OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 



451 



presented prevails, presumptively, amongst the Tonga, Samoan, Navigators, and 

 Marquesas islanders, and the Tahitians ; and the Kusaien and Kingsmill among the 

 Caroline, Ladrone and Pelew islanders, representing very favorably two of the great 

 branches of the Malayan family, and leaving the inhabitants of Madagascar unrepre- 

 sented. The system of the Malays proper, however, is wanting in the Table. To 

 this we should naturally look for the typical form of the family. Repeated and per- 

 severing efforts, continued through a period of several years, to procure this system 

 proved unsuccessful, although the Malays apparently are more accessible than any 

 other branch of the family. If it had been obtained, and on comparison had been 

 found identical in form with the Hawaiian, it would have rendered the proposition 

 reasonably certain that the Malayan family, as constituted of the Malayan race of Dr. 

 Prichard, possessed a common system, of which the Hawaiian was typical. The Malay 

 terms of relationship were procured from a returned missionary from Borneo, and 

 are given in the note, 1 but he was unable, without native assistance, to fill X)ut a 

 schedule. It should be observed, however, that the terms for nephew and niece, 

 uncle and aunt, are descriptive phrases. It is not probable that these relationships 

 are discriminated ; but that the persons thus described are son and daughter, and 

 father and mother, under the system. From the nomenclature the close approxi- 

 mation if not identity of the Malay and Hawaiian forms may be inferred with 

 some degree of probability. The system of relationship of the Zulus or Kafirs of 

 South Africa is also Malayan in form. Upon the basis of these schedules, which 

 reveal an independent and distinctive system of consanguinity, the Malayan family 

 has been constituted, and into which may be admitted all such nations as hereafter 

 furnish evidence of common blood, through the possession of the same system of 

 relationship. 



I. Polynesian. 1. Hawaiian. The language and domestic institutions of these 

 islanders have been rendered thoroughly accessible through the labors of the Ameri- 

 can missionaries. It is well known that the language is now written, and that it has 

 become to some extent a cultivated language. Three schedules of the Hawaiian 

 system of relationship were obtained. One of them was furnished by the Hon. 

 Thomas Miller, United States Consul at Hilo, Island of Hawaii ; the second by 



