118 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
friends throwing it over both. This is also prac¬ 
tised among the Tahitians. The bodies of the 
dead are kept by the inhabitants of the Caroline 
Islands, in a manner resembling the tupapaus of 
Tahiti; and, in the Ladrones, they feast round the 
tomb, and offer food, &c. to the departed. This 
practice also prevailed extensively in the South 
Sea Islands. The fables of the inhabitants of 
the Ladrone Islands, which led them to regard 
a rock as the father of their race, accords with 
some of the Tahitian traditions. 
In the former also, according to the accounts of 
the Jesuit Missionaries, a licentious society existed, 
called by the people Uritoy , strikingly analogous, 
in all its distinguishing features, to that institu¬ 
tion in the South Seas called the Areoi society. 
Their implements of war are alike. Dr. Bucha¬ 
nan states, that in Pulo Panang he saw a chief of 
the Malay tribe, who _ had a staff, the head of 
which was ornamented with a bushy lock of 
human hair, which the chief had cut from the 
head of his enemy when he lay dead at his feet. 
This exactly accords with the conduct of the Mar- 
quesans; many of whose clubs, and even walking- 
sticks, I have seen decorated with locks of human 
hair taken from those slain in battle. 
Between the canoes and the language, of these 
islands and the southern groups, there is a more 
close resemblance. Their language has a remark¬ 
able affinity with that of the eastern Polynesia. 
There are also many points of resemblance in 
language, manners, and customs, between the 
South Sea Islanders and the inhabitants of Mada¬ 
gascar in the west; the inhabitants of the Aleu¬ 
tian and Kurile islands in the north, which stretch 
along the mouth of Behring’s straits, and form 
