not at all
improbable, I think, that in these islands we have the two factors in
the formation of islands, viz. subsidence, during which these immense
cliffs were formed, and subsequent upheaval. This is the only way, I
think, in which we can account for these perpendicular cliffs in the
midst of deep blue ocean."[16]

[16] George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910),
pp. 13 _sq._

I have dwelt at what may seem undue length on the volcanic phenomena of
the Tonga islands because the occurrence of such phenomena in savage
lands has generally influenced the beliefs and customs of the natives,
quite apart from the possibility, which should always be borne in mind,
that man first obtained fire from an active volcano. But even if, as has
been suggested, the Tonga islands formed the starting-point from which
the Polynesian race spread over the islands of the Pacific,[17] it seems
very unlikely that the Polynesians first learned the use of fire when
they reached the Tongan archipelago. More probably they were
acquainted, not only with the use of fire, but with the mode of making
it long before they migrated from their original home in Southern Asia.
A people perfectly ignorant of that prime necessity could hardly have
made their way across such wide stretches of sea and land. But it is
quite possible that the myth which the Tongans, in common with many
other Polynesians, tell of the manner in which their ancestors procured
their first fire, was suggested to them by the spectacle of a volcano in
eruption. They say that the hero Maui Kijikiji, the Polynesian
Prometheus, first procured fire for men by descending into the bowels of
the earth and stealing it from his father, Maui Atalanga, who had kept
it there jealously concealed.[18]

[17] John Crawfurd, _Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay
Language_ (London, 1852), _Preliminary Dissertation_, p. 253,
quoted by Thomas West, _Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia_,
pp. 248 _sqq._ But the more usual view is that the
starting-point of the dispersal of the Polynesian race in the
Pacific was Samoa.

[18] Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_ (London,
1855), pp. 134-137; Le P. Reiter, "Traditions Tonguiennes,"
_Anthropos_, xii.-xiii. (1917-1918), pp. 1026-1040; E. E.
Collcott, "Legends from Tonga," _Folk-lore_, xxxii. (1921) pp.
45-48. Miss Farmer probably obtained the story from the Rev.
John Thomas