GENERAL ACCOUNT HEDLEY. 45 



large war canoes were sighted, and with one of them, the warrior 

 of Nukufetau, named Laupapa (evidently a Samoan name), was 

 speedily in contact. After a parley a battle took place in which 

 two Tongan "chiefs" named Savea and Tinaimanu were engaged. 

 Tinaimanu is referred to as the breeder of wars in the " Eight 

 Islands " i.e., the Ellice Group. The Tongans were driven off 

 and went to Funafuti. There one of the Tongan chiefs (it is not 

 clear whether this was Tinaimanu or not) established himself, 

 but Savea and his people returned to Tonga. The chief who 

 remained at Funafuti very quickly acquired a reputation for 

 savagery. He practised cannibalism to such an extent that very 

 shortly there were none but women and children left. Ten young 

 boys, who were attached to the chief as his servants, when they 

 grew up, formed a plot to murder the cannibal, which they 

 successfully accomplished, thus ridding the Eight Islands of a 



scourge At Fakaofo, too, I heard that they had a 



tradition (which I could not obtain) of a war which had, hundreds 

 of years ago, been waged between the Tokelau Islanders and the 

 Tongans." 



In the early days of the present king (say forty or fifty years 

 ago), a feud existed between Funafuti and Nukulailai. To 

 avenge the starvation of some Funafuti travellers on Nukulailai, 

 a war party from the former island sailed across to Nukulailai 

 and killed many men. 



The Funafuti natives have long ceased to make or use any 

 weapons,* but to resist the Tongans spears were fashioned of 

 split palm tipped with shark's teeth. A shark toothed sabre, 

 like that made in the Gilbert Islands, was called " kei ;" another 

 with a bristling knob of sharks' teeth was " kekana." An aged, 

 white haired and tatooed man, made for me models of a war 

 missile, " tiapa," and a club, " lakoutoua," also a slender unarmed 

 spear, as formerly used by his people. 



In the canoes which put off from Funafuti to the " Peacock," 

 " Their spears were only poles of coconut wood, pointed at one 

 end ; and their knives made of small shark's teeth, inserted into 

 a stick with gum and fine sennit, and are about a foot long.f 



" Clubs and great double-edged wooden swords, fifteen feet 

 long, and edged with sharks' teeth, were kept in the larger 

 temples for display on festive occasions in honour of the gods, 

 and taken occasionally to the rocks at the landing-place to 

 flourish about and frighten away any party from a ship, or from 

 another island attempting to land " J at Nanomana. 



* Whitmee wrote in 1870 (loc. cit., p. 27), "On some of the islands 

 wars are unknown. An old man on Vaitupu brought me a hatchet made 

 out of the back of a turtle, and I asked if it ever had been used in war. 

 He replied that he had never heard of war on Vaitupu." 



t Wilkes loc. cit. J Turner loc. cit., p. 290. 



