From all material evidence, it is generally accepted that the settlement of Polynesia took place between approximately 1500 BC and 700 AD with settlement in the Marquesas, Society and Hawaiian islands between 200 BC to 700 AD, and moving westward to New Zealand, Bellwood ends the settlement of Polynesia in about 1200 AD. It is assumed that the culture of the islands developed in isolation. The possibility that voyages might have taken place from the great maritime dynasties of the region, such as the seagoing Java dynasties of Sailendra and Srivijaya, has not been considered as far as I am aware. Yet to the first European navigators, there were great refinements evident, which suggested that elements from the older civilisations of Asia had been carried to the Pacific.  

Sailing ships with outriggers were carved on the great Buddhist temple-mountain of Borobodur in Java, built by the Sailendra dynasty in the 8th - 9th centuries.

In the grounds of the  National Museum in Bangkok there is a boulder 2.2. metres long, a great bellstone from Nakhon Pathon in southern Thailand dating to the seventh to ninth century.    I had seen just such a musical megalith  in a film made for television by the English composer, David Fanshawe,  on a tiny island in the lagoon of Bora Bora, six thousand miles from Thailand.   He and a Tahitian assistant sounded the massive boulder by striking it with rocks  and it rang as sonorous and true as any bronze church bell, a rarity that the composer had been searching for throughout Polynesia. This was the bellstone of Hiro, a famous legendary  navigator and adventurer.  The unique nature of the artifact would seem to preclude any question of independent development, yet what could be the apparent connection between Thailand and Tahiti?

Tahiti was such a dot in the vast Pacific that it virtually escaped European contact until Bougainville in La Boudeuse in 1766, and 1767 when Captain Samuel  Wallis of the  Dolphin cast his anchor down in Matavai Bay, to be followed two years later by Captain James Cook in the Endeavour.  The island had "the most Beautiful appearance possible to Imagine", wrote Mr Robertson of the Dolphin, "all laid out in Plantations and regular built houses without number....this is the most populous country...with a good many fine young girls"

Tahiti was mountainous and green  with groves of  coconut and breadfruit.  There was fresh water everywhere and abundance of fruits and flowers.  In those early days the islands, dubbed the Society Islands,  seemed lovely as a dream after months at sea.  18th century Spanish navigators' accounts  described the suavity and charm of the "Indians", clad in fine soft barkcloth garments, the pareu like a lungyi, or the tiputa, a poncho, with cloaks draped elegantly over their shoulders, white or dyed in bright colours, red and gold.  The greater part of the people "by their physiognomy" seemed to have originated from Asia.  Their complexions varied from "mulatto to white but most an olive colour"; wrote Don Manuel Amat.  They were "of ordinary stature"  with pleasant features and straight or wavy black hair.  William Wales however, Captain Cook's astronomer, thought the beautiful women of Tahiti were too small and "rather a deadish   yellow".  "Like handsome Burmans";   said one writer and others suggested Cushites, Arabians, Persians, even survivors of a lost continent.  No-one however actually sat down and recorded a clear history of their origins from the Tahitians themselves.  By the time such questions were asked, ancient Tahiti had ceased to exist, with the population devastated under the fatal impact of European and American invasion, disease and alcohol and firearms.

 The rulers of all the Tahitian islands were the Hui Arii, the noble or royal family.  They were a maritime dynasty with a sacred lineage and a rigourous ban on intermarriage with commoners, an invading elite who had subjugated an earlier population whom they called the manahune.  An old chant told the story of the invasion of Tahiti;      "Upon the wind did the gods fly to Tahiti and the people fled into caves and ravines.  A dreaded rule was that of the gods with no interpreters!"  This clearly implies an invading people who superimposed their religion and their language. The Hui Arii took political institutions, court etiquette and insignia of rank to Tahiti.  They valued chastity in  girls of rank, not at all enforced on commoners, the purity of their bloodline, light skin and social ceremony.  The chiefs were the Arii Rahi. The body of the Arii Rahi, the head especially, was sacred and protected by numerous taboos,  and he was carried everywhere on the backs of bearers.  Red was their sacred colour. They were polytheists and their especial deity was Ta'aroa the creator and seagod.  They warred with ceremony and enthusiasm, wearing splendid feathered helmets, armed with spears and clubs edged with shark's teeth.  Interisland wars could be bitter and they also  sacrificed prisoners to their gods which shocked the Europeans.

Polynesian genealogies upon which chiefly descent depended, were religiously preserved and recited.  Without exception they led back over centuries to  common ancestors, leaders of the expeditions that colonised an island group.  The traditions were of war with the losers embarking on long migrations, of sojourns on islands and renewed voyages to the final goal.   A genealogy was recorded in Rarotonga, south east of Tahiti by S. Percy Smith, founder of the Polynesian society, which named a homeland called  Atia-te varinga-nui   which meant great Atia rich in vari, the common food of the people.  Vari, translated as mud, has been correctly interpreted as padi, hence Atia where rice was abundant.

In epic wars, the people were defeated and left this homeland for Indonesia and the Pacific, led by the ancestor    Tu-te-rangi-marama.  In Atia there was a temple twelve fathoms (around 20 metres) tall enclosed with stone walls and named Koro-tuatini or place of many enclosures, a sacred splendid place.  From Atia came feasts and games, music and customs.

Smith was obsessed with the idea that the Polynesians had left India in 450 BC, a totally unfounded theory which would have resulted in many centuries of wandering around somewhere south of Sumatra.  The history of Atia came to be identified with Smith and a dating scheme that is nothing more than his opinion. In fact Smith took the legend of Atia and stretched it to fit.  He assumed 25 years to a generation, yet the firstborn heir of the  Arii Rahi was consecrated at adolescence and would probably be the father of the next Arii Rahi in his teens.  Peter Buck the Maori anthropologist pointed out that, even when recited by trained reciters, geneologies could become flawed over the centuries with compound names split and adjectives rendered as names.  Such errors could add centuries to a genealogy which Smith seems abundantly to have done.  Smith was also  dishonest with the material he had been given  and interpreted it  freely to suit his preconceptions.  And, as Peter Bellwood observes; "the Polynesians were not Caucasoids derived from India"

Joseph Banks who sailed with Cook in the Endeavour wrote, as did many others, of the Tahitians' skill in astronomy; they knew "a very large part of the stars by name... they also know the time of their annual appearances to a nicety, far greater than would be easily believed by a European astronomer".  The purpose of Polynesian astronomy was navigation.  In Tuvalu, there was no word for an astronomer - an expert on stars was a tiaborau or navigator. This was an orally transmitted art, learned in an arduous training with no instruments except the aveinga, the "star path" - steering by a succession of rising or setting stars.

David Lewis who went to school in Rarotonga, set out to rediscover the ancient art before it should be lost. Sophisticated, secret and complex techniques held by great navigators were passed on to initiates in a course of instruction that could last for up to seven years. Navigational lore was secret, and sacred, it was "strongly and religiously forbidden to divulge the art". Joseph Banks was clear on this; "Besides Religion, the Practice of Physick and the knowledge of Navigation and Astronomy is in the possession of the Priests". As well as the "star compass", wave orientation was taught, the manner in which a distant atoll could distort waves, and navigation by the swell of waves and by clouds which indicated land, and by the flight of birds; the tools were many, for this was lore on which many lives depended.

Tupaiia was an arii and a navigator-priest who accompanied Cook from Tahiti to Java in the Endeavour.  He was invaluable to Cook, not least as an interpreter.  Cook's crew found him arrogant, yet, Cook wrote;  "At more than two thousand leagues distant from his home, despite the ship's circuitous route between 48 degrees south latitude and 40 degrees north, he was never at a loss to point to Taheitee, at whatever place he came to".

The large voyaging canoes of Tahiti were in fact ocean-going ships.  They were planked vessels with broad strakes fastened to each other and to ribs and keel by stitching or lashing with coconut fibre.  The pahi, the oceangoing canoe of Tahiti and the Tuamotus was a twin hulled two masted sailing vessel 15-20 metres long.  These were deep sea ships, intended for long distance work and not for inshore fishing for which small canoes were used.  

 War Boats of Otaheite by William Hodges (National Maritime Museum Picture Library)

In 1774 Cook observed a naval review with  "a grand and noble appearance", such as he had never seen before and no one could have expected.  The Europeans were "perfectly lost in admiration",  and Cook judged the Tahitians to be "expert in their business".  He was seriously impressed by their seafaring skills and wrote;  "These people sail in these seas from Island to Island for several hundred leagues, the Sun serves for a compass by day and the Moon by night.  When this comes to be prov'd we shall no longer be at a loss to know how the Islands in these seas came to be peopl'd...we may trace them quite to the East Indies".

To follow them, click on  The Great Voyage.