190 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



nounced it pen, and Mr. Punchard the same for the Banabean. To 

 drink is in Tarawan nima, in Banabean, nim. In the latter language, 

 according to O'Connell, ediomet signifies a priest, but is frequently 

 used for a chief of the lower order. In Makin, where there are no 

 priests, the tiomat are the gentry or petty chiefs. 



These examples will probably be sufficient to show that the evi- 

 dence of language favors the opinion of the twofold origin of this 

 people. How far this evidence is supported by that derived from 

 their customs and character, will sufficiently appear from the descrip- 

 tion given of them elsewhere. 



The fact that a chance communication between the Kingsmill 

 Group and Ascension Island has taken place very lately, though in 

 the opposite direction to that here supposed, was learned from M. 

 Maigret, French missionary at the Sandwich Islands, to whom we 

 are indebted for much valuable information. During his stay at 

 Banabe, in 1837, he saw a man who had been drifted thither in a 

 canoe from an island called Maraki, and who informed M. Maigret, 

 among other things, that his people were accustomed to make a sweet 

 drink called takdrave, unlike any thing to be found at Ascension. 

 Maraki is one of the Tarawan group, and their karave (with the 

 article, te karave,) is a beverage made of the sweet juice drawn from 

 the spathe of the cocoa-nut tree. 



But an examination of the Tarawan vocabulary has led to other 

 conclusions not less unexpected than curious. A great number of 

 words in this dialect are found to have an evident affinity to the cor- 

 responding terms in the Vitian, the difference being only such as 

 would be produced by the different pronunciation of the two lan- 

 guages. Thus the 6" of the Vitian is changed in the Tarawan to r ; 

 the v to w (or it is omitted) ; the I to r or n ; and the compound let- 

 ters mb, nd, ndr, are reduced to the simple elements b or p, d or t, and 

 r, or else omitted entirely, thus 



VITIAN. TARAWAN. SAMOAN. 



tai, . . tari, . . tei, . . . brother. 



aSa, . . ara, . . . iyoa, . . name. 



ama, . . raina, . . ama, . . outrigger. 



uaa, . . ora, . . . rnaui, . . low-tide. 



vifa, . . ira, . . . fia, . , . how many ? 



vela, . . wtrara, . . anuanua, . . rainbow. 



ova, . , . uoua, . . 'au'au, . . to swim. 



lako, . . nako, . . alo, sau, . . to go, come. 



loka, . . nok, . . . -galu, . . surf. 



