Fiji, or at any rate before this intercourse was sufficient to influence Polynesian customs. The prevalence of cannibalism at Tahiti to a small extent would be due to the influence of later migrations from Fiji (of which there appear to have been several), and after the original settlers in Tahiti had become numerous.
It is the same with Hawaii. It has been shown that it was about A.D. 650 that this group was first settled, and the strong inference is, from Fiji.[1] This, again, would be before the time of the Melanesian connection. Fornander has shown that the Hawaiians remained isolated until about the year 1150, when the southern Polynesians again appeared on the scene, and these southern visitors, who have been shown to be frequently Maori and Rarotongan ancestors, must have been well acquainted with cannibalism. That their customs did not spread in Hawaii—at any rate, to any extent—is due probably to the original inhabitants being in sufficient numbers to make their objection to it felt.
In the Marquesas, if we take the period of Nuku of their genealogies—about 50 generations ago—as that at which the islands were first settled, this would be before Melanesian customs aftected Fiji. Therefore we may accredit the later and frequent visitors from Fiji
- ↑ I judge from Fornander that the Hawaiians have no tradition of any Hawaiki (Savāi'i) in the Pacific, but in their word Ka-hiki we may probably trace the name Fiji as well as Ta-hiti. Dr. Turner quotes Tafiti as a Samoan name for Fiji. Again, it is probable that the Hawaiian expression, Kukulu-o-Kahiki, is meant for the Fiji group. In Maori this is Tuturu-o-Whiti, a name, I feel convinced, they applied to Fiji, meaning the original or true Whiti (Fiji) in contradistinction to Tawhiti (Tahiti), the second place of their sojourn in the Central Pacific. The Hawaiian word has since become generalised, as with the Maori Hawaiki.
