[13]. “Kanaka” is a name originally given by Europeans to the inhabitants of the South Seas, and is one form of the Polynesian word meaning “man”.
[14]. The natives of Easter hold very firmly the primitive belief in dreams. If one of them dreamt, for example, that Mana was returning, it was retailed to us with all the assurance of a wireless message.
[15]. The milch-cows.
[16]. Considerably later Mana was again approached on the subject of the Australian gifts, and Mr. Gillam consented to bring them; it then transpired that they were no longer available, having “been given by the wife of the head of the Customs to the deserving poor of Valparaiso.”
[17]. Since writing the above, the following account has been found of dress at Tahiti in 1877: “All the women, without exception, have their dresses cut on the pattern of the old English sacques worn by our grandmothers.... It is a matter of deep congratulation that the dress in fashion in Europe at the period when Tahiti adopted foreign garments should have been one so suitable.”
“We may be thankful that Prince Alfred’s strong commendation of the graceful sacque has caused it to triumph over all other varieties of changeful and unbecoming fashion which for a while found favour here.”—Cruise in a French Man-of-war, Miss Gordon Cumming, pp. 299 and 284.
[18]. Mana made seven trips in all between Chile and Easter Island, traversing, in this part alone of her voyage, over 14,000 miles on her course.
[19]. For an illustrated description of the method of expanding the ear, see With a Prehistoric People, the Akikuyu of British East Africa, p. 32.
[20]. A full description of the statues is given in chap. xiv.
[21]. This excludes some fifteen which may have carried statues, but about which doubt exists.