1/77. THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 147 



an Erreoc woman is delivered of a child, a piece of 

 cloth, dipped in water, is applied to the month and 

 nose, which suffocates it. 



men in the Ladrones and in Otaheite, whose manners are thus li- 

 centious, should be considered as a distinct confraternity, called bv 

 a particular name ; and that this name should be the same in both 

 places: this singular coincidence of custom, confirmed by that, of 

 language, seems to furnish an irrefragable proof of the inhabitants 

 of both places being the same nation. We know, that it is the 

 general property of the Otaheite dialect, to soften the pronuncia- 

 tion of its words. And, it is observable, that, by the omission of one 

 single letter (the consonants) our Arreoys (as spelled inHawkes- 

 worth's Collection), or Erroes (according to Mr. Anderson's ortho- 

 graphy), and the Urritoes of the Ladrones, are brought to such a 

 similitude of sound (the only rule of comparing two unwritten lan- 

 guages), that we may pronounce them to be the same word, with- 

 out exposing ourselves to the sneers of supercilious criticism., 



One or two more such proofs, drawn from similarity of language, 

 in very significant words, may be assigned. Le Gobien tells us, 

 that the people of the Ladrones worship their dead, whom they call 

 Anitis. Here, again, by dropping the consonant n, we have a 

 word that bears a strong resemblance to that which so often occurs 

 in Captain Cook's Voyages, when speaking of the divinities of his 

 islands, whom he c'alls Eatooas. And it may be matter of curiosity 

 to remark, that what is called an Aniti, at the Ladrones, is, as we 

 learn from Cantova [Lettrcs Edifiantes Ciwieuses, torn. xv. p. 

 309, 310.], at the Caroline Islands, where dead chiefs are also wor- 

 shipped, called a Tahutup ; and that, by softening or sinking the 

 strong sounding letters, at the beginning and at the end of this lat- 

 ter word, the Ahutu of the Carolines, the Aiti of the Ladrones, and 

 the Eatooa of the South Pacific Islands, assume such a similarity in 

 pronunciation ( for we can have no other guide), as strongly marks 

 one common original. Once more ; we learn from Le Gobien, that 

 the Marianne people call their chiefs Chamorris, or Chamoris. 

 And, by softening the aspirate Ch into T, and the harshness of r 

 into / (of which the vocabularies of the different islands give us re- 

 peated instances), we have the Tamole of the Caroline Islands, 

 and the Tamolao, or Tamaha, of the Friendly ones. 



If these specimens of affinity of language should be thought too 

 scanty, some very remarkable instances of similarity of customs and 

 institutions will go far to remove every doubt, l. A division into 

 three classes, of nobles, a middle rank, and the common people, or 

 servants, was found, by Captain Cook, to prevail both at the 

 Friendly and the Society Islands. Father Le Gobien expressly 

 tells us, that the same distinction prevails at the Ladrones: II y a 

 trots fiats, parmi Irs insulaircs, In noblesse, le moi/en. S; le menu. 



L Q 



