ETHNOLOGICAL STUDIES 



249 



features almost European, and curly or bushy hair suggests rather a 

 physical kinship with the Micronesians, which would agree with the facts 

 on Lord Howe, for instance. Yet their language and culture both have 

 definite Polynesian characteristics. There is a tradition which may prove 

 of importance to the solution of this problem. It says that when the 

 ancestors of the Rennellese, led by the chief Kaitu'u, arrived at their 

 present home from Ubea (possibly Uvea, or Wallis Island, between 

 Samoa and Fiji) they found there an earlier population to whom they 

 gave the name Hiti. They claim, to be sure, to have exterminated the 

 Hiti, but this should no doubt be taken with a certain amount of reserve. 



For more than a hundred years after its discovery in 1794 Rennell 

 Island was left to itself, and two missionaries who tried to settle there 

 about 1 9 1 1 were quickly put to death. When connections with the island 

 were established in earnest, about 25 years ago, it might have been 

 thought that scientists would have flocked to it. In fact, only two ethnolo- 

 gists had visited it before me: the i\ustralian H. Ian Hogbin, who spent 

 two months there in 1927 but owing to bad luck got virtually nothing 

 out of his visit; and the American Gordon Macgregor, who in a fort- 

 night collected much information about the religion and sacrificial rites. 



At that time the Rennellese were still in the Stone Age — or rather, 

 a shell age, for the coral limestone of which the island consists is useless 

 for tool-making and the only available stones were the ones found 

 among the roots of driftwood or, exceptionally, in the limestone. The na- 

 tives were therefore obliged to use the shells of the giant clam for adzes 



Drinking water is scarce on 

 Rennell Island, and natives 

 must often make do with the 

 brackish water which trickles 

 out of coastal cliffs. 



