42 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



thirty or forty years ago that both the natives of Fotuna Island* 

 and the Tokelau Group use the same dialect as the Ellice Islanders 

 but a few words have different meanings. 



"A most decisive proof of their history [the people of the Ellice 

 Group] was recently obtained by Dr. G. A. Turner while visiting 

 the missions of the group. He was shown, and he ultimately 

 obtained, a spear or staff, which their orators held while speaking, 

 a Samoan custom indicating the holder's right to speak ; this staff 

 was very ancient, and the greatest treasure of their heralds and 

 genealogists ; they said they brought it with them from Samoa, 

 and named the valley where they came from thirty generations 

 back. The staff was decayed or worm eaten, and bound together 

 by splints and sinnet. Dr. Turner took it to Samoa, found that 

 it was made of Samoan timber, visited the valley they named, and 

 discovered a tradition there of a large party having gone to sea 

 exploring, and never returning."! 



The Samoans themselves look down upon the Ellice Islanders as 

 rough, uncultured boors and would not acknowledge them as close 

 relations. Their physical appearance, broad faces, large frames, 

 hair often curly but sometimes straight, and short beards, J all 

 support the conclusion drawn from the language and customs that 

 a Micronesian element has here been grafted on a Polynesian 

 stock. 



Funafuti is, however, a most unfavourable locality for studying 

 the relations of the Ellice Islanders. About thirty years ago 

 most of the adult population were kidnapped by a Peruvian slaver 

 recruiting labour for the Cincha Islands. The atoll has since 

 received an immigrant population from various sources. Colonists 

 from Samoa, the Tokelaus, Manihiki, and other of the Ellices 

 settled in the depopulated village. There are two half caste 

 families by white fathers and one by an American negro. 

 Altogether there are not a dozen left of tattooed, white headed 

 men and women who remember the Funafuti of forty years ago. 



" Tradition says that the place was first inhabited by the porcu- 

 pine fish, whose progeny became men and women. Another 

 account traces the origin of the people to Samoa. It is said also 

 that the islands were formed by a man who went about on the 



* A comparison of the manners and customs of this island with those 

 of the Ellice Group would be of much interest. I have not, however, 

 met sufficient information relating to this French Possession to do so. 

 Potuna or Horn Island must not be confounded with Futuna near Tanna 

 in the New Hebrides. 



f W. L. Eanken Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vi., 1877, p. 233. See also 

 Whitmee Journ. Anthrop. Inst., viii., 1879, p. 271, 



J For characteristic figures of Funafuti natives of the pre-Christian 

 time, see Wilkes Amer. Explor. Exped., v., 1845, pp. 40 and 41. 



