CHAPTER VI.
THE LOG-BOOKS OF THE MIGRATIONS.
Several branches of the race have preserved in their traditions, a record of their migrations; but of all these that of the Marquesans is most full. In trying to locate the many places mentioned in these accounts, we shall succeed only with some of them, for this reason principally: the tribal organisation amongst the Polynesians appears to be of very ancient date, and this was much emphasized when the people occupied Indonesia, from the fact of different branches having been separated from the others for generations in the numerous islands of that Archipelago. Even supposing the race to have been one in speech, customs, beliefs, etc., at the time it left the Father-land, progress through, and settlement on, the islands of the Archipelago in places separated by many miles of ocean, must have tended through local environment and lapse of time, to have caused a more or less tribal arrangement of the people. It thus came about that when the time arrived for them to move on into the Pacific, each tribe under its own chiefs and priests formed separate hekes or migrations, carrying with them the ideas, modified customs, beliefs and speech, which they had acquired in their temporary homes. As these expeditions passed onwards towards the sunrise and discovered fresh lands—dwelling there for more or less lengthy periods—they would give names to these new lands which are retained in the
