According to Robert Parsons, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has shown deep interest in the Polynesian people almost from the time the Church was organized in 1830. Just thirteen years later, in 1843, the Prophet Joseph Smith sent the first missionaries to the islands of the Pacific. The interest in the people of the Pacific comes from a brief account in the Book of Mormon of one Hagoth, a Nephite shipbuilder who left the Americas (from the west coast) and was "never heard of more" (Alma 63:8) . . . What happened to these lost ships? Only speculation and theories can be advanced, but the most common is that they were lost at sea. This is what the Nephites thought happened to them. A second theory is that they went to Japan. A third theory, (and the emphasis of this paper) is that they went to Hawaii. In speaking to the Hawaiians at Laie, Elder Matthew Cowley said to them: "Brothers and sisters, you are God's children -- you are Israel. You have in your veins the blood of Nephi: (Cole 384). Expounding this theory, some believe that they went not only to Hawaii, but also to other Polynesian Islands as well. . . .
Does the Church have an official position on any connection between Hagoth and the Polynesians? In a letter to the mission president of the Samoan Mission dated September 6, 1972, and signed by N. Eldon Tanner and Marion G. Romney, under the letterhead of the First Presidency, they wrote: "In your letter of September 6, 1972, you ask if the Polynesian people are Lamanites or Nephites. There has been much speculation about the origin of these people. We have, however, no scriptural evidence or revelation from the Lord that would tell us exactly where these people came from or their background." [Robert E. Parsons, "Hagoth and the Polynesians," in The Book of Mormon: Alma, The Testimony of The Word, pp. 249-255]
Note* What I believe the reader should understand in regards to the "Nephite" connection of some, even many, of the Polynesians, is that a specific connection doesn't necessarily have to come from pure descendants of Nephi; neither does that connection have to come through the man Hagoth, nor from the time of Hagoth, nor from the location from which Hagoth launched his ships. It could have even come much later than Book of Mormon times from righteous descendants of Lehi living on the western shores of South America (and thus far away from the final battles of the "Nephite" core population in Central America). [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]
For the benefit of the reader, the following is a sampling of pertinent information about the Polynesians presented by Cleon Skousen in his book, Treasures from the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3:
The Pacific Ocean covers about one-third of the globe, and is the largest ocean on earth. Stretched across its broad expanse are literally thousands of islands. In the most ancient times, the islands nearest the Asiatic coast began to be penetrated by the brown-skinned people of Melanesia, the dark-brown Dravidians of India, and the black-skinned oceanic Negroids from the middle east. The heart of the Pacific, however, remained virgin territory. Here is the way Sir Peter Buck, a former professor of anthropology at Yale University, (and himself a Polynesian), describes it:
For untold centuries after the boundaries of the Pacific (Asia and America) had been peopled by man, these islands remained isolated and unoccupied save by land shells, insects, reptiles, and birds . . . The uncharted seas awaited the coming of the Polynesian navigators." (Vikings of the Sunrise, London, Whitcome and Tombs Ltds, 1954, pp. 11-12)
Early anthropologists had assumed that the entire Pacific was inhabited by native peoples drifting from west to east. This was obviously true of the Dravidians, Melanesians, and Oceanic Negroids, but not the Polynesians. The Polynesians came out of the east, a separate and distinct people who finally mixed with the other races on the western base of the Polynesian triangle (see illustration). . . .
. . . On his first visit to Easter Island in the south Pacific, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl had observed "giants' heads cut in stone, with bearded chins and white men's features, brooding over the secret of centuries." (Kon Tiki, p. 176) These stone statues were almost identical with some he had seen in Peru. And the Peruvians had a story to tell about those heads. Here is the way Thor Heyerdahl reports it:
The Inca Indians had their great empire in this mountain country when the first Spaniards came to Peru. They told the Spaniards that the colossal monuments that stood deserted about the landscape were erected by a race of white gods which had lived there before the Incas themselves became rulers. These vanished architects were described as wise, peaceful instructors, who had originally come from the north, long ago in the morning of time, and had taught the Incas' primitive forefathers architecture and agriculture as well as manners and customs. They were unlike other Indians in having white skins and long beards; they were also taller than the Incas. Finally they left Peru as suddenly as they had come; the Incas themselves took over power in the country, and the white teachers vanished forever from the coast of South America and fled westward across the Pacific (p. 3217). . . .
. . . It is certainly striking that there is not a trace of gradual development in the high civilizations which once stretched from Mexico to Peru. The deeper the archaeologists dig, the higher the culture, until a definite point is reached at which the old civilizations have clearly arisen without any foundation in the midst of primitive cultures. (Kon Tiki, p. 175) (p. 3220) . . .
. . . As I pursued my search [to find the origins of the Polynesians], I found in Peru surprising traces in culture, mythology, and language which impelled me to go on digging ever deeper and with greater concentration in my attempt to identify the place of origin of the Polynesian tribal god Tiki. And I found what I hoped for. I was sitting reading the Inca legends of the sun-king Virakocha, who was the supreme head of the mythical white people in Peru. I read:
. . . Virakocha is an Inca [Ketchua] name and consequently of fairly recent date. The original name of the sun-god Virakocha, which seems to have been more used in Peru in old times was Kon-Tiki or Illa-Tiki, which means Sun-Tiki or Fire-Tiki. Kon-Tiki was high priest and sun-king of the Inca's legendary "white men" who had left the enormous ruins on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The legend runs that the mysterious white men with beards were attacked by a chief named Cari who came from Coquimbo Valley. In a battle on an island in Lake Titicaca the fair race was massacred, but Kon-Tiki himself and his closest companions escaped and later came down to the Pacific coast, when they finally disappeared overseas to the westward. . . .
. . . The natives of Easter Island had memorized their ancestors clear back to Kon-Tiki, their founder, a total of 57 generations. The length of a generation can only be estimated, but it puts Kon-Tiki back around the meridian of time or not later than A.D. 400 . . . . (p. 3218)
The original white, bearded men from whom the Polynesians claim their ancestry, were part of a civilization which possessed very advanced technical knowledge. Thor Heyerdahl says:
The old Polynesians were great navigators. They took bearings by the sun by day and the stars by night. Their knowledge of the heavenly bodies was astonishing. They knew that the earth was round, and they had names for such abstruse conceptions as the Equator and the northern and southern tropics. . . . The Polynesians knew five planets, which they called wandering stars, for which they had nearly two hundred different names. A good navigator in old Polynesia knew well in what part of the sky the different stars would rise and where they would be at different times of the night and at different times of the year . . .
Whence had the Polynesians obtained their vast astronomical knowledge and their calendar, which was calculated with astonishing thoroughness? Certainly not from Melanesian or Malayan peoples to the westward. But the same old vanished civilized race, the "white and bearded men" who had taught Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas their amazing culture in America, had evolved a curiously similar calendar and a similar astronomical knowledge which Europe in those times could not match. . . . (Kon-Tiki, pp. 197-199)
It is interesting to note that most important staples for food in the Polynesian Islands had to be brought in by man. Thor Heyerdahl comments:
Sweet Potatoes: When the first Europeans came to the Pacific islands, they found large plantings of sweet potatoes on Easter Island and in Hawaii and New Zealand, and the same plant was also cultivated on the other islands, but only within the Polynesian area. It was quite unknown in the part of the world which lay farther west. . . . Now as in known, America is the only place in the rest of the world where the potato grew before the time of the Europeans. And the sweet potato Tiki brought with him to the islands, Ipomoea batatas, is exactly the same as that which Indians have cultivated in Peru from the oldest times. . . In the South Sea islands the sweet potato will grow only if carefully tended by man, and, as it cannot withstand sea water, it is idle to explain its wide distribution over these scattered islands by declaring that it could have drifted over 4,000 sea miles with ocean currents from Peru. This attempt to explain away so important a clue to the Polynesians' origin is particularly futile seeing that philologists have pointed out that on all the widely scattered South Sea islands, the name of the sweet potato is kumara, and kumara is just what the sweet potato was called among the old Indians in Peru. (Kon-Tiki, pp. 134-135)
Bottle Gourd: Another very important Polynesian cultivated plant we had with us on board the Kon-Tiki was the bottle gourd, Lagenaria vulgaris. As important as the fruit itself was the skin, which the Polynesians dried over a fire and used to hold water. This typical garden plant also, which again cannot propagate itself in a wild state by drifting across the sea alone, the old Polynesians had in common with the original population of Peru. Bottle gourds, converted into water containers, are found in prehistoric desert graves on the coast of Peru and were used by the fishing population there centuries before the first men came to the islands in the Pacific. The Polynesian name for the bottle gourd, kimi, is found again among the Indians in Central America where Peruvian civilization has its deepest roots. (Kon-Tiki, p. 135.) (p. 3220-22)
Elder Matthew Cowley, the modern Apostle to the Polynesians used to frequently say: "Brothers and sisters, you are God's children--you are Israel. You have in your veins the blood of Nephi." (Matthew Cowley, Man of Faith, by H.A. Smith, Salt Lake City, Bookcraft, 1954, p. 234)
In 1858 Brigham Young said: "Those islanders . . . are of the House of Israel, of the seed of Abraham, and to them pertain the promises." (Israel in the Pacific, a Genealogical Text for Polynesia, by Cole and Jensen, 1961, Genealogical Society of Utah, p. 140).
In the dedicatory prayer offered at the dedication of the New Zealand Temple, President David O. McKay made the following statement: "We express gratitude that to these fertile islands Thou didst guide the descendants of Father Lehi, and hast enabled them to prosper, to develop and to become associated in history with leading and influential nations among mankind."
Cleon Skousen summarizes by saying that after all these many years of investigation, the scientists are finally catching up with the scriptures and confirming the fact that the Polynesians are American in origin. They probably occupied the islands of the Pacific in a series of migrations over a period of several centuries. However, the fact that all Polynesians still share the same language derivatives would indicate that they have been in frequent contact with each other throughout the huge Polynesian triangle and have not been so long in the Islands of the Pacific that they have developed independent cultures. [W. Cleon Skousen, Treasures from the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3, pp. 3216-3227] [For an extensive treatment of the Polynesian connection to the tribe of Joseph, see Paul R. Cheesman and Millie Foster Cheesman, Early America and the Polynesians] [See the commentary on Helaman 3:14] [See Vol. 6, Appendix D]
Alma 63:5 Hagoth (Polynesians) [[Illustration]]: The Polynesian Triangle [W. Cleon Skousen, Treasures from the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3, p. 3215]
Alma 63:5 Hagoth (Polynesians) [[Illustration]]: The Polynesian Triangle. [Bruce S. Sutton, Lehi, Father of Polynesia: Polynesians Are Nephites, p. 22]
Alma 63:5 Hagoth (Polynesians) [Illustration]: Migrations to the Western Hemisphere and Polynesia. [Bruce S. Sutton, Lehi, Father of Polynesia: Polynesians Are Nephites, p. 52]
Alma 63:5 Hagoth (Polynesian connection with the tribe of Joseph) [Illustration]: Lehi blessing his son Joseph, statuary at the L.D.S. Hawaiian Temple. [Paul R. Cheesman and Millie Foster Cheesman, Early America and the Polynesians, p. 27]