174 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



VITI AND TONGA. 



From the description which has been given of the natives of the 

 Feejee Group, it is evident that they cannot properly be ranked with 

 either of the two neighboring races, although they approach nearest 

 to that which inhabits the islands to the west of them. In color, they 

 are neither yellow nor black, but a medium between the two, a sort 

 of reddish brown. Their hair is neither woolly nor straight, but long 

 and frizzled. In form and feature they hold the same undecided 

 position, arid however it may be in reality, in appearance they cannot 

 be better described than as a mulatto tribe, such as would be produced 

 by a union of Melanesians and Polynesians. 



In character, they seem to have inherited the intellect, quick, 

 apprehensive, and ingenious, of the latter, with the ferocity, sus- 

 picion, and dissimulation of the former; and they have one advantage 

 over both, in uniting the arts proper to each. Like the blacks, they 

 use the bow in war, and manufacture pottery ; while they understand 

 and practise the Polynesian methods of making paper-cloth, culti- 

 vating taro, preparing kava, tattooing, &c. 



The composition of the language not only supports the opinion of 

 their hybrid origin, but can in no other way be explained. Four 

 fifths of the words are unlike those of any other idiom with which 

 we are acquainted.* The other fifth, with most of the grammatical 

 peculiarities, are Polynesian. But of these words, many are so altered, 

 according to certain rules, that no native of Polynesia could pro- 

 nounce them. Thus the p is almost always changed to the double 

 consonant mb, as 



VITIAN. POLYNESIAN. 



mba, pa, fence. 



mbaldlo, palolo a kind of sea-worm. 



tambu, tapu, sacred. 



tinnhu, tvpUj to grow. 



mburo'tu, pulotu, Elysium. 



The t frequently becomes nd, as 



ndalo, taro, arum. 



ndalipa, taliya the ear. 



ndondonu, .... totonu, straight. 



nduna, tuna, eel. 



* It must be remembered that we have no grammar or extensive vocabulary of any 

 proper Melanesian language. 



