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Of all inhabited countries in the world Fiji is probably the poorest in history. No European, who left a record behind him, had intercourse with the natives until 1810, and the historical traditions of the natives themselves scarcely carry back their history beyond the middle of the eighteenth century. While the chiefs of the Marquesas and Hawaii are said to recall the names of their ancestors for seventy-three generations,[1] the chiefs of Mbau cannot give the name of any of their predecessors before Nailatikau, who reigned during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and the earliest name recalled by other tribes of longer memory is only the sixth generation from the reigning chief. It is not that the Fijians were less prone than other islanders to embody their tribal history in traditional poetry, but that the political morcellement of the tribal units left the poets nothing to record. A century ago Mbau was nothing but a petty fortified village in the interior, governed by chiefs whose names were unknown three miles from its public square. The chiefs of Rewa were equally obscure, and the songs which celebrated their petty achievements died with the generation that sang them. When the great wave of unrest in the interior of Vitilevu sent them forth to fight their way to a new home on the coast, and to found confederations of the tribes they had subdued, their history was born; and at its birth died the old traditions of the tribes they conquered, for vassals in Fiji have nothing to do with memories of departed greatness.

THE BOND OF TAUVU

Besides the historical meke there remain a few mythological sagas which refer to a far older period. With ancestor-worshippers like the Fijians the founders of their race attain immortality denied to their descendants, who at the most become demi-gods enjoying a place in mythology only as long as their deeds on earth are remembered. The founders of the Fijian race are known as Kalou-Vu—Gods of Origin—and the sagas that relate their exploits, overlaid as they are with glosses by the poets, undoubtedly contain the germ of traditional history of a very ancient date. The historical outline of the Nakauvandra sagas is supported by another class of evidence, namely the tauvu.

The word tauvu means literally "Sprung from the same root," or "of common origin." It is applied to two or more tribes who may live in different islands, speak different dialects, and have, in short, nothing in common but their god. They do not necessarily intermarry; they may have held no intercourse for generations; yet, though each may have forgotten the names of its chiefs three generations back, the site of its ancient home, and the traditions of its migrations, it never forgets the tribe with which it is tauvu. Members of that tribe may run riot in its village, slaughter its animals, and ravage its plantations, while it sits smiling by; for the spoilers are its brothers, worshippers of its common ancestor, and are entitled in the fullest sense to the "freedom of the city." In several instances I have traced back the bond of tauvu to its origin, the marriage of the sister of some high chief with the head of a distant clan. Her rank was so transcendent that she brought into her husband's family a measure of the godhead of her ancestors, and her descendants have thenceforth reverenced her forefathers in preference to those of her husband. But in the majority of cases—and it is the exception to find a clan which is not tauvu to some other—the bond is too remote for tradition to have preserved its origin, and in these the two clans were probably offshoots from the same stock. Perhaps there was a quarrel between brothers, and one of them was driven out with his family to find another home; or a young swarm from an overcrowded hive may have crossed the water to seek wider planting lands for their support, as the first Aryan emigrants burst through the barriers of their cradle-land and overran Europe. Had the Aryans been ancestor-worshippers Rome would have been tauvu with Athens, and the descendants of the youths driven forth in the Ver Sacrum tauvu with Rome.

The general tendency of the bonds of tauvu in the western portion of the group is to confirm the sagas of Nakauvandra in suggesting that the cradle-land of the Fijians was the north-western corner of Vitilevu, whence the tide of emigration set northward to Mbua, eastward along the Tailevu coast, and south-eastward down the Wainimbuka branch of the Rewa river. Besides the saga of Turukawa, printed in another chapter, there are fragments of a still earlier poem relating the first arrival of the Kalou-Vu in a great canoe, the Kaunitoni, tempest-driven from a land in the far West. The fragmentary saga of the Kaunitoni must be accepted with caution, since it was committed to writing so late as 1891, when educated Fijians were already aware that Europeans were seeking evidence of their arrival in the group.

But there is proof enough of the western origin of the Fijians in the fact that they are the eastern outpost of the Melanesian race and language, that their blest abode of spirits lies beyond the setting sun, and that the Thombo-thombo, or Jumping-off-places of the Fijian shades, all point westward; there is proof enough of the Nakauvandra range being their cradle-land in the belief that the shades of the people of the Rewa delta must repair to Nakauvandra as the first stage in their last sad journey.

FIJI PEOPLED FROM THE WEST

The following is a translation of an ingenious commentary upon these fragments, written by Ilai Moto-ni-thothoka (Eli Stabbing-spear)—

"Long ago in a land in the far West there were three great chiefs, Lutu-na-sombasomba, Ndengei, and Wai-thala-na-vanua; of these Lutu-na-sombasomba was the greatest. And they took counsel together to build a vessel in which they might set sail with their wives, their children, their servants, and their dependants, to seek some distant land where haply they might find a good country where they might abide. So they sent a messenger to a chief named Rokola bidding him build them a vessel. And Rokola told his clan, who were the carpenter clan, the orders of the chiefs, and the carpenters built a vessel and called it the Kaunitoni. And when the vessel was made ready, they prepared their provisions and their freight, and went on board. Now there were many other families that made ready their vessels to accompany them. In the Kaunitoni went Lutu-na-sombasomba and his wife and five children, together with his chest of stone in which were stored many things—his patterns of work (Vola-sui-ni-thakathaka) and his inscribed words, and many other inscriptions.[2] And with them went Ndengei and Wai-thala-na-vanua and other families, a great company of men and women. And the chief Rokola went also with his family. After sailing many days they came to a land which seemed pleasant to many of them, and these beached their vessels, and abode there. But the remainder kept on their course. Perhaps this land at which the others stayed was New Guinea. And as they sailed on, lo! another land was sighted, and some of them, being eager to land there, beached their vessels and occupied it. Perhaps this land was New Britain. And they came upon other lands at which some tarried until there was left only the Kaunitoni and a few other vessels. And these launched forth into the boundless ocean where they found no land. And the sky grew dark, so that the vessels parted company, for tempestuous weather was upon them. It was no common storm, but a great cyclone that struck them, for it was the wind called Vuaroro or Ravu-i-ra (west-north west). And the blast struck the Kaunitoni, so that they were sick with terror, and could think of nothing but that they must die.

"In the blackness of the storm the vessels were scattered, and the Kaunitoni drifted ever eastward down the path of the storm. And as the hurricane continued for thirty days, and the vessel ran before the wind without finding any land, Lutu-na-sombasomba's chest of inscriptions fell overboard into the sea. But on the thirtieth night the keel of the vessel struck upon a rock, and she lay fast, and immediately the storm abated. Then they saw land before them, and knew that they were saved. And in the morning they went ashore and built shelters there: therefore the place was called Vunda (Vu-nda—lit. 'Our Origin'), because it was the first village that they built, and they rejoiced that they were saved from the hurricane that had beset them.

"This is the meke of the cyclone that struck them—

"'Rai thake ko Ndaunivosavosa,

Na vua ni thagi lamba sa toka,

Na kena ua ma mbutu kosakosa

Na Kaunitoni ka sa vondoka, Na kena ua ma rombalaka toka, Tangi mate ko Lutunasombasomba, Nonku kawa era na vakaloloma, Nonku kato vatu ka mai tasova, Mai lutu kina na nonkui vola, Da la' ki moce ki ndaveta ni kamboa.'

"'Lutunasombasomba gazed afar,

Behind him gathered the scud of the hurricane

The mighty rollers battered him,

And beat upon the Kaunitoni, The mighty rollers burst over him, Lutunasombasomba cried a bitter cry, Alas! Alas! for my descendants, My chest of stone is overset, My inscriptions (vola) have fallen out of it, Let us go and sleep in the harbour of the Kamboa (a fish).'

"And all the time they tarried at Vunda, the chief Lutu-na-sombasomba could not rest for thinking of his inscriptions that had been lost in the sea. And he sent some of his young men to go and seek them,[3] for he reflected that his descendants would grow up ignorant if these inscriptions were indeed lost to them. So the young men set out with their sail close hauled, and as they voyaged they were astonished at the sight of islands right in their course to the westward, and disputed among themselves, some affirming these to be the islands at which some of their company had landed before the hurricane struck them, while others cried, 'Impossible; they were far away.' So they called the islands Yasa yawa[4] (Yasawa). Long did they scull the vessel up and down the sea seeking the lost inscriptions, but finding them not. And then he who commanded the Kaunitoni, and was named Wankambalambala (Tree-fern-canoe), spoke, and said that they should return to Vunda and tell their Lord, Lutu-na-sombasomba, that his inscriptions could not be found. For they were wearied with rowing up and down, and the wind had failed them. Then one of them called Mbekanitanganga climbed the mast to look for the ripple of the wind, and saw a puff of wind coming up from the west, and when this reached them Wankambalambala, the sailor, ordered the great sail to be hoisted and they set their course for Vunda. But they knew not where Vunda lay, and they beached the vessel at an island, and landed upon it, wondering at the fertility of the place, and they said 'Let us stay here awhile (tiko manda la eke) and presently we will seek the land where Lutu-na-sombasomba is, to tell him that we cannot find the inscriptions we were sent to seek.' But Wankambalambala said that they should go first, and afterwards return to live on the island 'Manda-la-eke.' So they composed a song telling how they found Manda-la-eke, and since the name was too long for the rhythm of a song they shortened it to Malake to suit the rhythm, as they also shortened the name Yasa yawa to Yasawa. This is the song they made—

"'Rai vosa ko Lutunasobasoba,

I Ragone, dou vakarau toka,

Na Kaunitoni mo dou tavotha, Mo nou yara manda nai vola, Nodratou latha ratou thokota, Ra tathiri ni lutu ni iloa, Sokosokoni mbongi ma siga vaka, Sa siri ko Natu Yasawa, E ruru na thangi ka thiri na wanka Mai kamba ko Mbeka ni tayanga Me sa la' ki lewa thangi toka manda, Yau koto na nde ni thangi thawa, Mbula koto mai na thangi raya, Ninkai vosa ko Wankambalambala, Mai mua ki vanua nonda wanka, Latha levu era vakarewataka, Rai ki liu na nkoluvaka, Ka kuvu tiko na muai manda, Ucui Malake ka kombuata, Uru ki vanua me ra thambe sara, Yanuyanu ka ra volita manda, Sa nkai ndua na koro vinaka, Era siro sombu ki matasawa, Na tokalau ka yau talatala, Sa thangi tamba na soko ki raya, Ka ndromu na singa e vakana nawa.'

"'Then Lutunasombasomba spoke,

Make ready boys,

Haul down the Kaunitoni, And go and seek the inscriptions, Bend our sails to the yards, They drifted hither and thither till all landmarks were lost, The Yasawa group is seen on the horizon The breeze dies away; the vessel is becalmed, Bekanitanganga climbs aloft, To sit and look for signs of wind. The flying wrack of the hurricane is at hand, A breeze from the west is freshening Then speaks Wankambalambala Set our course towards the land, They hoist the great sail, We shout as we look ahead, The spray shoots up from our prow, We make the cape of Malake And lower the sail to go ashore, They make the circuit of the island, This is indeed a pleasant land, They go down to the landing-place, This wind is in exchange for the south-east wind, A wind permitting no westward voyage, The sun sets in the ocean gulf.

And they set out from Malake and sculled[5] their vessel to the mainland; and there they met Ndengei standing on the shore, having come to explore the country. Him they told of their discovery of a very fair island. And they asked him of Vunda, and were directed towards the west. So Ndengei came on board and they coasted westwards to Vunda. And when they told Lutu-na-sombasomba how his inscriptions were lost for ever, he was sore grieved, and from this time his body began to be infirm because his heart was grieved for his lost inscriptions.

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT

"And when Ndengei saw that Lutu-na-sombasomba grew infirm he commanded that they should abandon Vunda, and remove to a fair land that he had seen, lest the old chief should die and never see it. So he bade the chief Rokola to build other canoes to be tenders to the Kaunitoni in the eastward voyage. And as soon as all these canoes were built they poled them along the coast, and beached them opposite the land they wished for, and their stuff they carried up into the hills, and the first house they built was for Lutu-na-sombasomba. The posts and the beams of this house were all of pandanus trunks. In this house, therefore, abode their chief, and he called the whole land Nakauvandra (Pandanus Tree) to be a memorial of the first house built there which was built of pandanus trunks. And therefore, the country is called Nakauvandra even to this day."

Although, as I have said, this commentary is to be received with caution, there can be no doubt that a few years ago there were still to be found on the north-east coast of Vitilevu fragmentary traditions of a voyage to Fiji undertaken by the personages mentioned in the poem, and the name, Vunda, which is still attached to the north-western corner of Vitilevu certainly indicates that it was the earliest settlement of some party of immigrants. It would, indeed, be strange if the westerly winds, that sometimes blow steadily for days together during the summer months, had not brought castaway canoes to a group of islands which cover five degrees of longitude. Instead of one arrival there must have been several, and whether Ndengei came in the first or a later company is not important. The subsequent superiority of Ndengei as a Kalou-Vu over his chief Lutu-na-sombasomba may be accounted for by his heroic exploits in the great civil war that divided Nakauvandra as related in the epic of Nakavandra which is given in another chapter.

ANTIQUITY OF THE FIJIANS

In attempting to fix a date for the first Melanesian settlement in Fiji the widest field lies open to the lover of speculation, for it is unlikely that when a few years have passed, and the last guardians of tradition have made way for young Fiji, any fresh evidence will come to light. The only monuments of a past age are rude earthworks in the form of moats and house foundations, a few stone enclosures known as nanga, no older than the period covered by tradition, and a stone cairn or two erected by the worshippers of the luve-ni-wai. The Melanesians buried their dead in their own houses if they were chiefs, leaving the house to fall to ruin over them; in the open if they were commoners, or in limestone caves wherever there were to be found, and there is no trace of tombs or hewn stone such as are found in Tonga and other islands colonized by Polynesians. Until the stalagmitic floors of the limestone caves have been examined systematically it is not safe to say that Paleolithic Man never inhabited the islands, but it is at least very unlikely. The earliest trace of human occupation yet discovered is a polished hatchet found in alluvial deposit on the bank of the River Mba about twelve feet below the surface, during excavations carried out in the erection of a sugar mill; but in a river subject to heavy annual floods, during which great quantities of soil are brought down from the hills, the depth is no proof of age. In the island of Waya (Yasawa) a cache of polished hatchets was discovered in 1891. Three of these were gouge-shaped for cutting away the wood on the inside of canoes or drums, and of elaborate finish, but there was nothing to show that they were of ancient date.

On the other hand, if the islands were peopled from a single immigration as native traditions seem to show, or even by successive arrivals of castaway canoes, many centuries would be required to raise the population to a total of 200,000. The widespread bond of tauvu between tribes speaking different dialects, and already showing divergence of type as in the cases of Nayau and Notho, and Mbau and Malake, sets back the original immigration many generations. There is nothing in Fijian tradition corresponding to Mr. Fornander's discovery in Hawaiian myth of a culture among the early immigrants superior to their condition when Europeans first came among them. Mr. Fornander believes that the Polynesians were acquainted with metals in their old home and navigated in large vessels built of planks. Their degeneracy was the natural result of their new surroundings, for if we were to take a number of European craftsmen, carpenters, smiths and fitters, and transport them with their families to an island destitute of metals, where they would be cut off from renewing their tools when worn out, we should find them in the second generation with nothing left of their former culture but the tradition, and perhaps the name of the metals their fathers used. This was the case with the Hawaiians. The tradition survived, and they had a name for the iron tools which they saw in the hands of their Europeans visitors. But the Fijians had no name for metal. Their first iron tools were brought to them by the Tongans, and they adopted the Tongan name, with the prefix of Ka, "thing—"Ka-ukamea (Kaukamea), "iron thing," just as their name for Europeans—Vavalangi—was taken from the Tongans from whom they first learned of the existence of the white race.

FORNANDER'S THEORY

It is impossible to discuss the age of the Melanesian settlement in Fiji without considering the traditional history of the Polynesians, and it is with real regret that I am driven to disagree with the bold conclusions of the principal authority on Polynesian history—Mr. Abraham Fornander.[6] The true value of his book lies in the preservation of the ancient genealogies and songs of the Hawaiians, which would otherwise have died with the generation of bards who chanted them, and in its ingenious reconstruction of the native history of Hawaii. The industry and research which he has brought to bear upon the kinship of the Polynesians with the Cushite races of the old world have resulted in little more than the collection of a mass of undigested evidence. There is no close chain of deduction to bind the whole, and nothing stands out from the confusion except the undoubted fact that the Polynesians are an offshoot from one of the ancient Asiatic races, and that they reached their present widely scattered abodes by way of the Malay Archipelago. If Mr. Fornander had not insisted upon a prolonged sojourn (séjour he prefers to call it) in Fiji before they colonized the eastern groups, as the principal link in his chain of argument, it would not be necessary to review his opinions here; and, so high a respect is due to his knowledge of the Hawaiian myths and so wasteful of energy is controversy between two workers in the same field, that I should allow his assertions to pass unnoticed but for the fact that they undermine the very foundations of Fijian history and ethnology. As it is I shall confine my criticism to the portion of his argument based upon Fiji, and leave the rest of his work to be reviewed by Polynesian ethnologists. Fornander's temptation lay in knowing Hawaii thoroughly, the other Polynesian groups imperfectly, and Fiji not at all. Making his deduction from Hawaii, he sought his proofs from the others by guesswork. The true history of a native race can never be written by one who is not thoroughly soaked in the traditions and language of the people, and since no one man can be an authority upon more than one branch of a people so widely scattered as the Polynesians, a perfect treatise will not be written until Fornanders shall be found contemporary in Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Rarotonga, Futuna, Wallis, and Hawaii, and collaboration arranged between them. To such a task the Polynesian Society in Wellington might well devote its energies.

Fornander's conclusions may be summarized as follows—

(1) That the Polynesians are of pre-Vedic Aryan descent.

(2) That at from A.D. 150–250 they "left the Asiatic Archipelago and entered the Pacific, establishing themselves in the Fiji Group, and thence spreading to the Samoan, Tonga, and other groups eastward and northward."

(3) That about the fifth century A.D. Hawaii was settled by Polynesians who reached the group by a chain of islands that have since disappeared, and were isolated there for some six centuries.

(4) That in the eleventh century began a period of unrest, during which there was frequent intercourse between the Marquesas, Society, Samoan and Hawaiian peoples for five or six generations.

I quote the fourth conclusion because I believe that it has a bearing upon the Polynesian strain of blood which we find in the eastern portion of the Fiji islands.

Now, Fornander's route for the Polynesians rests upon the assumption that they sojourned for more than three centuries in Fiji after the country had been settled by Melanesians, and that they were driven out bag and baggage by the Melanesians with whom they left behind nothing but their mythology and customs. If this is true the first arrival of the Melanesians in Fiji is set back beyond our era; if it is false, Fornander's theory falls to the ground. He bases his belief not upon any indisputable references to Fiji in Polynesian traditions, but upon "the number of Polynesian names by which these islands and places in them are called, even now, by their Papuan inhabitants,"[7] and upon the Polynesian words and folklore to be found incorporated in the language and Mythology of Fiji.[8] Upon this he estimates the Polynesian sojourn in Fiji to be thirteen generations, and says that these alleged facts "argue a permanence of residence that cannot well be disputed."[9] And so they would if they were true, but, unhappily for his argument, they are not. He conjectures the Polynesian's landing-place to have been in the western portion of Vitilevu, where, with one exception, the local and tribal names are pure Melanesian, and this exception—the tribe of Noikoro in the centre of the inland district—has a well-preserved tradition of emigration from the south-eastern coast of the island. Moreover, the dialects of Western Vitilevu are Melanesian, with less infusion of Polynesian words than any of the languages lying eastward of them. And lastly, it is impossible to believe that so momentous an event as the struggle between the two races, and the final expulsion of one of them, would have left no trace behind it in the traditions of the victors, when so insignificant an event as the arrival of two castaways, the missionaries of the Polynesian cult of the Malae is recorded in detail. Had Fornander had the talent for sifting evidence he held the clue in his hand when he wrote, "The large infusion of vocables in the Fijian language, and the mixture of the two races, especially in the south-eastern part of the group, indicate a protracted séjour, and an intercourse of peace as well as of war," for it is in this very fact that the Polynesian infusion is strongest on the eastern margin of the group, and wanes with every mile we travel westward, until it is lost altogether, that the real truth lies. It is this. The Melanesians landed on the north-western shore of Vitilevu, and thence spread eastward throughout their own group. At the islands of the Lau group they met a check in the 400 miles of open ocean that lay beyond, swept by the contrary wind of the south-east trades. Meanwhile the Polynesians, having long colonized the eastern groups, perhaps by way of Micronesia or Futuna or even by the north-eastern islands of the Fiji group, but certainly not by Great Fiji, entered on their period of navigation which Fornander assigns, I believe erroneously, to the eleventh century, were carried westward by the south-east trades, by single canoes whose male castaways were generally killed and eaten, but whose females were taken to wife by the chiefs. The superior attractions of their lighter coloured progeny led to the women of the mixed race being in request as wives among the darker Melanesians to the west. Many such castaway colonies are referred to in Tongan tradition. Early in the sixteenth century King Kauulu-fonua pursued the murderers of his father through the islands of the Samoan group to Futuna in vessels more seaworthy than the Tongiaki of Cook's day.[10] Kau Moala, the navigator, voyaged to Fiji at the close of the eighteenth century,[11] when we learn that the grand tour for a Tongan gentleman included a campaign in Fiji.

POLYNESIAN CASTAWAYS

The people of Ongtong Java ascribe their origin to a Tongan castaway canoe; the names of the Tongan ancestors of the Pylstaart Islanders (since removed to Eua in Tonga) are recorded, though their shipwreck is two centuries old. The people of the reef islands of the Swallow group, though purely Melanesian in everything but their tongue, have traditions of castaways who were influential enough to impress their language, but not their blood upon their entertainers, just as the Aryan immigrants impressed their customs, folklore and language upon the Neolithic peoples they found in Europe.[12] The natives of Rennell I. and Bellona I. in the Solomons have preserved the physical characteristics of Polynesians. It is far more probable that Nea and Lifu in the Loyalty Islands, and Numea (Noumea) in New Caledonia received their Polynesian names from such chance settlement, than that they are, as Fornander would have it, echoes of permanent colonies which passed away more than fifteen centuries ago. Turning to Fiji itself we find innumerable traditions of such Polynesian visitors, though never a trace of the far more important event of a Polynesian occupation. The chief family of Nandronga traces its descent from a single Polynesian castaway who was washed up by the sea about 1750. The chief of Viwa three generations ago took to wife a Tongan girl, the only survivor of a murdered crew. The chiefs of Thakaundrove claim relationship with the kings of Tonga through an ancestress of that family who was cast away early in the eighteenth century and saved by clinging to the deck-house when all her companions perished.[13]

These are only a few out of a series of Polynesian immigrations that may be numbered by hundreds, of which a tithe would suffice to account for the Polynesian language and blood to be found in Fiji. A stepping-stone in Fiji was necessary to Fornander's theory of Polynesian migrations, and if he had not been blinded by his desire to find it, he would have seen the obvious import of his declaration that in the eleventh century the Polynesians had a renaissance of navigation. Such a period of unrest, of distant voyages undertaken with no compass but the stars, in clumsy craft, on seas swept continually by a south-east wind, must have resulted in numerous shipwrecks on the eastern shores of islands lying to the westward.

His work contains but three appeals to Fijian folklore, which are, besides, the only evidence he stops to specify. "In the Fijian group, where much of ancient Polynesian lore, now forgotten elsewhere, is still retained, the god 'Ndengei,' according to some traditions, is represented with the head and part of the body of a serpent, the rest of his form being of stone." This he regards as a trace of serpent-worship, a "peculiarly Cushite out-growth of religious ideas." If this be evidence of Polynesian kinship, then were the ancient serpent-worshippers of Kentucky also Polynesian, together with a host of other races, who, being human, evolved the religious ideas common to humanity. Moreover, the serpent nature of Ndengei is a modern gloss added by the poets of Raki-raki after the Ancestor-god had been consigned to the gloomy cavern of Nakauvandra, for to the Fijian of the west every cave has a monstrous eel or serpent lurking in its recesses, and issuing to glut its maw upon unwary mortals who venture too near.

TRADITION OF A DELUGE

Fornander's second quotation from folklore is designed to prove no less than a Polynesian reminiscence of the Hebrew legend of the building of Babel, forgotten by the Polynesians, but "stowed away" by them in the memory of their former hosts, the Fijians. Thomas Williams is responsible for this tradition of a vast tower erected on a great mound in Nasavusavu Bay, Vanualevu, which collapsed, scattering the builders to the four winds. No trace of this tradition is now to be found, and one cannot but remember that Williams drew his information from his converts, to whom he was teaching that the Mosaic books related the genesis of their own race, and who knew that a confirmation drawn from their own traditions would be highly comforting to their missionary. But though there was no great mound to point to, and the existence of any such tradition may be doubted, to what, even if true, does it amount? To a coincidence such as is to be found in many primitive religions, or, if you will, to a suggestion that the Fijians are an offshoot of the Semitic stock, but scarcely to evidence that the Polynesians, who have no tradition of the kind, bequeathed it to the Fijians.

Fornander's third link is the tradition of the Deluge which is found in the folklore of both races. This, as might be expected, is quite sufficient evidence for him, not only of a Polynesian sojourn in Fiji, but of Polynesian descent from the "Cushite-pre-Joklanite Arabs," who, it is true, have no such traditions themselves, as far as we know, but certainly ought to have been at least as well favoured in this respect as the Semites and Aryans.[14] This is not the place to discuss the Deluge traditions. It is enough to say here that every island in the cyclone-belt is subject to destructive floods, that every district in Fiji has its own distinct tradition, and that in the provinces of Rewa and Mbua floods that are known to have occurred within the last 125 years have already been canonized in the realm of myth. If the Fijian and Polynesian heroes had sent forth a dove, which was the distinctive feature in both the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts, owing to the custom of the Semitic navigators carrying doves as part of their necessary equipment to ascertain the proximity of land, then something might be said for the traditions as evidence. But to quote so universal a human tradition as the Deluge-myths as evidence of intercourse or common origin is as rational as to draw such deductions from the belief in malevolent deities.

DATES CALCULATED FROM GENEALOGIES

Now, although Fornander's chronology has no direct bearing upon the date of the Melanesian arrival if, as I have shown, the Polynesians had no settlement in the group, the method of calculating dates should be the same for both races. Our only guide for events that happened in Polynesia before Tasman's voyage, 1642, is in the natives' genealogies, calculating by generations. They contain two obvious tendencies to error. It was very rare for a man of consequence to carry the same name throughout his career. Adoption, any notable exploit, or succession to a title were constant excuses for such changes, and it is quite possible that in the older genealogies the same hero is recorded twice under different names. Moreover, it is by no means certain that the names were not those of the reigning chiefs, and seeing that the succession often went to the next brother when the son was not of an age to wield the power, it is highly doubtful whether every name represented a generation. I know one genealogy where, in the portion relating to historical times, one of the recorded names was younger brother to the chief who precedes him.[15] This may account for the great diversity of readings found in the same genealogy, one version being shorter than another. On the other hand, there is the tendency to omit the names of remote personages whose short reign or insignificant character have failed to stamp themselves on the memory of posterity. There is thus a double tendency to error—on the one side to multiplication of generations, and on the other to curtailment by omissions. But even supposing that Fornander's genealogies are correct, it is difficult to see how he could arrive at an approximate date without showing more discrimination in fixing the length of a generation. All his dates are calculated upon a generation of thirty years, because that is the average length generally assigned in Europe. But Polynesia is not Europe, and generations in Polynesia, where men marry much earlier, are less than thirty years, as he might have discovered by taking the average in historical times. This I have done both in Tonga and Fiji, with the result that the generations in both races average from twenty-five to twenty-seven years. The Tui Tonga family is a very fair guide, because the office went invariably from father to son, and the holder was so sacred that he was never cut off by a violent death. The generations of this family since 1643 average twenty-seven years, while those of the temporal sovereign, the Tui Kanakubola who were often the victims of rebellion, average only twenty years apiece. The history of Hawaii was so bloodstained, that it is unlikely that Hawaiian generations averaged more than twenty-five. Five years in a generation makes a vast difference, for the date given by Fornander for the Polynesians' arrival in the Pacific is set forward from the fifth to the seventh century, and for their arrival in Hawaii from the eleventh to the thirteenth.

Abraham Fornander has done inestimable service to future students of Oceanic ethnology by preserving for their use songs and traditions that would otherwise have passed into oblivion, but he will be used as a storehouse of data rather than as an exponent of history, and I feel that I am best serving his reputation by cutting away the false deductions that would have tainted the sound and wholesome facts which form the larger portion of his work. I cannot leave him without wishing that he had made better use of Bancroft's saying, which he printed as his text on the title-page, "It is now a recognized principle in philosophy that no religious belief, however crude, nor any historical traditions, however absurd, can be held by the majority of a people for any considerable time as true, without having in the beginning some foundation in fact."