8 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



NANOMEA. This is the northernmost of the Ellice Group, it 

 is probably the San Augustin Island of Murelle (1781), and 

 Taswell and Sherson Islands of the brig "Elizabeth."* (1809). 

 The Rev. S. J. Whitmeef says (1870), "There are two islands 

 within three or four miles of each other connected by a reef, dry 

 at low water. The westerly island is named Lakena ; it is 

 nearly round, two miles or more across, well stocked with cocoa- 

 nut and other trees, and has a deep fresh water lagoon in its 

 centre. It is not inhabited, but is used by the people of the 

 other island for the cultivation of food. Nanomea, the second 

 island, is about four miles long by one to two wide ; it has a 

 shallow water lagoon towards the east end, partially open to the 

 sea. The inhabitants are taken together the finest race of men, 

 so far as muscular development goes, I have ever seen. They are 

 almost a race of giants. I believe nine out of every ten would 

 measure six feet or more high, and their breadth is proportionate 

 to their height. The Englishman resident on the island estimates 

 the population at about one thousand." Becke writesj " There 

 were last year eight hundred and thirty people on the two 

 islands, Nanomea and Lakena." Here " the men are heavily 

 bearded, and not a little proud thereof." 



The Ellice Islanders seem ethnologically to have segregated 

 themselves in three groups. Nukulailai and Nukufetau were 

 anciently more or less dependents of Funafuti, with which 

 Vaitupu was allied ; all four for instance united in the worship 

 of Foilape or Firafi. In 1841, the Nukufetau people described 

 their world to Wilkes as consisting of Funafuti, Vaitupu, and 

 the Tokelaus. Nanomana and Nanomea were closely linked by 

 their extraordinary quarantine rites, Niutao by its position and 

 skull worship was associated with these ; the north and south 

 group also differed in their method of making the titi (see Vege- 

 tation post). As we have already remarked Nui stood apart. 



The atoll of Funafuti was discovered by Captain Peyster[| in 

 the " Rebecca," on March 18th, 1819. According to the observa- 

 tions^! of Captain Wilkes, it lies in Lat. 8 30' 45" South, 

 Long. 179 13' 30" East. A position which may otherwise be 

 described as due north of Fiji, and precisely half way between that 

 and the Equator. It is about a thousand miles south-south-west 

 of what Dana considered** as the centre of the great Pacific 

 subsidence. 



* Mercantile Magazine, Sept., 1873, p. 257. 



f In Findlay loc. cit. p. 755. 



J Loc. cit. 



J. B. Davis Anthrop. Eev., vii., 1870, p. 191. 



|| Findlay loc. cit., p. 751. 



j[ Wilkes Narrative U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1845, p. 295. 



** Dana Corals and Coral Islands, 1872, p. 324. 



