42 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



tion, the canoes there having no outriggers, a peculiarity which is 

 explained by the circumstance that the great size of the trees on this 

 island enables the natives to make their canoes of sufficient breadth 

 of beam not to require this contrivance. At the Gambier Group it is 

 remarkable that canoes are unknown ; their place is poorly supplied 

 by rafts, made of logs and poles lashed together, and propelled by 

 paddles or sails. 



At the Friendly Islands, the proper Polynesian canoe is rarely 

 used. They have instead a kind differing in one very important 

 respect, namely, in being made to sail with either end foremost. 

 When a Samoan or Tahitian voyager desires to change his course, or 

 " tack," he shifts the sail from one side of his vessel to the other, and 

 that which was before the windward side becomes the leeward. But 

 a Friendly Islander carries his sail from one end of his canoe to the 

 other, and that which was before the prow becomes the stern, the 

 same side remaining always to windward. The Tonga people say 

 that they borrowed this model from the Feejee Group, where it is the 

 only one in use. It is also found throughout the Micronesian Archi- 

 pelago, and it is doubtful to which of the two western races the 

 invention is properly to be ascribed. Many of the canoes are very 

 large, especially the double ones, which are sometimes eighty or 

 ninety feet long, and capable of carrying two hundred men. 



WEAPONS. 



The arms principally employed by the Polynesians are the club, 

 the spear, and the sling. The club is generally made of some hard 

 wood, and is about four feet long. In New Zealand only, smaller 

 clubs or maces made of stone are common. The spear is used either 

 for thrusting or darting, in the latter of which exercises the natives 

 are very expert, though they make use of no artificial means for 

 increasing the impetus of the cast, like the throwing-stick of the New 

 Hollanders, or the knotted string of the natives of Mallicollo. It is 

 remarkable that on none of the islands of Polynesia is the bow in- 

 cluded by the people among their weapons of war, though they make 

 use of it in their sports. 



KAVA-DHINKING. 



The only other custom upon which we shall touch, as distinctive of 

 this race, is the use of a beverage termed kava or 'ava, a name given 



