118 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



intended to answer the purposes of decency, has degenerated else- 

 where into a mode of ornament. Other facts, of a similar nature, 

 might be mentioned, but it will hardly be thought necessary. One 

 circumstance, however, must be noted, which becomes apparent in 

 this investigation. The people of the Tonga or Friendly Group, 

 though belonging to the Polynesian family, form a class apart from 

 the rest. This is seen in their language, which differs strikingly, in 

 several points, from the others, especially in the article, the pronouns, 

 and the passive voice of the verb. Several of their customs are, more- 

 over, peculiar, such as that of infant sacrifice, of cutting off a finger 

 to appease the gods, their fashion of canoe-making, &c. It is evident 

 that these islanders have received modifications in their language and 

 usages from a source which has not affected the rest. We shall, for 

 the present, leave this group out of the question, in our discussion, 

 and recur to it hereafter. 



Before proceeding farther, it will be necessary to examine the only 

 argument of importance which has been urged against the migration 

 of the eastern islanders from the west. This is the supposed preva- 

 lence of easterly winds within the tropics. Against this, many 

 voyagers have adduced facts serving to show that these winds are by 

 no means constant, and that they are frequently interrupted by others 

 from the contrary direction ; and some have suggested the connexion 

 of these last with the northwest monsoon of the China and Malayan 

 Seas.* The observations made during our cruise have served to 

 confirm this opinion, and put beyond a doubt the fact that during the 

 winter months of our hemisphere, westerly and northwesterly winds 

 prevail in the Pacific as far east as the limit of the Paumotu Archi- 

 pelago, and perhaps still farther. For those observations the reader 

 is referred to the general history of the voyage. We will only men- 

 tion here, as a single instance, that in the month of February, 1840, 

 we were, for twenty days, kept wind-bound at the Navigator Islands 

 by constant and strong winds from the northwest. A canoe driven 

 off from that group at this time, would, in all probability, have 

 brought up on some one of the Society or Hervey Islands. It is at 

 this season, and with this wind, moreover, that the most violent gales 

 are experienced. At such times -the heavens are, for days together, 



* See Dillon's Voyage, vol. ii. p. 124; Kotzebue's Voyage to the South Seas (Eng. 

 trans.), vol. ii. p. 122 ; Beechey's Voyage, p. 164. Also C. W. Redfield, in Silliman's 

 American Journal of Science, for October, 1843, p. 302. 



