394 THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS. 



went armed. The natives were much frightened and astonished 

 at first at the sound of a gun. One of my guides, when I was 

 shooting birds, stopped his ears at first, and bent down trem- 

 bling every time that I fired. The natives were, however, not 

 much scared by our firing our ship's guns and rockets at night, 

 but came off next day to the ship to trade as if nothing had 

 happened. 



I obtained about 55 words and the numerals of the islands, 

 and have published the results elsewhere in a paper, reference 

 to which will be found at the end of this chapter ; a large part 

 is here reprinted. The difficulty of obtaining correct vocabu- 

 laries from savages, of whose language the investigator is 

 entirely ignorant, is well known, and has been commented on 

 by many writers on anthropology and philology. I was well 

 aware of these difficulties, and as I used great caution, I 

 believe that the words which I obtained are mostly correct. 



I met with the following special difficulties with the 

 Admiralty Islanders in obtaining words from them. The 

 natives seemed always ready enough to give the names of 

 particular birds which had been shot, as of two kinds of 

 Pigeons and a Parrot, or of a Cuscus, Hermit-crab, or any 

 such object which they considered was strange and novel to 

 the inquirer, and one for which, as they thought, he wished to 

 learn a name ; but immediately they were asked for the word 

 for the nose, or arm, or any such object common to the 

 inquirer and themselves, they seemed to grow puzzled and 

 suspicious, and to wonder why one could want to know the 

 name of a thing for which one must have a name already. 

 Some men were suspicious from the first, and refused sullenly 

 to give any words at all, and prevented others from giving any. 

 Some would give one or two only, and then refuse further 

 information, whilst I came across two who gave me at least ten 

 words each, quickly one after another, but then, like the rest, 

 failed me. 



I got a few natives together round some dead birds which I 

 had shot, and gathered small stones and set them to count. 

 The numerals are interesting, because those for 8 and 9 are 

 expressed as 10 minus 2, and 10 minus i.* In the process of 

 learning the art of counting, a term for the numeral 10 has been 



* Admiralty Island Numerals, i, Sip. 2, Huap. 3, Taro. 4, Vavu. 5, 

 Lima. 6, Wono. 7, Hetarop. 8, Anda Huap. 9, Anda Sip. 10, Sangop. 

 Jacobs, I.e., p. 172, gives, See. Maruer. Tollo. Ear. Leme. Ouno. Andru- 

 toUo. Andruruer. Andru-see. Songule. Thus, according to him, the 

 numeral for 7 is formed in the same manner as that for 8 and 9. His 

 numerals are no doubt from a different part of the Admiralty Group, and 

 the method of spelling adopted by him is very different. They still corre- 

 spond closely with those obtained by me. 



