Preserving the Languages spoken by Uncivilized Nations. 35 



the adoption of a different language according as the person 

 speaking is of one class and the individual addressed is of an- 

 other; in their treatment of females ; in the superstitious obser- 

 vance of Taboos; in the possession of the rite of circumcision ; 

 in some of their games; and in the chewing of the Betel-nut. 



The Doctor devotes some pages to account for the origin 

 of a revolting peculiarity which has characterized nearly, if 

 not all, the widely extended ramifications of the Polynesian 

 race, namely, their propensity to eat human flesh. The Doc- 

 tor accounts for it by supposing that it originated in the urgent 

 calls of extreme hunger experienced by those who made the 

 long and disastrous voyages which have given a kindred po- 

 pulation to widely remote islands. In these voyages, often 

 performed without design, under the irresistible influence of 

 wind or current, the stock of provisions must often have been 

 extremely inadequate, and the starving islanders in their ca- 

 noes may thus have been impelled to partake of the flesh of 

 such of their companions as may have first perished from 

 want, or they may have sacrificed one or more of their num- 

 ber to sustain the rest. The recurrence of such causes, in 

 conjunction with the warlike habits of the people and their 

 human sacrifices, would tend to encourage a practice which 

 the almost total absence of animal food, excepting fish, would 

 be likely still further to promote. 



I need not, at present, further pursue the analysis of Dr. 

 Lang's work as respects the Polynesian nations' dialects and 

 manners ; but before I notice that part of his work in which 

 he endeavours to connect the Polynesian with the American 

 nations, I must mention, from the before-mentioned tabular 

 view given by Dr. Prichard, what appears to be the state of 

 America wkh respect to its nations and languages. The for- 

 mer appear considerably to exceed 300, and the latter seem to 

 be proportionally numerous, but of these many are unknown. 

 Notwithstanding that a vast number of these languages are 

 stated to be totally distinct, we have the authority of some ex- 

 cellent philologists, and more particularly that of Baron Alex- 

 ander de Humboldt, that there is a sort of common genius or 

 constitution pervading all these languages as far as they have 

 been examined, and which unites them into one group, whilst it 

 distinguishes them from nearly or quite all others. A more re- 

 cent traveller, Dr. Von Martius, of whose interesting memoir 

 on the state of the civil and natural rights of the aborigines 

 of the Brazils a translation is given in the Journal of the 

 Geographical Society, confirms the fact of the very great 

 number of the American languages, and mentions that in 

 Brazil alone more than 150 languages and dialects are spoken, 



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