96 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



Kirby knew of no word for poor man except that for slave. Any 

 person who has land, can always call upon his friends to provide him 

 with a house, a canoe, and the other necessaries of life; while one 

 who has no land has nothing else, and is, of course, a slave. 



The worst stain on the character of this people is a shocking and 

 cruel practice, which Kotzebue found also among the people of Ra- 

 dack, arid D'Urville on the island of Tikopia. It is that of destroying 

 their unborn children, after the second or third, in order to escape the 

 inconvenience of a numerous family. This is the reason assigned by 

 the natives; the general argument that the islands would else become 

 too densely peopled for their means of subsistence seems not to occur 

 to them. To the honour of the natives of Makin it should be recorded, 

 that this custom does not exist among them. 



The women are, for the most part, better treated among them than 

 among uncivilized people in general. All the hard, out-door labour, 

 is performed by the men. They build the houses and canoes, catch 

 the fish, collect and bring home the fruits which serve for food, and 

 do most of the cultivation. The women aid them to clear and weed 

 the ground, and attend to the domestic duties which naturally fall to 

 them. The custom also requires that when a man meets a female, 

 he shall pay her the same mark of respect as is rendered to a chief, 

 by turning aside from the path to let her pass. -This courtesy, how- 

 ever, does not pervade all the intercourse of the sexes. A man, if 

 provoked, will not hesitate to strike a woman, who seldom fails to 

 return the blow ; sometimes several of her companions will come to 

 her aid, and the man is perhaps glad to escape well bruised, and 

 covered with scratches. 



Connected with the suspicious and irritable temper which charac- 

 terizes the people of the southern clusters, is a disposition to sul- 

 lenness and despondency, which sometimes leads them to commit 

 suicide. Kirby knew five instances, on his own island, of men and 

 women destroying themselves, and of several others who attempted 

 it and were prevented by their friends. These cases of self-murder 

 arose out of offence taken at the conduct of some person whom fear or 

 affection made them unwilling to injure ; the mingled spite, mortifi- 

 cation, and grief produced a dejection which led at last to an act con- 

 sidered by them a certain remedy for their sufferings, and perhaps a 

 severe revenge upon those who had ill-treated them. We have heard 

 before of a similar trait in the character of the Feejeeans. 



The word manda signifies among them a man thoroughly accom- 



