MICRONESIA. 79 



the natives wear the Polynesian girdle of bark-cloth, which they call 

 by the well-known name of tapa. They have, too, the word tabu, 

 signifying a sacred place. These facts are valuable, as, combined 

 with many other indications which will be hereafter noted, they seem 

 to show that the original inhabitants of the Moluccas (who are distinct 

 from the intruding Malay conquerors) were a race more nearly allied 

 to the Polynesians than the other tribes of Malaisia. 



"Their implements of war are spears and clubs; they have no 

 bows and arrows. Their spears are made of the wood of the cocoa- 

 nut tree ; the points of them are set with rows of sharks' teeth ; and 

 being at the same time very heavy, and from ten to twenty feet long, 

 they are formidable weapons." These spears armed with sharks' 

 teeth are found throughout the Micronesian groups, and may be 

 termed the national weapon, as the bow is of the black race ; for 

 though they were not entirely unknown to the Polynesians, they 

 were yet so rare that we saw but three or four in the course of our 

 voyage, and those only at the Navigator and the Depeyster Group. 



The houses of the natives are built of small trees and rods, and 

 thatched with leaves. They have two stories, a ground floor and a 

 loft, which is entered by a hole or scuttle through the horizontal par- 

 tition, or upper floor. 



For ornament, they sometimes wear in their ears, which are always 

 bored, a folded leaf; and round their necks a necklace made of the 

 shell of the cocoa-nut and a small white sea-shell. These last are no 

 doubt the circular " beads" before described, although the mode of 

 wearing them is unusual. 



They live principally on cocoa-nuts, with a few taro roots, which 

 they raise, with great difficulty, in trenches dug in the sand. Their 

 supply of fish is small, and only five turtle were taken while Holden 

 was on the island. "These constitute the slender means of their 

 support ; and they are thus barely kept from actual death by famine, 

 but on the very verge of starvation." It is to this state of misery in 

 which they are constantly kept that we must attribute the cruel dis- 

 position which they manifest. The unfortunate captives were treated 

 with great harshness, and compelled to toil in the severest drudgery, 

 with barely sufficient food to support life. In fact, some of them died 

 of the sufferings thus inflicted. It is remarkable that the women 

 were more- active in this ill-treatment than the men. We shall have 

 occasion to note a similar fact in the Mulgrave Islands, at the other 



