The Solomon Islands and Their Natives

CHAPTER X.
VOCABULARY OF THE ISLANDS OF BOUGAINVILLE STRAITS—TREASURY ISLAND, THE SHORTLAND ISLANDS, FARO OR FAURO ISLAND, WITH CHOISEUL BAY.

This vocabulary was formed in great part by Lieutenant A. Leeper, to whom I may take this opportunity of expressing my thanks for his kindness, in thus placing it at my disposal. I have supplemented this list from smaller vocabularies made by Lieutenant C. F. de M. Malan and by myself. It is to be regretted that, owing to Lieutenant Malan taking up a Colonial appointment in Fiji during the last year of the commission, we were unable to avail ourselves in a further degree of his knowledge of the Fijian tongue, and of his general acquaintance with the construction of the Polynesian languages. We are, however, especially indebted to him for the recognition of the pronominal suffixes.

The spelling follows to a great extent the mode adopted in the missionary alphabet of Professor Max Müller, as given on page 116 of the Anthropological Notes and Queries drawn up at the request of the British Association. The vowels and diphthongs are pronounced as in the following examples;—a as a in father, e as a in fate, i as i in marine, o as o in note, u as oo in moon, ai as ai in aisle, au as ou in proud. Where there has been an evident want of agreement in the three vocabularies, I have given the different words or the different spellings, as the case may have occurred. We have thus been, in some degree, “checks” to each other: and I hope we have avoided, in this manner, many of those errors into which the unassisted framer of a vocabulary is so liable to fall. The accented syllable is thus indicated (´) in most instances where it is needed, the accent being usually placed on the penultimate.

Miscellaneous Words

Numerals.

Parts of Body.

Geographical and Nautical.

Animal Kingdom.

Pronouns.

Names of Natives.

Men.—Gorai; Mule; Kópana; Krepas; Kurra-kurra; Erosini; Tutu; Lawi; Sege; Fauli; Kiliusi; Gégora; Nito; Émara; Olega; Malakolo; Butiu; Igeti; Ki´kila; Totono; Gélesi; Dúkutau; Alisa; Iri-isa; Sahi; Oïsi; Karubo; Devi; Dansi; Kamo; Fulagi; Pilaisi; Maluka; Tokura; Misiki; Levo; Tunu; Biro.

Women.—Kaika; Bito; Siali; Évenu; Bose; Omakau; Domari; Duia.

Vegetables, Fruits,[167] &c.

Short Sentences and Phrases.

In a recent work on the Melanesian languages, the Rev. Dr. Codrington[169] deals with the languages of the islands of the Solomon Group which lie east of New Georgia. Some of them, as he observes, fall naturally into two divisions: those which belong to Ulaua, Malaita, Ugi, San Cristoval, and the part of Guadalcanar adjacent; and those of Florida, the parts of Guadalcanar opposite, and the nearest extremity of Ysabel. In the first region, the language of Fagani on the north coast of San Cristoval, is somewhat distinct; and in the second, that of Savo is strangely different in some respects.[170]

The languages of the large islands of Choiseul, Bougainville, and Bouka and of the numerous smaller islands in their vicinity, or, in other words, the languages of the western portion of the Solomon Group have hitherto scarcely come within the cognizance of the philologist, and are therefore not referred to by Dr. Codrington in his comprehensive work. It is probable that that of the islands of Bougainville Straits may form the centre of another group of the Solomon Island languages, as it is spoken by a dominant tribe of natives who have extended their raids to the island of Bouka. Yet, it is a singular circumstance that the natives of Takura, a village on the adjoining coast of Bougainville, cannot understand the language spoken by the inhabitants of the islands of Bougainville Straits. I met twelve of the Takura men visiting the island of Faro, who were only able to make themselves understood by the Faro people through the medium of an interpreter.

Little communication appears to take place between the natives of the Straits and those of the islands of Vella-la-vella, Ronongo, and Simbo (Narovo) to the eastward; and judging from a vocabulary obtained by Captain Cheyne[171] in 1844 from the inhabitants of Simbo, or Eddystone Island as it is also called, a native of this island would be scarcely able to make himself understood by the people of Treasury Island nearly eighty miles away. As shown in the foot-note[172] where the numerals up to ten are compared, all the Simbo numbers with the exception of those signifying five, seven, and eight are apparently distinct. Many of the common terms are equally different; so that it would appear that the inhabitants of this island speak a language referable to a distinct group of the Solomon Island languages, probably to be classed with those spoken by the natives of Ronongo, Vella-la-vella, Kulambangra, and perhaps New Georgia.

I forbear from making many remarks on the general affinities of the language of the islands of Bougainville Straits, and prefer to leave such a comparison to those qualified to pronounce on the subject. There are, however, certain points to which I will briefly refer.

Professor Keane, to whom I sent a portion of this vocabulary, informs me that whilst the structure of the language and most of the words are distinctly Papuan, the numerals and several terms are Polynesian. However, whilst I was engaged in collecting plants and making general botanical notes in this locality, it occurred to me that by comparing the names of the common littoral trees with those of the same trees in other Pacific groups and in the Indian or Malay Archipelago, I might obtain some important additional clues as to the sources of the language. In so doing I have obtained some interesting results, to which I have briefly alluded on a previous page, and which go to show that the peoples who originally migrated from the Indian Archipelago to the various Pacific groups carried with them the names of several of their common littoral trees, some of which may still be found in the intermediate groups of islands, such as the Solomon Islands, which have served as stepping-stones or halting places along the line of migration. On page 101 I have taken “Barringtonia speciosa” as an illustration. I will now refer to some other instances.

After examining the pages of Crawfurd’s Malay Dictionary, together with the extensive list of the native names of plants obtained by G. J. Filet, I have ascertained that the following names of pandanus-trees belonging to languages of the Indian Archipelago may be traced across the South Pacific to the Austral Islands, viz., Harassas, Haragh-hagh, Pudak, Putih.[173][174] In the islands of Bougainville Straits the four common pandanus-trees are known as Darashi, Sararang, Pota, and Samala. In the Sikyana or Stewart Islands off the eastern end of the Solomon Group, the pandanus is named Dawa.[175] The Fijians name the “Pandanus odoratissimus” Balawa.[176] In the Hervey Group and in the surrounding islands, as we learn from Mr. Wyatt Gill,[177] the “Pandanus odoratissimus” is the Ara of the natives, whilst the “Pandanus utilis” is the Rauara; the first being the Thatch-tree, and the last the Mat-tree. In the Austral Islands further to the eastward, the names of the pandanus-trees were ascertained by Dr. G. Bennett to be Hoshoa, Sahang, and Pauhuf (“Pandanus odoratissimus.”)[178]

By arranging these names as in the above list, the important bearings of such a comparison are at once seen; and I may here remark that I have attached no weight to the non-retention of the same native name for the same species of “Pandanus” in different localities, since as in the instance of “P. odoratissimus,” there is no evidence that would lead us to expect such a close agreement. Most of the common pandanus-trees have a very similar appearance, and there is often a general name given to them in addition to their distinctive names. Thus the natives of the Bougainville Straits often designate all the species by the term Sararang. In the Indian Archipelago, the general names are Pandan, Haragh-hagh, Harassas, Pudak, Rampai, &c. These are the names which would be applied to any new kind of pandanus-tree during the migration eastward of the races of this archipelago; and it is manifest that as the separate Pacific groups of islands came to be occupied by different offshoots of the main migration, the same tree might have received a different general name. Therefore, in investigating the nomenclature of the pandanus-trees throughout the Pacific, we should concern ourselves not with a comparison of the names of identical species in different groups, but with the general names for the whole genus of “Pandanus.” We desire, in fact, to find the equivalent of such terms as the Ara of the Hervey Group, and the Sararang of Bougainville Straits.

That the names of trees possessing such conspicuous characters as those of the genus “Pandanus,” can be traced from the Indian Archipelago eastward through the Solomon Islands, and across the Central Pacific to the Austral Islands, is a circumstance of considerable interest to the philologist and anthropologist. We have already seen (page 101) that in the instance of “Barringtonia speciosa,” the name may be similarly traced from the Indian Archipelago across the Pacific to the Society Islands. Another example is to be found in the case of “Morinda citrifolia,” the Indian mulberry, a common littoral tree in the Indian and Pacific regions; it supplies a yellow dye extensively used by the inhabitants. It is the Bangkudu or Mangkudu of the Indian Archipelago and the Wongkudu or Kudu of Java in particular.[179] In Bougainville Straits it is known as the Urati; in Fiji as the Kura;[180] and in Tahiti as the Aari;[181] names which are evidently different forms of the same word, probably the Kudu of the Indian Archipelago. Another tree, “Fagræa Berteriana,” the sacred tree of the South Central Pacific groups, is the Bubulata of Bougainville Straits, the Bua of Fiji,[182] and the Pua or Bua of the Hervey and Society Groups.[183] I have not yet found the original of this name in the Indian Archipelago, the only suggestive word being Büa or Buwah, the Malay word for fruit.