TEE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE. 39 



the jMarquesiaus. Its principal use iu Hawaii was to denote rank or lineage, 

 to lirand a slave or sometimes as a token of mourning. 



Altlidiigli the chiefs were markedly superior physically and otherwise, when 

 eoiiiparcd with the common people, they were, nevertheless, descendants of the 

 same race. The difference in stature and capability which they exhibited seems 

 to have been the natural result of their environment. Being better fed, having 

 ni'irt' leisure, and relieved of the burdens of living and in many ways pampered 

 and jH'otected. they escaped the marks that exposure, excessive toil, hunger, 

 fear and su|)erstition invariably stamp on the less fortunate of every race. 



Life in the Open Air. 



The unusually salubrious Hawaiian climate .stimulated the habit of out-of- 

 door life, which was almost universal. The native huts were used chietly as 

 sleeping places and for protection from the rain. Their aquatic, athletic and 

 sea-going habits were the growth of the open-air life they led. The love of 

 frequent bathing, the nearness of the sea and the necessity of securing at least 

 a part of their sustenance from the ocean, all combined in making them the 

 most powerful and daring swimmers in the world and developed among them, 

 periiaps, the world's must cxpci't and intelligent tishei'inen. 



Their L.vngu.vge .\nd Alphabet. 



Their language was singularly defieient in generic and abstract terms, but 

 to make up for this general deficiency it was especially rich in specific names 

 of places and things, most of which were derivitives that were full of meaning, 

 frequently taking account of nice distinctions. Broadly speaking the Hawaiian 

 language was little more than a simple tribal dialect of the Polynesian tongue 

 that was spoken with much uniformity in a large ninnber of the Pacific island 

 groups. In fact, there is less variation in meaning and pronunciation of the 

 language throughout Polynesia than exists today between the Spanish and 

 Italian tongues. Besides the language of every-day life there was a style especi- 

 ally appropriate for oratory and another .suited to the demands of religion and 

 poetry. Since there was no written language, not even a picture language, at 

 the time of which we write, one of the first acts of the American missionaries 

 was to reduce their speech to writing. F<u- this purpose only five vowels, a, e. 

 i, o, u. and seven consonants, h, k, 1, m, n. p, w, were found necessa7-y. In the 

 use of these twelve letters the European pronuui'iatiim of the vowels was adoj)ted. 

 The letter a is sounded as in arm ; e as in they ; i as in machine, and u as 

 in lulc. The dipthong ai, resembles the English ay, and an has the sound of ow. 

 The consonants were sounded as in Engli.sh except that k is sometimes exchanged 

 for t, and the sound nf 1 confounded with k and d. The dirth of consonants 

 and the over-plus of vowels gave to the spoken language such openness, fluiditx" 

 and richness as to be particularly noticeable to persons unacquainted with the 

 tongue. By some this peculiar quality of the spoken language, by reason of 

 its intellectual indefiniteness, perhaps, is believed to represent, or at least re- 

 flect, the open, frank character of the people who developed it. 



