10 



THE WOMBAT. 



(5) MOTU (Port Moresby), on south coast of New Guinea. 



Pron.-Singular. 



Binal. 



1st. — Lau 



Ai {or Ita)-ra-rua 





di 



2nd. — Oi 



Umui-ra-rua-di 



3rd. — la 



Idia-ra-rua-di 



Ternal. 



Plural. 

 Ai or Ita 



Umui 

 Idia 



Pron. -Singular. 

 1st. — 'O au, 



ta 

 2nd. — «0 'oe 

 3rd. — 'O ia 



(6) SAMOAN. 



Binal. 

 'O i ta-ua 



'O ou-lua 

 '0 i laua 



Ternal. 



Plural. 

 'O i ta-tou 



'0 ou-tou 

 i la-tou 



(7) DUKE OF YORK (Tukiok) Island ; of the Bismarck Archipelago. 



Pron. Singular. 

 1st. — lau, io. yo 

 2nd. — Uorui 

 3rd. — I or ia 



Binal. 

 Da-ra 

 Mu-ru 

 Dia-ra 



Ternal. 

 Da-tul 

 Mu-tul 

 Di-tul 



Plural. 

 Dat 

 Mu-at 

 Di-at 



(8) ANEITYUM, the most southerly island of the New Hebrides. 



Pron. Singular. 

 1st. — Ain-yak 

 2nd. — Ai-ek 

 3rd. — Ai-en 



Binal. 



A-kai-jau 



Ai-jau-rau 



A-rau 



Ternal. 

 A-kata-ij 

 Ai-jauta-ij 

 A-hta-ij 



Plural. 

 A-kai-ja 

 Ai-ja-ua 

 A-ra 



Although these examples cover a very wide area — from Port 

 Moresby and Aneityum in the west to Samoa in the east — I have 

 no doubt that many similar examples could be collected if we only 

 had grammars of the speech of other parts of Melanesia. These, 

 however, will Suffice to show that the use of a Binal and a Ternal 

 number is not an isolated phenomenon in language. But let us 

 note that it is only among the black men of Melanesia that all that 

 is found. The Polynesian example from Samoa I account for by 

 reverting to the arguments which 1 have advanced in other periodicals 

 that the original substratum of the Samoan population, and hence 

 of the Polynesian race, was an antecedent race of blacks. The 

 Samoan example is further curious in this respect, that the plural 

 there is really a Ternal number, for tow— tolu, ' three.' 



By casting your eye over the paradigm of pronouns given 

 above, you will find that every Binal contains in it the number 

 ' two' (rua, lua, ua, rau, jau, ru), and every Ternal has ' three' 

 (tolu, tou, tau, tul, hal) ; in the Aneityumese Ternal, ij is the last 

 syllable of ese-ij, ' three.' 



My second Proposition is : — Most of the Melanesian Personal 

 Pronouns begin with a syllable which is not an essential part of 

 the word. 

 Such a prothetic syllable, commonly the vowel a, is prefixed 



to nouns and other words in many of the Bantu dialects of South 



