LANGUAGE. 25 



has too often in the voyages of civilized men, and the weakest has been sacrificed to 

 save life. The strong persistence of the habit once acquired is fully recognized. This 

 might explain the prevalence of the custom among Maoris and Marquesans at opposite 

 ends of the Polynesian domain. Cakobau used to boast that he had eaten one hundred 

 and seventy-five of his fellow Vitians, and a New Hebridean belt in the Bishop Museum 

 is hung with one hundred and thirty-five incisors, the tally of so many victims of its 

 chiefly owner; but the commoner got little of this rich food, and now it has come that 

 under British rule the last vestiges of this custom have been wiped out in the two 

 South Pacific strongholds, New Zealand and Fiji. Even the trophies of cannibalism, 

 arm and leg bones inserted in the stem of a growing tree, are more common in museums 

 than in the Fijian archipelago. Evidently in the Pacific it will soon be only a matter 

 of history. 



I/anguages. — While among the Polynesian islanders there is an unmistakable 

 relationship of language, in the Melanesian the confusion of Babel seems to rule 

 supreme. On not a few small islands of Micronesia several mutually unintelligible 

 tongues are found, and it would require much imagination to trace any connection. 

 The languages of New Guinea are so little known that no comparisons can be drawn 

 between them and the Melanesian, nor can it be stated with authority whether the 

 Malay element is more preponderant there than in the tongues farther east. Codring- 

 ton (in the work mentioned below) seems to regard the Melanesian as superior to the 

 Polynesian. The languages of Australia offer other differences and still less relation- 

 ship to the Malay. Even where certain common words are selected and compared in 

 the forty or fifty dialects of which vocabularies are accessible, the result is by no means 

 satisfactory, and to classify one must have recourse not to roots but to grammatical 

 structure, of which not enough is at present known to warrant any definite scheme. 

 To enter into the peculiarities of even the best known would require not only much 

 space but a knowledge beyond the reach of the present writer, and the subject will be 

 left with a few examples of the languages of the Pacific as they have been printed. 

 Those who are curious to know more may consult the works of which a list is appended. 

 The similarity between the Polynesian dialects is so great that a native of one group 

 finds little difficulty in making himself understood in any other. Codrington, R. H., 

 The Melanesian Languages, Oxford, 1885 ; Gabelentz, H. C. von de, die Melanesischcn 

 Sprachen, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1860-73; Humboldt, Wm. von, Ueber die Kawi Sprache 

 auj der Lnseljava, 3 vols., Berlin, 1836-38; Hale, Horatio, Ethnography and Philology 

 of the U. S. Ex. Ex., Philadelphia, 1846; Inglis, J., Grammar and Dictionary of the 

 Aneityumese Language, London, 1882 ; Grezel, Pere, Ditlionnaire Futunien-Francais, 

 Parisf?), n. d.; Tregear, E., Maori- Polynesian Comparative Dictionary \ Wellington, N. 

 Z., 1891 ; Andrews, L. A., Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language, Honolulu, 1865; 



Pratt, G., Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language, 2d ed., London, 1891 ; 



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