Gilford — Tongan Place Names 27 



convenience in attending frequent church services, and the copra trade are 

 probably the chief factors responsible for the growth of the villages and 

 for the degeneration of agriculture. Today the Tongan resides in a village 

 from which he makes the necessary excursions to his farm. Anciently he re- 

 sided on the farm {api) and there were no villages. Needless to say, the 

 extent of cultivated land is much diminished. 



Too much faith should not be placed in the meanings of place names 

 listed. The average Tongan appears to give no more thought to the mean- 

 ing of his place names than we do. If asked what a name means, it is 

 an even chance he will not know. The meanings of almost all place names 

 in this paper were worked out by Tongan scholars, European and native. 

 These meanings have all been studied by the author and modified where 

 it seemed necessary. Nevertheless, some meanings are undoubtedly forced, 

 and, what is more, it sometimes happens that a name is open to more than 

 one interpretation. 



Even with these short-comings in mind it is apparent that the meanings 

 of names fall roughly into two great classes, descriptive and commemo- 

 rative. The former refer to some feature of the locality, the latter to some 

 event, usually trivial enough. There are also names of foreign places. 

 Undoubtedly when comparison with other regions is made these will 

 increase many fold. Apparently some names express in sarcasm or 

 irony the injured feelings of the tenant of the tract, for it must be re- 

 membered that land is not owned by the rank and file of the population. 

 It is leased from the government and from the nobility, there being in all 

 some thirty such landlords. The rentals paid today in coin replace the 

 ancient tribute of produce paid to the lords of the land. 



The name of the landlord has been recorded for every tract ; the 

 absence of a personal name signifies that the government is the landlord. 



So far as Tonga alone is concerned, the names of the landlords appear 

 of slight significance in solving the problem of Tongan origins. Here and 

 there a place name appears definitely associated with a landlord, as the 

 place name Haatalafale with the landlord Tui Pelehake. I believe, how- 

 ever, that the recording of the landlord names will prove exceedingly 

 valuable when comparisons are made with other parts of Oceania. 



In the gazetteer the several occurrences of a single name are listed 

 from the Tongatabu group in the south to Niuafoou in the north. Roughly 

 the order of listing the occurrences on several islands in a group, or near 

 several villages on an island, is from south to north and from west to east. 

 The reason for selecting the southern or Tongatabu group as the start- 

 ing point is the fact that it seems always to have been the political and 

 cultural center of the Tongan kingdom. The names of the five groups of 



