Note 8 — Traditional Hawaiian History.

I have taken the above notices of the first arrivals of white foreigners in this country from S. M. Kamakau’s summary of the traditions and meles referring to that subject. To what branches of the Caucasian race, if to that race at all, these “white people—with bright eyes and white cheeks,” belonged, who in the twelfth century were found on the borders or among the islands of the Pacific, may be a rare question for archaeologists and ethnologists to settle. That they were looked upon by the natives here as people of another and a lighter colored race than their own is evident. Whether they were Japanese or some other Mongol variety, extended along the western shores of the Pacific, or Toltecs, from the eastern rim of the Pacific and the Mexican coast, conquered and expelled by the Aztecs towards the close of the twelfth century,—the fact however stands forth in archaic simplicity, and becomes of historical importance, that, during this period—genealogically computed to have fallen within the twelfth century—the Hawaiians received large infusions not only of Polynesian blood, from the island to the south and southwest, but also of alien races, from one or both continents bordering on the Pacific, and leaving their traces in the physique as well as in the customs and worship of the people.8