Real Hawaiians are a small minority in their own land.

When Captain Cook discovered the islands in 1778, the native population is estimated to have numbered from 20,000 to 30,000. Today there are fewer than 8,000 pure Hawaiians left, most of them living in mountainous areas remote from the bustling cities. The decimation is due partly to communicable diseases carried in by the newcomers and partly to the destruction of the natives' habitat and way of life by modernization.

Much thought and effort has been devoted as of late to preserving native Hawaiian culture. The Bernice P. Bishop Museum, for instance, not only houses an impressive collection of native artifacts but supports in-depth research into native history and culture. Another example is the Polynesian Cultural Center on Oahu, where the traditional way of life is reenacted via buildings, costumes, dances, and other cultural activities.

Visiting sites like these, the tourist from Taiwan may be struck by a strange sense of d?j? vu. Those scantily clad figures in the oil paintings at the Bishop Museum—aren't they the spitting image of our Yamis of Orchid Island? And if you've ever visited our Nine Tribes Cultural Village, don't the dances and costumes at the Polynesian Cultural Center look familiar? Could it be that . . . ?

For a long time, under the influence of Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki, Western archaeologists have believed that the original home of the natives of Hawaii and the other Polynesian islands was the Americas. Others have held that their ancestors were the dark-skinned Melanesians of the Western Pacific, while some, based on their mysterious religious beliefs, have speculated that the Polynesians originally came from India.

Geographically considered, the theory that the Hawaiian islanders originated in South America seems plausible enough. South America is the least distant continent, and certain locally indigenous plants, such as the sweet potato, are native to the Americas but not to Asia or Australia.

But the more archaeclogists and linguists study the settlement of the entire Pacific island chain, the more skeptical of the traditional theory they become. An increasing amount of archaeological evidence demonstrates that the cultures of the Pacific islanders are closely related to those of continental Asia.

"Seeds can drift across the ocean, but artifacts must be brought in by man," says Dr. Yosihiko H. Sinoto of the Bishop Museum.

Linguists, in turn, have discovered that the Polynesian languages all belong to a single language family, the Austronesian, and that the earliest speakers of languages belonging to that family are located on the opposite side of the Pacific: in Taiwan.

Where did the aborigines of Taiwan come from?

Although the Austronesian languages themselves have disappeared from mainland China, various finds unearthed over the past ten years on the coastal region south of the Yangtze River indicate the presence some 6,000 years ago of a Neolithic riceeating culture very different from the culture of the Yellow River valley.

In 1980 the archaeologist P.S. Bellwood, who has studied the subject for thirty years, published an article in Scientific American describing the vast movement by which the Pacific islands were first colonized. He surmises that it was their slash-and-burn type of agriculture, which is particularly prodigal of land, that drove the people of the coast to seek more land in the islands to the south.

Their first stop was Taiwan. By that time they already knew how to build technically advanced outrigger canoes, the means of transportation that was to carry them over such huge distances across the Pacific.

Around 5,500 to 4,500 years ago, Bell wood said, they moved south to the Philippines, Borneo and the East Indies. Since the equatorial climate was unsuited to growing rice, they abandoned it for tropical crops like bananas, coconuts, and breadfruit.

After colonizing the East Indies, one branch of voyagers headed West across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar, while another turned east, gradually spreading through New Guinea and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. From there they extended east to Easter Island, south to New Zealand, and north to Hawaii, where they arrived around 800 A.D.

Bellwood's theory is based mainly on the evidence of linguistics and archaeology, but two years ago it received additional support from genetics. Y.K. Paik, the laboratory director at St. Francis Hospital, collected blood samples from 108 native Hawaiians (53 were of pure Hawaiian ancestry) and discovered that their genetic make-up is very similar to that of other Polynesian people.

"This experiment proved that Hawaiians and Austronesians are very closely related, and that they very possibly came from the south of mainland China. In fact, that doesn't surprise me very much, since the Koreans also came from China," says Paik, who is of Korean ancestry.

In fact, Bellwood was not the first to propose that the Pacific islanders originated in the south of China. The late Ling Ch'un-sheng, a professor of anthropology at National Taiwan University, long ago published a book called The China Border Peoples and the Cultures of the Pacific Rim in which he explored the relations between Polynesian culture and the culture of coastal China in far antiquity.

The question "Who are the Hawaiians?" is an interesting archaeological problem, but it no longer seems of much concern to the Hawaiians themselves. Deep down they may resent the whites for having stolen their land, but with the influence of education and intermarriage they have gradually come to identify themselves with their new country.

The next time you have a chance to visit Hawaii though, you may feel differently.

Ocean Immigration Routes of the Hawaiian Natives[Picture]

[Picture Caption]

(Left) Dr. Y. K. Paik, laboratory director at St. Francis Hospital, is the first scientist to focus on leukocyte antigens in studying the genetic ties of the native Hawaiians.

(Right) Dr. Paik has had the steps of his experiment illustrated in cartoon form with explanatory captions.

Fishhooks ot this shape have also been unearthed along the coast of Asia .

These batu excavated from the islands of the South Pacific are kept in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.

Dr. Yosihiko H. Sinoto, chairman of anthropology at the Bishop Museum, has been researching the archaeology of the Pacific islands as well.

Look familiar? It's the Polynesian Cultural Center—not Taiwan's Nine Tribes Cultural Village.

Very few people on Honolulu these days are pure Hawaiian. This woman is one-fourth Chinese. Doesn't the picture of her when she was younger reveal a Chinese charm?

To validate their traditional oceangoing skills, a group of Hawaiians in 1980 sailed this proa all the way to Tahiti and back without relying on any modern navigational equipment.

Sweeping across the brilliant waters of the South Pacific on an outrigger canoe is a favorite Hawaiian pastime.

Dr. Paik has had the steps of his experiment illustrated in cartoon form with explanatory captions.

Fishhooks ot this shape have also been unearthed along the coast of Asia.

These batu excavated from the islands of the South Pacific are kept in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum.

Dr. Yosihiko H. Sinoto, chairman of anthropology at the Bishop Museum, has been researching the archaeology of the Pacific islands as well.

Look familiar? It's the Polynesian Cultural Center—not Taiwan's Nine Tribes Cultural Village.

Very few people on Honolulu these days are pure Hawaiian. This woman is one-fourth Chinese. Doesn't the picture of her when she was younger reveal a Chinese charm?

To validate their traditional oceangoing skills, a group of Hawaiians in 1980 sailed this proa all the way to Tahiti and back without relying on any modern navigational equipment.

Sweeping across the brilliant waters of the South Pacific on an outrigger canoe is a favorite Hawaiian pastime.