OCEANIC MIGRATIONS. 187 



are found which are not Polynesian, and which seem to be of 

 Vitian origin, as sori, to give (Vit. soli} ; -gasau, arrow (Vit. -gasau, a 

 reed, hence, an arrow); muna, to speak (Vit. the same); tinana, 

 mother (Vit. tinana, his mother); furau, a stranger (Vit. vura, a 

 visitor vulayi, a stranger). 



These peculiarities may be accounted for, by supposing that the 

 ancestors of the Tikopians belonged to the Polynesian people who 

 formerly inhabited a part of the Feejee Group. They may have been 

 established in the above-mentioned island of Tikombia. On their 

 conquest and expulsion from that group, instead of accompanying the 

 rest of the fugitives to the Friendly Islands, they may have been 

 separated from them by some accident, and carried by the southeast 

 trades to the island which they now occupy. Of course, their 

 dialect, which was originally the same as the Tongan, would, in 

 time, become different from it, chiefly by not undergoing the euphonic 

 alterations to which the latter has been subjected. 



It should be observed that tonga, in Tikopia, signifies east, which 

 may be accounted for from the fact that the natives are aware of the 

 existence of the Tonga Islands, and their position relative to their 

 own country. They informed Dillon* that, in the days of their 

 ancestors, their island was invaded by a fleet of five large canoes 

 from Tongatabu, the crews of which committed great ravages. 



TARAWA. 



Our inquiries into the migrations of the Micronesian tribes have 

 been confined to the groups of Tarawa and Banabe, the latter being 

 noticed only so far as it is connected with the former. The account 

 which Kirby (the British seaman of whom some account is given on 

 p. 90) heard from the people of Apamama concerning the first set- 

 tlement of the Kingsmill Islands is so plain and unexaggerated in its 

 details, that it has the air of an historical narrative. They assert that 

 the first colonists arrived, in two canoes, from Bdnep, an island lying 

 far to the southwestward, whence they were obliged to betake them- 

 selves to sea, as the only means of escaping death from their con- 

 querors in a civil war. They drifted upon these islands, and had 

 just commenced their settlement, when two other canoes arrived from 

 a land to the southeast, called Amoi. The new-comers were lighter 



* Voyage for the Discovery of La Perouse, vol. ii. p. 112. 



