings. Various qualifying terms, as long, short, large, small, have been added in a sequence to the same name, but each is treated as a generation. The method is a convenient technique for lengthening a lineage. In others again, personifications of natural phenomena that belong to a mythical period have been interpolated into the human succession. Individuals have falsified records in order to give prestige to families newly risen to power or to hide the bar sinister that somehow cannot be avoided in long descent. The Hawaiian historian,
The Rarotongan genealogies go back for ninety-two generations to the ancestor Tu-te-rangi-marama who dwelt in a land that b.c. The period of time covered by ninety-two generations is 2300 years, and the distance in space is from India to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Is it possible that any group of people subjected to the accidents of flood and field and war for over 2000 years of time and over many thousands of miles of land and sea could keep from generation to generation an accurate record of human succession
We may sum up the present position by saying that in remote ages the ancestors of the Polynesian people probably did live in some part of India and worked east, but myths and legends transmitted orally do not reach back that far. They must have sojourned in Indonesia in order to reach the Pacific; the Polynesian language has affinities with Indonesian dialects. During their stay in Indonesia, the sea salt entered into their blood and changed them from landsmen to seamen. When the pressure of Mongoloid peoples pouring in from the mainland became oppressive, the Polynesian ancestors turned their gaze toward the eastern horizon and embarked upon one of the greatest of all adventures.
Thread it from inside, it goes outside,Thread it from outside, it comes inside.Tie it firmly, bind it fastThe Shipbuilder's Song
When the ancestors of the Polynesians slipped off the mainland and began to venture eastward from island to island, they evolved of necessity an oceanic culture. They learned to extend their fishing operations farther and farther from the coast, and as their horizon lengthened, their fishing canoes evolved into ships capable of transporting explorers and their families over hundreds of miles of open sea. In the realm of mechanical achievement, the construction of the voyaging canoe was the material counterpart of the mental and spiritual development of a sea-minded people who were stimulated by the drive of adventure that knew no fear.
No knowledge is extant of the type of ships used in the early stages of the eastward movement. It may be taken for granted, however, that the vessels used in Polynesia were constructed in principle on early models that had been found to be effective. The Polynesian vessels were of two types, the outrigger canoe and the double canoe. We have to skip space and time to obtain in Polynesia itself some idea of the ships and their builders.
At first sight the dugout canoe, steadied by an outrigger float, seems a simple affair. But when one considers that the tree must be felled, cut into lengths, shaped on the outside, and hollowed on the inside with adzes made of stone, the making of the simplest canoe commands respect. The tree trunks used for small fishing canoes were so narrow that the tendency to capsize had to be counteracted by the addition of an outrigger to the hull. This consisted of a long spar of light wood, which rested on the surface of the water at a little distance from the hull. It was connected to the hull usually by two cross booms which were lashed to both gunwales (top edge of hull) at one end and to the outrigger float at the other. In order that the float might lie at water level, the booms had either to be bent down to meet the float or, if they remained straight, to be attached to the float by separate wooden connectives. Much variation and ingenuity has been shown throughout Polynesia in the methods of outrigger attachment.
Canoes that went far out to sea in quest of bonito and deep-sea fish were given greater protection from overlapping waves by adding a plank to the top of the dugout hull, which increased the freeboard or height from the water's surface. For the transport of people with food and water supplies, larger vessels were made and still greater freeboard given by additional tiers of planks. For long voyages or the inter-island transport of troops, a second canoe was substituted for the float, and thus was formed the double canoe used by the Polynesians in their conquest of the Pacific.
The small dugout fishing canoes were needed by every family for procuring their food supplies from mother ocean. These could be dubbed out and shaped by unskilled labour, but the planks for the larger canoes had to be split, shaped, fitted, and lashed with meticulous care and expert knowledge
paopao. ‘You have left out the paopao,' I said. He gave me a withering look as he replied, ‘Is the paopao a canoe?’
Gradually, as our ancestors spread eastward from the large islands and narrow seaways of Indonesia into the wide ocean, they developed skill and experience in building and sailing ships. By the time they reached the central Pacific, shipbuilding had become vital to the culture, and the expert builders had assumed a high rank in society. In Samoa and Tonga the canoe builders were under the patronage of the god Tangaroa, the first builder of canoes and houses. In central Polynesia the builders took the god Tane as their tutelary deity. They had their own religious gathering places or maraes where they went through an organized ritual before undertaking a difficult task, such as the building of a voyaging canoe. When we consider their stone tools and the work before them, we must admit that they had need of all the assistance they could obtain from the unseen sources.
The psychology of the old-time craftsmen may be read between the lines of
Place the adze in the sacred place To be charged with divine power, To become light in the worker's hands And accomplish work amid flying sparks.
A feast confined to the skilled workers followed on the temple ground. A fatted pig was killed, and, as it was prepared for the oven, tufts of hair were plucked off as an offering to Tane while the craftsmen recited their motto:
Work with alert eyes And swift-moving adzes.
Thus Tane received the first part of the pig. The pig was roasted whole and when it was cut up the tail was set aside for Tane. Thus Tane received the last part of the pig. These offerings were laid upon his shrine. The tutelary deity of the craft having received due recognition, his devotees could feast in the firm conviction that they would receive divine strength for the impending work.
At early dawn the still-sleeping adzes were awakened by being dipped in the sea, the element upon which their completed work was to float. As the cold water met the working edges of the adzes, the exhortation rang out,
Awake to work for Tane, Great god of the artisans.
Before sunrise the artisans girded on their working loincloths and with adzes charged with the same divine spirit as themselves, they sought out the trees already selected. Tane was the god of the forests, and the trees were his children. Before laying adze to trunk, an invocation had to be offered up to Tane to placate him for the taking of his child. Some trees were the property of other gods, and the specific god had to be asked ritually for his consent to take the tree.
All Polynesia knows the tale of Rata, who felled a tree without asking permission. After lopping off the branches and peeling off the bark, he retired for the night. On returning the next day, he found the tree standing erect with no trace of human interference. Though mystified, he felled it again but hid himself nearby. Then came the elves and wood fairies, the henchmen of the divine owner of the tree. They surrounded the fallen giant of the forest and in mournful voices sang in unison:
Fly hither, fly thither, O chips of my tree! Branches, take up your places, Watery sap, flow upwards, Adhesive gum, repair and heal! Stand! The tree stands erect!
Before Rata's startled eyes, the leaves, chips, and branches came together with orderly precision, the trunk rose on its healed stump, and the tree top soared once more above its leafy neighbours. When Rata, unable to restrain his anger at once more having his labour brought to nought, rushed out and upbraided the fairies, he was told fearlessly that he had no right to fell private property without obtaining permission from the divine owner. Rata admitted his fault, and the supernatural beings who had been arrayed against him came to his assistance. The fairies made a wonderful voyaging canoe overnight, dedicated it in a shower of rain, and, sliding it down the arch of a rainbow, launched it in the lagoon before his house.
The trees were felled in the valleys and uplands, and the labour involved in lowering and hauling the trimmed trunks to the carpenter's shed was lightened by singing and chanting. The various timbers were split and shaped to form the keel and planks of the hull and decks. As the ‘fast-flying adzes’ of the craftsmen became hot and brittle through friction, the blades were driven into juicy banana trunks to cool off. Ever and anon, the adzes were sharpened on sandstone blocks. The planks of the hull were fitted edge to edge, carvel-built, wet mud having been smeared over the top edge of the lower plank. Misfits, indicated by mud spots on the upper plank, were trimmed down until the two edges fitted perfectly. Beaten coconut husk and breadfruit gum were
terebra shells, pointed hardwood sticks, or stone chisels. Through these holes was passed the lashing of three-ply coconut husk-fibre which held together the parts of the canoe. Like the planks which it joined, this sennit braid was regarded as a symbol of Tane.
Two experts worked on each side as the canoe was built up symmetrically from the keel. In the building of the famous Hohoio of Hiro, the great Tahitian navigator, the chief craftsman was Hutu, who worked on the outer side on the right of the canoe, while his assistant Tau-mariari worked on the inside. Memeru, the royal craftsman from Opoa, worked on the outer side on the left, his assistant Ma‘i-hae on the inner side. As they passed the braid through to each other to lash the planks, they chanted:
What have I, O Tane, Tane, god of beauty! ‘Tis sennit. ‘Tis sennit from the host of heaven, ‘Tis sennit of thine, O Tane! Thread it from the inside, it comes outside. Thread it from the outside, it goes inside. Tie it firmly, bind it fast.
This chant, as translated by
This sennit of thine, O Tane, Make it hold, make it hold.
When all the planks were in position, the hull was washed out with fresh water, dried, and painted both outside and inside with a mixture of red earth and charcoal. For very large canoes the roof of the builder's shed had to be removed to make room for the addition of the outrigger booms, deck, bow and stern ornaments, and the deck-house. The lashing of the outrigger booms was an important event, and here again the chant calls in the aid of Tane to strengthen the lashings:
It cannot weaken, It cannot loosen, When bound with sacred sennit. With thy sacred sennit, O Tane.
The completed canoe was given its own personal name and was usually dedicated to Tane. The launching of a large canoe was more important than the launching of an ocean liner or a warship from a European or American shipbuilding yard today. In the West, a few selected guests quietly view the event. In Polynesia, the entire population of the district took part. They prepared various foods for a feast to celebrate the occasion; and, garlanded with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs and clothed in their best garments and ornaments, they gathered on the beach to marvel at the launching of a mighty craft. Skids of rounded wood were placed under the keel and on the track to the water's edge. As the props were removed, men holding the sides began to urge the ship along the skids. The chief artisan invoked the aid of numerous gods who assisted the human efforts in impelling the vessel over the skids until, amidst the deafening shouts of the people, it slid into the lagoon and poised gracefully upon the waves that rose to salute it. Even the western custom of christening a ship by wetting the bow with champagne
inu tai). The great ocean is metaphorically alluded to as the altar of the gods. Upon this immense altar the ship was rocked up and down until waves poured alternately over the bow and stern. When a sufficient quantity had been thus introduced into the hold, the new bailers, especially made for the ship, were plied quickly in the ejection of the water and so made acquainted with their future function. By the drinking of sea water the ship was consecrated to Tane, and, above all, it received its full introduction to the element which it had been designed to conquer.
The ship was equipped with mast, sails, paddles, bailers, and stone anchors. Some vessels had as many as three masts. The sails were made of plaited pandanus mats sewn together in triangular form with wooden yards and booms to strengthen the long sides of the triangle. They were rigged as sprit-sails with the apex at the base of the mast or as lateens with the yard slung from the mast and the apex forward at the bow. Just as the long ships of the Vikings of the Atlantic were equipped with oars, so were the voyaging canoes of the mariners of the Pacific fitted with paddles. The oars had the advantage of leverage against a rowlock, but had the disadvantage of forcing the rowers to turn their faces toward the wake that lay behind. Polynesian paddlers faced forward toward impending waves and ever-receding horizons, and they gazed open-eyed on the ocean vistas that unrolled before them.
Much has been written about drifts to leeward because of the drag of the outrigger float, but the counteracting effect of the deep-sea paddle has not been sufficiently taken into account. The steering paddle took the place of the rudder, and its importance was so recognized that it was given a
To hoe o Rehua Ko Rapaparapa-te-uira. The paddle of Rehua Was the Flashing-of-Lightning.
In spite of the caulking, canoes leaked so much that men were appointed to bail out the hold as part of the ship's routine. The bailer, in important ships, received a personal name; Rehua's bailer was named Whakawaha-taupata. Stone anchors with holes drilled through to take the rope were carried on long sea voyages. During storms, a bow anchor was dropped overboard to keep the canoes head-on to the seas. Light anchors were also dropped to indicate the run of currents. The anchors of important canoes had personal names. The Arawa canoe, which sailed down to New Zealand in 1350 a.d., had two stone anchors named Tokaparore and Tu-te-rangi-haruru.
The actual details of the construction of the various Polynesian craft have been recorded by
In Tahiti, the god Tane was represented at one historical period by a piece of finely plaited sennit. When he was forsaken for the god ‘Oro, a priest of Tane placed the symbol of his god in a coconut shell, sealed the opening, and set the vessel adrift on the wide ocean to find another home. Later he followed by canoe to seek whither his god had voyaged. Finally, on the island of Mangaia, he caught the coconut shell in a scoop-net while fishing in the lagoon. As he removed the stopper, the god, as represented by the finely braided sennit, made a chirping noise (kio) and the god, re-established in another land, received the name of Tane-kio. In Mangaia, the god of the artisans was Tane-mata-ariki, Tane-of-the-regal-face. He was represented by beautifully ground basaltic adzes lashed with fine sennit braid in a complicated pattern to a well-carved wooden haft. Thus stone, sennit, and wood, the fundamental materials of the craftsmen, were combined to form a symbol worthy of the deity whose divine assistance inspired the builders in their craft. The wood of Tane, shaped with adzes charged with divinity and lashed together with sacred sennit, formed a vessel endowed with spiritual power. On the canoe itself an altar to Tane was constructed, and by ritual and offerings his daily aid was assured. With such divine backing, the crew had firm confidence in facing unknown horizons. Polynesian seamen were unhampered by the mutinous fears that obsessed the crews of Columbus and later European navigators. If ships and men were lost, other navigators did not blame the gods or the sea. The lost navigator was entirely to blame for not interpreting correctly the weather signs or for overlooking some ritual observance. Later navigators followed to accomplish what others had failed to do. Faith in their gods and their ships and confidence in themselves
Though double canoes held more men, provisions, and water, it is evident from traditional stories that outrigger canoes were also used on long voyages. The Hohoio on which Hiro made his last voyage is described as having a float (ama) of tamanu wood soaked in sea water to destroy borers, and then scraped with coral rubbers. The outrigger canoe, by affording less friction in the water, was faster; and with the wind on the outrigger side, the canoe was allowed to keel over so that she sailed with the outrigger float out of the water. Men watched with alert eyes, and if the float rose too high, they clambered out on the outrigger booms to press the float down and so prevent capsizing. Once, when I was sailing on a whaleboat in the spacious lagoon of Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, a small outrigger canoe flew past us with the outrigger float high above water and with the owner shouting exultantly at the speed of his craft. He would slow down to allow us to pass and then repeat the performance. Suddenly silence fell upon the lagoon, and, looking back, we saw a capsized canoe. The outrigger float had been allowed to rise too high. In a European community we should have gone back to render aid, but here everybody laughed heartily, and we went on. The owner had merely to stand on the outrigger float, press it down to beyond the perpendicular with a forward kick of both feet, and the hull turned right side up. In a light canoe, a few jerks back and forth emptied the water over the bow and stern, the canoe man climbed in, splashed the remaining water over the sides with the blade of his paddle, and went his way with no hurt save to his dignity. The Polynesians were amphibious and so suffered little damage from capsizing.
When Nuku sailed from Tahiti to New Zealand to fight
Though the long sea voyages ceased centuries ago, a rough idea of the size of the ships may be formed from the vessels recorded by early European explorers. Various accounts indicate a general length of from sixty to eighty feet, but vessels were seen that measured a hundred feet and even more. In a sacred grove of trees on the shores of Kawhia Harbour in New Zealand there is a bare patch where legend states that the famous Tainui canoe, after its historic voyage from central Polynesia in 1350 a.d., was hauled up to rest below the shrine of Ahurei. Here it crumbled to dust, but no plants grew upon the soil that had been rendered sacred. Two stone uprights mark the spots where the bow and stern rested, and these give the canoe a length of seventy feet.
Two hulls of seventy to eighty feet with a deck between were capable of accommodating a fair number of people. Some of the war canoes of Tahiti, when setting out on a raid, held as many as a hundred warriors. On voyages for settlement, in which provisions, plants, seed, tubers, pigs, dogs, and fowl were carried in addition to women and children, the large double canoes could readily accommodate
The sea provisions for the voyage were usually cooked. In atoll areas, the reserve food consisted of ripe pandanus fruit grated into a coarse flour, cooked, dried, and packed in cylindrical bundles with an outer wrapping of dried pandanus leaves. Such packages are still made in the Gilbert and Marshall atolls. Beechey found that some Tuamotuan castaways, who had been blown to the east, had prepared dried pandanus flour and dried fish to provision their canoe ere setting out on their search for home. From volcanic islands, there were greater possibilities. The Samoans told me that preserved breadfruit cooked in fairly large baskets was used on the voyages. The Maoris state that sweet potatoes, cooked and dried, formed the main sustenance at sea. Dried shell fish such as the tridacna kept indefinitely. Fowls carried on the voyage were fed with dried coconut meat, and some were killed for food when required. A fireplace was provided on the canoes laid on a bed of sand, and firewood was carried along. Deep-sea fish including sharks were readily caught by master fishermen. The provisioning of the seagoing canoes offered no problem.
The fresh-water supplies were carried in coconut water bottles, gourds, or lengths of bamboo. The deep-sea fishermen of Hawai‘i sometimes trailed their gourds in the sea to keep the water cool, but such refinements were not necessary on deep-sea voyages. We learn from the traditions of Hawai‘i and New Zealand that the crews of expeditionary ships were trained beforehand in self-restraint with regard to consumption of food and water. With organized discipline,
The ships and the builders played their parts, but chief, priest, and navigator, with inborn courage and a firm faith in the gods, drove the sennit-bound vessels over leagues of untraversed ocean to make safe landing on distant isles.
The handle of my steering paddle thrills to action,My paddle named Kautu-ki-te-rangi.It guides to the horizon but dimly discerned.To the horizon that lifts before us,To the horizon that ever recedes,To the horizon that ever draws near,To the horizon that causes doubt,To the horizon that instils dread,The horizon with unknown power,The horizon not hitherto pierced.The lowering skies above,The raging seas below,Oppose the untraced pathOur ship must go.Polynesian Deep-Sea Chantey
The steering paddle thrilled to action when increasing hordes poured into Indonesia from the mainland of Asia. The ways to the lands of the west were blocked, and the only paths available to our Polynesian ancestors led out to open sea. Fishing canoes and vessels used for coastwise transport between seaside villages developed into voyaging ships, and the brown-skinned sailors began their conquest of the greatest of oceans. By short voyages and numerous haltings that occupied many generations, they moved onward
No matter how brave and enduring a seafaring people may be, the length of their voyages is limited by the size of their ships which determines the amount of food and water that can be carried. Those who exhausted their resources perished in the open sea. Those who reached islands, where they settled or refitted, survived. Hence the voyage to Polynesia was feasible only by following island-studded routes. Two routes were possible, a southern and a northern.
The southern route, which was generally accepted as the correct one by early ethnologists, twines through the closely set islands of Indonesia, passes along the northern coast of New Guinea, and skirts the eastern fringe of the Melanesian chain to Fiji, which was thought to be the rallying place of the Polynesians, whence they scattered east, north, and south to explore and settle the far-flung islands within the Polynesian triangle. Because the name Savai'i, that of the largest island of the Samoan group, is the dialectical equivalent of Hawaiki, the traditional homeland of the Polynesians, Samoa was considered to be the island first reached by Polynesian voyagers after they had left Fiji.
However, in the light of recent comparative study of the material cultures and social organizations of Melanesia and Polynesia, it seems improbable that the great migrations into the Pacific passed through Melanesia. In general the Polynesians are physically very different from the Melanesians. Had they stopped at Melanesian islands to refit their ships
Much of the linguistic evidence formerly cited in support of an original west to east migration of Polynesians through Melanesia has recently been proved to indicate a movement from Polynesia westward to the marginal islands of Melanesia. William Churchill studied the occurrence of Polynesian languages in Melanesia and on the strength of this study traced several lines of migration from New Guinea into various parts of Polynesia. Charles Hedley has shown that the Polynesian languages spoken in Melanesia occur on the eastern sides of islands facing Polynesia, and further studies by G. Thilenius and
W. H. R. Rivers, in his study of the history of Melanesian society, considered that certain elements were due to contact and interaction of two waves of people that passed through Melanesia from west to east. He associated the burial of the dead in a sitting position with an earlier wave of migration, and burial of the dead in an extended position with a later wave. As both forms of burial were recorded in Polynesia, he inferred that both waves reached Polynesia and
Marginal Islands (Underlined) in Melanesia Inhabited by Polynesian-Speaking People
At first sight the strongest evidence in favour of a southern route of migration is the chain of small islands stretching from New Guinea to Fiji along the northern edge of Melanesia.
The northern route, which the early Polynesian navigators may have followed in their journey from west to east, leads through Micronesia, which means ‘small islands’. Though there are some volcanic islands, the islands along the eastern end of the route are low coral atolls, contrasting with the mountainous islands of Melanesia. The only possible northern route leads through Yap, Palau, and the Caroline Islands; then it branches, one line leading northeast through the Marshall Islands towards Hawai‘i, and one going southeast through the Gilbert and Phœnix Islands to enter Polynesia north of Samoa.
Strong support in favour of the Micronesian route lies in the positive evidence against the route through Melanesia. It is unfortunate that the original population of Micronesia had been overlain by Mongoloid elements that crept in after the ancestors of the Polynesians had passed through. Yet, in spite of the imposition of a new language throughout the area, numerous Polynesian words occur to mark the ancient trail.
No matter how stout of heart the wielder of the steering paddle, he could not continue indefinitely. He reached an atoll and settled down. A colony was formed and the torch of adventure was carried on by younger men of another generation. Much of the culture of the homeland in the volcanic islands of Indonesia must have been abandoned in coral atolls because certain elements did not suit the changed background or because the requisite natural resources were not available.
Much has been written about forgotten arts and crafts with the implication that the loss or lack of certain arts indicates degeneration or inferiority. It must be considered, however, that a craft depends not only on need and technical knowledge, but also on raw materials. Many unthinking people have criticized our Polynesian ancestors for their lack of pottery and loom weaving without considering the fundamental importance of the geographical distribution of raw materials. Pottery was made in Fiji; then why, ask our critics, was it not made in Tonga and Samoa? The answer is absurdly simple—there is no clay in Tonga and Samoa. Without it neither the Tongans nor the Samoans nor their kinsmen to the east could make pottery. Clay is the product of a chemical change requiring geologic ages to take place; hence it is found only on old land masses. The distribution of clay in the Pacific ends with the continental islands of Fiji. No clay is found in the coral islands of Micronesia or in the recent volcanic islands of Polynesia. Even had the Polynesian
The loom for weaving textiles is a product of temperate climates, but it found its way into Indonesia and along the northern route to the Carolines. From there it spread direct to some of the marginal communities in northeastern Melanesia and to the neighbouring Santa Cruz Islands of Melanesia but no farther. The Melanesians were not loom weavers and consequently the craft could not reach Polynesia by way of the southern route. But if the Polynesians travelled along the northern route and passed through the Carolines, why did they not carry loom weaving into Polynesia? Possibly weaving was introduced into the Carolines after the Polynesians had passed through. However, the most vital reason is the fact that the Gilbert Islands, which form the link between the Carolines and Polynesia, had no weaving. The wild hibiscus which provided the fibres used for weaving in the Carolines did not grow in the Gilberts. The Polynesian ancestors, therefore, could not carry the loom with them during their lengthened passage through the Gilberts. When they eventually reached the high volcanic islands of Polynesia where the hibiscus would grow, they had long forgotten the art of weaving. A people with writing may resurrect a forgotten craft from written records, but the human
Further information as to the eastward route is provided by the study of projectile weapons. In Melanesia the bow and arrow was used in war and in Micronesia, the sling. The bow and arrow was known in Polynesia, but it never functioned in war except in the somewhat doubtful locality of far-eastern Mangareva. In both Tonga and Samoa it was used in sport to shoot pigeons and fish. In the Society Islands, archery was the sport of chiefs, who shot for distance with rounded arrows from a triangular stone platform. In Hawai‘i, the bow and arrow was also used in sport to shoot rats. The surprise that has been expressed at the bow and arrow not having been used in war in Polynesia has been due to the blind acceptance of the theory that the Polynesian voyagers passed through Melanesia and should have obtained there a knowledge of the man-slaying possibilities of the bow, even if they had not adopted it before. The very fact that it was so unimportant in Polynesia is surely additional evidence that the Polynesians did not make the lengthy passage through Melanesia that has been attributed to them. The Tongan bow follows the Fijian pattern, and it is probable that the bow diffused through to Samoa and Tonga from Fiji and that its use for sporting purposes was carried thence to central Polynesia.
The functioning Polynesian projectile weapon was the sling. It is found throughout Polynesia but was evidently dropped in New Zealand. The Maoris were hand-to-hand fighters, and the development of short clubs shows that longdistance preliminaries with projectile weapons had gone out
A specific link in affinity between the Gilbert Islands and central Polynesia is the presence in both areas of warriors' helmets. They are shaped somewhat like a Turkish fez and are made of coconut-husk fibre with a coiled technique. In central Polynesia, they occur in the Cook and the Austral Islands. In the Cook Islands, they were used as protection against slingstones, while in the Gilberts they were used in war together with the peculiar coconut-husk armour of coat with sleeves and trousers. The helmets have a prolonged flap at the back, and are so highly specialized that it is unlikely that they represent two different inventions.
Refer to the end-paper map and you will notice that the Polynesian triangle resembles the head of a spear with its point thrusting toward the rising sun. Fitted into its base is the shaft of the spear, comprised of the southern chain of volcanic islands termed Melanesia and the northern chain of atoll islands named Micronesia. As we shall argue later, the food plants and domestic animals travelled along the southern route, but our Polynesian ancestors steered their ships along the northern route from atoll to atoll toward the unpierced eastern horizon.
Within the circle of the sea,It holds a fish of note.It holds a fishO'er which the rainbow arches,Spanning the immensity of Ocean.It is—my land.Aitutaki Chant
The adventurers who guided their ships into the unknown Pacific were deep-sea fishermen as well as able mariners. They angled for fish and fished for islands. By adding magic powers to their tackle, semi-mythical fishermen were enabled to raise islands up from the depths of the sea. The greatest fisherman in all Polynesia was Maui, an early discoverer who became a legendary hero. He figures in a cycle of heroic exploits which, down the ages, have been narrated by fond grandparents to their awestruck grandchildren. Each island group has its own version of the tale and its local variations; islands that he never saw have been added to Maui's original fantastic catch.
In the Maori version, Taranga gave birth to four sons. At the fifth conception, she aborted, casting the embryo in her diaper upon the sea. Tangaroa, god of the sea, took pity upon the seed of life so untimely doomed never to
When Maui grew to man's estate, he accomplished many wonderful feats, but throughout his career he was an impish sprite and a trickster. In a fit of jealousy because his brother-in-law had caught more fish than he, Maui jammed him under the bow of their fishing canoe at the landing, pulled his nose, ears, and spine to greater length, and so created the first dog—Irawaru of the Maoris and Ri of the Tuamo-tuans. He procured fire from Mahuika in the Underworld and taught man how to obtain it by friction from the wood in which it was stored. By the use of fire, man was enabled to cook the food that he had hitherto eaten raw.
Maui voyaged to the eastern portals of the day, and, with a slip noose of human hair, he snared Ra, the Sun, as he emerged from the pit of night to commence his all too rapid daily round. Club in hand, Maui dictated terms whereby Ra consented to travel less rapidly across the dome of heaven and thus gave mankind more hours of daylight in which to procure and cultivate food.
Shortly after I entered the New Zealand Parliament as the representative of a Maori constituency, I was asked by the party whip to help in a stonewall or filibuster as it is termed in America. The object was to talk profusely on various bills so that an undesired opposition bill would not be reached on the order paper before 12.30 a.m. After that no new business could come up, and the obnoxious bill would not only lose its turn but would go down to the bottom of the order paper when such bills came up again. The bill before the House at the time I was thrust into the breach was the first Daylight Saving Bill to be introduced into New Zealand. As the speeches made from our side of the House in behalf of the bill were merely to waste the non-daylight hours leading up to midnight, the argument used to save future daylight would have puzzled any meteorologist. I was fearfully nervous as what was to be my second utterance in such a learned assembly, but in casting about for something to say, it occurred to me that the first practical Daylight Saving Bill in the Pacific had been introduced by the Polynesian demigod Maui. With all the enthusiasm of youth and the claim to distant relationship, I exploited the theme to its fullest extent, and, curiously enough, the House became interested in what they seemed to regard as a humorous contribution to a dry debate. Years afterward, New Zealand placed this second Daylight Saving Act on the statute
To carry on with our story, Maui's brothers became jealous of their youngest brother. In planning a fishing expedition, they refused to allow him to go with them. In the New Zealand version, Maui concealed himself overnight under a mat in the hold of the canoe; in the Mangarevan, he assumed the form of a rat and hid under a coil of rope. When well out to sea, Maui emerged, and, in spite of their protests, he urged his brothers onward until they reached the right spot in the ocean for catching big fish. Now his brothers were able to get revenge, though for a very brief period. Maui had no bait, and, in spite of his pleadings, his brothers refused to give him any out of their own supply. The New Zealanders say that Maui smote his nose and baited his hook with the blood that flowed from the injured organ. The Mangarevans, who apparently require a solid bait, say that he plucked off one of his ears and impaled it on his hook. The curiously baited line was lowered and caught in the bottom of the sea. With much vigorous hauling in time to a magic chant, a wondrous fish in the form of part of the ocean bed was brought to the surface. In this manner, the North Island of New Zealand, Tonga, Rakahanga, Hawai‘i, and other big fish were hauled up from the ocean depths and fixed in their appointed places.
When I visited the atoll of Rakahanga during a Bishop Museum expedition, it was my good fortune to see