60 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



Fowls, of which there are abundance, complete the list of 

 domesticated animals. 



During the last ten years the Islanders have abandoned their 

 native names, and call each other by Saraoan forms of Scriptural 

 names, as Salamona, Solomon ; Paulo, Paul ; Yakoba, Jacob, &c. 



In former days incorrigible criminals were drowned by throwing 

 them into the lagoon with a stone tied round the neck. A 

 story was told me of a woman convicted of theft, who was 

 exposed with her infant upon a distant, small islet, and allowed 

 to slowly perish there. On Nanomana, "It is reported by the 

 traders that if any one breaks their laws, he is sunk in the mud 

 of the lagoon shore, out of which it is impossible to get, and 

 there is miserably suffocated."* On Funafuti, and probably 

 throughout the group, Mr. O'Brien told me that any condemned 

 could claim sanctuary who could escape to the king's house. 

 A similar practise prevailed in Samoa f Upon Nukulailai, 

 "Stealing was punished by restoring double, adultery and murder 

 by sending off the culprit to sea alone in a canoe, there to die 

 or take his chance of drifting to some other island. "J Mariner 

 describes such an execution in Tonga, by drowning in a leaking 

 canoe. 



Near the village, a quarter of a mile apart, were two small 

 ponds about four feet deep, twenty or thirty long, and half as 

 wide, containing foul green water. These were the public bath- 

 ing places, one was reserved for men, the other for women. 

 Clothes were also washed here. There were also several small 

 circular wells with stone walls about six feet deep, above ground 

 they were carefully fenced round with sticks. A pole to which an 

 empty coconut shell was attached was always kept handy to bail 

 water out with. Dr. Gill records a case where two Europeans so 

 exasperated the inhabitants of Niutao by bathing in one such 

 well that they were put to death. 



CULTIVATION. 



Landed property is here of three species ; the town allotment 

 or stand of a hut in the village street, the bush land planted with 

 coconuts, and the garden land. The culture of the coconut, 

 pandanus, and paper mulberry has been noticed under the pre- 

 ceding section on Vegetation. The whole chain of islets is 

 parcelled out, usually divided by lines running across from 

 ocean to lagoon, which boundary lines are strictly preserved. 

 Considerable disparity of wealth exists, some families owning as 



* Dr. GUI's MS. Diary. 



t Wilkes loc. cit., ii., p. 158. 



J Turner loc. cit., p. 281. 



Mariner Tonga, i., 1817, p. 295. 



