209. Cantova says of his Caroline islanders, “La pluralité des femmes est non seulement permise à tous ces insulaires, elle est encore une marque d’honneur et de distinction. Le Tamole de l’isle d’Huogoleu en a neuf.”—Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, tom. xv. p. 310.
210. At the Caroline Islands, “Ils ont horreur de l’adultère, comme d’un grand péché.” Ibid. tom. xv. p. 310.
211. How the inhabitants of the Caroline Islands express their grief on such occasions, may be seen, Ibid. tom. xv. p. 308.
212. Cantova’s account of the practice of the Caroline Islands is as follows: “Lorsqu’il meurt, quelque personne d’un rang distingu, ou qui leur est chère par d’autres endroits, ses obsèques se font avec pompe. Il y en a qui renferment le corps du défunct dans un petit édifice de pierre, qu’ils gardent au-dedans de leurs maisons. D’autres les enterrent loin de leurs habitations.”
213. See Vol. III. p. 228.
214. It may be proper to mention here, on the authority of Captain King, that it is common for the inferior people to cut off a joint of their little finger, on account of the sickness of the chiefs to whom they belong.
215. This is peculiar to the men; the women always sitting with both legs thrown a little on one side. We owe this remark to Captain King.
216. Cantova gives us the same account of the profound submission of the Caroline Islanders to the orders of the Tamole. “Ils reçoivent ses ordres avec le plus profond respect. Ses paroles sont autant d’oracles qu’on révère.”
217. The reader need not be reminded that Tamoloa, which signifies a chief, in the dialect of Hamao and Tammaha, become the same word, by the change of a single letter, the articulation of which is not very strongly marked.
218. See this vocabulary, at the end of vol. ii. of Dalrymple’s Collection of Voyages. And yet, though Tasman’s people used the words of this vocabulary, in speaking to the natives of Tongataboo (his Amsterdam), we are told in the accounts of his voyage, that they did not understand one another; a circumstance worth observing, as it shows how cautious we should be, upon the scanty evidence afforded by such transient visits as Tasman’s, and, indeed, as those of most of the subsequent navigators of the Pacific Ocean, to found any argument about the affinity, or want of affinity, of the languages of the different islands. No one now will venture to say, that a Cocos man, and one of Tongataboo, could not understand each other. Some of the words of Horn Island, another of Schouten’s discoveries, also belong to the dialect of Tongataboo. See Dalrymple, as above.
This book uses inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, which were retained in the ebook version. Some corrections have been made to the text, including normalizing punctuation. Further corrections are noted below: