gQ ETHNOGRAPHY. 



treated the females whom they had taken for wives, the women bore 

 as active a part as the men. 



For ornament, they pierce the lobe of the ear, and having greatly 

 distended the aperture, wear in it a folded leaf. They have also what 

 Lay calls beads, and Mr. Paulding shell-necklaces, but neither de- 

 scribes them particularly. 



The canoes have one side flat or perpendicular, and the other 

 inclined ; the flat side is that opposite to the outrigger, and is kept 

 always to windward, the canoes sailing with either end foremost. 



The houses have two apartments, an upper and a lower, which 

 communicate through a scuttle or hatch. The lower or ground 

 story is not more than three feet high, and the inmates are obliged to 

 remain in a sitting or reclining posture. In the upper story or garret 

 they keep their movable property, and in wet weather sleep there. 



TARAWA, OR THE KINGSMILL ISLANDS. 



Although it is not certain that the natives have any general appel- 

 lation for this chain of islands, we have chosen, for several reasons, 

 to designate it by that given above. It is the name of two islands, 

 one of which is called simply Tarawa, and the other Tarawa ni 

 Makin, or Tarawa of Makin. The former is, according to our 

 survey, the largest island of the group, or that which has the most 

 dry land. The natives are numerous, and the high chief exercises 

 sway over the three neighbouring islands of Maiana, Apia, and 

 Mdraki. It is on this island that the inhabitants of the rest of the 

 group place the elysium of departed spirits, which may be consi- 

 dered good evidence that it was the one first settled, and the source 

 of population to the other islands. Finally, Tarawa is best known to 

 the people of distant groups. Both Kotzebue and Liitke heard of it 

 among the western Caroline Islands, under the names of Taroa and 

 . Toroa, and Cook gives it in the list of islands of which he received 

 information at Tonga. 



Our knowledge concerning this group is derived in part from 

 personal examination, made during twenty-four days spent in the 

 survey, and in part from communications of two British seamen, by 

 name John Kirby and Robert Grey, whom, at their own request, we 

 took off from the islands of Kuria and Makin. They had quitted 

 voluntarily the vessels to which they belonged, and taken up their 

 residence among the natives, in which situation the first had re- 



