4 Bernice P. Bishop Museum — Bulletin 



by the Catholic Missionaries of the Marist Brotherhood^ and the other by 

 the Rev. Shirley W. Baker.2 



With one exception the Tongan orthography followed in this paper is 

 that set forth on pages i and 2 of the Dictionnaire Toga-Francais. Sixteen 

 symbols in all are used, of which five represent vowels and eleven con- 

 sonants. The vowels are a, e, i, 0, and u and the consonants are /, h, k, I, 

 in, n, ng, />, s, t, and i-. A^^ ^* is used in this paper in place of the g em- 

 ployed in both the Dictionnaire Toga-Francais and in Baker's Dictionary. 



Baker's Dictionary differs from the Dictionnaire Toga-Francais in using 

 both b and /> instead of p alone ; and j and / instead of s alone. 



Owing to the fact that practically all of the place names presented in 

 this paper are drawn from government records, charts, and various Tongan 

 manuscripts and are recorded in varying orthographies and largely without 

 diacritical marks, it is impossible to consistently indicate by diacritical 

 marks the exact pronunciation of each word. For particulars concerning 

 Tongan phonetics the reader should consult the dictionaries. 



THE TONGA OR FRIENDLY ISLANDS 



The group named the Friendly Islands by the famous navigator Cook 

 lies between the parallels of 15° and 23° south latitude and between the 

 173rd and 176th meridians west of Greenwich. 



The name Tonga as applied to the whole group is derived from the 

 name of the largest island of the group, generally known as Tongatabu.^ 



With the exception of the outlying volcanic island of Niuafoou approxi- 

 mately in latitude 16° S and longitude 176° W, the islands of the Tongan 

 archipelago lie in two parallel chains stretching from north to south. The 

 eastern chain is of coral formation. The western chain is volcanic. 



The eastern chain includes more than one hundred islands, most of 

 them low-lying — in fact, little more than uplifted coral reefs. They are 

 exceedingly fertile and bear the great bulk of the Tongan population. 



The western volcanic islands are not numerous. They are from south 

 to north: Ata (1165 feet elevation), the twin islands of Hunga Tonga 

 and Hunga Haapai (respectively 490 and 400 feet elevation), Tofua (1670 



' Missionnaires Maristes, Dictionnaire Toga-Francais et Francais-Toga-Anglais. 

 Precede d'une Grammaire et de Quelques Notes sur L'Archipel par les Missionnaires 

 Maristes, revu et mis en ordre par le P. A. C. s.tn. Publication de I'oeuvre dc Saint- 

 Jerome, Librairie-Editeur, Paris. Cliadenat, 1890. 



" An English and Tongan Vocabulary, also a Tongan and English Vocabulary, 

 with a list of Idiomatic Phrases ; and Tongan Grammar, Auckland, N. Z., 1897. 



'The spelling Tongatabu has been unfortunately adopted by official geographic 

 boards and gazetteers. The correct orthography is Tongatapu. 



^« In the arrangement of the gazetteer, ng follows n. 



