LEFTHANDEDNESS. 467 



most, if not all, of tlie Polynesian languages. The word tau, wliicli 

 in the Hawaian signifies ready, in the Tahitian right, proper, and in 

 the New Zealand expert, dextrous, is the common Polynesian term 

 for the right hand. In the Vitian language, as spoken in various 

 dialects throughout the Viti or Fiji Islands, the distinction is still more 

 explicitly indicated. There is first the common term linga, the hand, 

 or arm ; then the ceremonial term daka, employed in speaking of 

 that of a chief, but which, it may be presumed, also expresses the 

 right hand, as, while there is no other word for it, a distinct term 

 sema is the left hand. The root se is found not only in the Viti, but 

 also in the Samoa, Tonga, Mangariva, and New Zealand dialects, 

 signifying to err, to mistake, to wander ; semo, unstable, unfixed ; 

 while there is the word matau, right, dexter, proving the recognition 

 of the distinction. 



An occasional correspondent of the Times communicated a series 

 of letters to that journal in the latter part of the past year (1876), in 

 which he embodied anthropological notes on the Fijians, obtained, as 

 he states, both from his own observations during repeated visits to 

 the Islands, and from conversation with English, American, and Ger- 

 man settlers, who may be met at the port of call and on the route in 

 either direction between San Francisco and the Australian Colonies. 

 " The Fijians," he says, '* are quite equal ia stature to white men ; 

 they are better developed relatively in the chest and arms than ia 

 the lower limbs ; they are excellent swimmers, and, if trained, are 

 good rowers. Lefthanded men are more common among them than 

 among white people ; three were pointed out in one little village near 

 the anchorage." 



Observations of this class will no doubt accumulate when atten- 

 tion is more fully directed to the inquiry, and so help to determine 

 whether or not man is congenitally righthanded, and has, from ana- 

 tomical structure, a specific right and left side. On this subject Sir 

 Thomas Browne quaintly remarks in his " Religio Medici:" "Whether 

 Eve was framed out of the left side of Adam, I dispute not, be- 

 cause I stand not yet assured which is the right side of a man, or 

 whether there be any such distinction in nature." Dr. Struthers, 

 Professor of Anatomy in the University of Aberdeen, who has long 

 directed his attention to this subject, thus writes to me : " I have 

 again and again verified the fact in my own children, that in early 

 childhood there is no preference for one hand more than the other." 



