“+ DANIEL WILSON ON THE RIGHT 
To the quaint speculative fancy of Sir Thomas Browne, with his strong bent towards 
Platonic mysticism, this question, like other and higher speculations with which he 
dallied, presented itself in relation to what may well be called, “ first principles,” as an 
undetermined problem. ‘‘ Whether,” says he in his “ Religio Medici,” “ Eve was framed 
out of the left side of Adam, I dispute not, because I stand not yet assured which is the 
right side of a man, or whether there be any such distinction in nature.” That there is a 
right side in man is a postulate not likely to be seriously disputed ; but whether there is 
such a distinction in nature remains still unsettled, two centuries and a half after he thus 
started the question. The proofs, nevertheless, are varied, and at least on this broad aspect 
of the question, as it seems to me, conclusive. The evidence which language supplies 
leaves no room to doubt the prevalence of the habit of using one specific hand for all 
actions requiring either unusual force or special delicacy ; and will be found to coincide 
with still older proofs furnished by the implements and the drawings of prehistoric 
times. Even among races in the rudest condition of savage life, such as the Australians, 
and the Pacific Islanders, terms for “right”, the “right hand”, or approximate expres- 
sions, show that the distinction is no product of civilisation. In the Kamilarai dialect 
of the Australians bordering on Hunter’s River and Lake Maquarie, matara signifies 
“hand”, but they have the terms turovn, right, on the right hand, and ngorangon, on the 
left hand. In the Wiraturai dialect of the Wellington Valley, the same ideas are expressed 
by the words bumalgal and miraga, dextrorsum and sinistrorsum. 
The idea lying at the root of our own decimal notation, which has long since been 
noted by Lepsius, Donaldson and other philologists, as the source of names of Greek and 
Latin numerals, is no less discernible in the rudest savage tongues. Among the South 
Australians the simple names for numerals are limited to two, viz. ryup, one, and politi, 
two; the two together express “three” ; politi-politi, four ; and then “five” is indicated 
by the term ryup-murnangin, i. e., one hand; ten by politi-murnangin, i. e., two hands. The 
same idea is apparent in the dialects of Hawaii, Raratonga, Viti, and New Zealand, in the 
use of the one term : lima, rima, linga, ringa, etc., for hand and for the number 5. Fulu, 
and its equivalents, stand for “ten”, apparently from the root fu, whole, altogether ; while 
the word fau, which in the Hawaian signifies ‘ready ”, in the Tahitian “right, proper, ” 
and in the New Zealand, “ expert, dextrous,” is the common Polynesian term for the right 
hand. In the Vitian language, as spoken in various dialects throughout the Viti or Fiji 
Islands, the distinction is still more explicitly indicated. There is first the common term 
linga, the hand, or arm ; then the ceremonial term daka, employed exclusively in speaking 
of that of a chief, but which, it may be presumed, also expresses the right hand ; as, 
while there is no other word for it, a distinct term sema is the left hand. The root se is 
found not only in the Viti, but also in the Samoa, Tonga, Mangariva, and New Zealand 
? 
dialects, signifying “to err, to mistake, to wander ;”’ semo, unstable, unfixed; while there 
is the word matau, right, dexter, clearly proving the recognition of the distinction. In the 
case of the Viti, or Fijian, this is the more noticeable, as there appears to be some reason 
for believing that left-handedness is unusually prevalent among the native of the Fiji 
Islands. In 1876 a correspondent of “the Times ” communicated a series of letters to that 
journal, in which he embodied anthropological notes on the Fijians, obtained both from 
his own observations during repeated visits to the Islands, and from conversation with 
English, American, and German settlers, at the port of call, and on the route between 
