If what has been said about the connection between Maori and Rarotongan ancestors is true, it follows that the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands formed part of the same branch of the race, together with the Hawaiians. The Morioris have a good many words in common with the Rarotongans, which the Maoris have not retained in their dialect. The Hawaiians and Morioris are the only two branches of the race—so far as I am aware—that use the causitive form of the verb in hoko (Hawaiian ho'o). Of the principal dialects of Polynesia, the following are the most alike, in the order given:—Maori (and Moriori), Rarotongan, Tahitian, and Hawaiian.
The Moriori traditions are very precise in many respects. They say that they arrived at the Chatham Islands (Re-kohu) from Hawaiki; but as they have retained the common name of New Zealand, Aotea-roa, in their traditions, besides another old name of the North Island, Huku-rangi, and moreover knew the old name of the north end of the South Island, Aropaoa, there seems little doubt that they went to the Chathams from New Zealand, the more so, as we now know that this country was also called Hawaiki, i.e., Hawaiki-tautau. They are acquainted also traditionally with the names of several New Zealand trees not known elsewhere. The two lines of genealogies we have of this people, show that the migration to the Chatham Islands took place, by one line twenty-seven, by the other twenty-nine, or a mean of twenty-eight generations ago."[1]
On these Moriori tables are shown three well-known ancestors of the tangata whenua of New Zealand: Toi, Rauru, and Whatonga, as father, son, and grandson, just in
- ↑ I have added one generation to Mr. Shand's tables (Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. iv., p. 42, 44) to bring them up to 1850.
