We were not able to acquire a perfect idea of their method of dividing time; but observed, that in speaking of it, either past or to come, they never used any term but Malama, which signifies Moon. Of these moons they count thirteen, and then begin again; which is a demonstration that they have a notion of the solar year: But how they compute their months, so that thirteen of them shall be commensurate with the year, we could not discover; for they say that each month has twenty-nine days, including one in which the moon is not visible. They have names for them separately, and have frequently told us the fruits that would be in season, and the weather that would prevail, in each of them; and they have indeed a name for them collectively, though they use it only when they speak of the mysteries of their religion.
Every day is subdivided into twelve parts, each of two hours, of which six belong to the day, and six to the night. At these divisions they guess pretty nearly by the height of the sun while he is above the horizon; but there are few of them that can guess at them, when he is below it, by the stars.[23]
[Footnote 23: It is distinctly proved by President Goguet, that the course of the moon, and her various appearances, served mankind in general, in the first ages, for the measurement of time. What is here said of the Otaheitans confirms his observations. We are told too, in another work, that the natives of the Pellew Islands reckon their time by months, and not by years; in which, however, we see they are inferior to the former as to extent of science. Now there are two sorts of lunar month, called in the language of astronomers, synodical and periodical; the first is the time from new moon to new moon, consisting of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 min. 3 seconds, which is the month most commonly used by the early observers; the second, consisting of 27 days, 7 hours, 43 min. 5 seconds, is that portion of time which the moon takes to finish her course round the earth. Neither of these multiplied by 13 will make up the solar year exactly. In what manner then the Otaheitans reckon, it is not easy to comprehend. The probability is, that they have no notion of the periodical month.--E.]
In numeration they proceed from one to ten, the number of fingers on both hands; and though they have for each number a different name, they generally take hold of their fingers one by one, shifting from one hand to the other, till they come to the number they want to express. And in other instances, we observed that, when they were conversing with each other, they joined signs to their words, which were so expressive that a stranger might easily apprehend their meaning.
In counting from ten they repeat the name of that number, and add the word more; ten, and one more, is eleven; ten, and two more, twelve; and so of the rest, as we say one-and-twenty, two-and-twenty. When they come to ten and ten more, they have a new denomination, as we say a score; and by these scores they count till they get ten of them, when they have a denomination for two hundred; and we never could discover that they had any denomination to express a greater number: Neither, indeed; do they seem to want any; for ten of these amount to two thousand, a greater number than they can ever apply.[24]
[Footnote 24: The reader cannot but be pleased with what Goguet says on the practice of numbering with the fingers, so common in most nations, and adopted we see by the Otaheitans. "Nature has provided us with a kind of arithmetical instrument more generally used than is commonly imagined; I mean our fingers. Every thing inclines us to think, that these were the first instruments used by men to assist them in the practice of numeration. We may observe in Homer, that Proteus counts his sea-calves by fives and fives, that is, by his fingers. Several nations in America have no other instruments of calculation. It was probably the same in the primitive ages. It is another strong presumption of the truth of what I now advance, that all civilized nations count by tens, tens of tens, or hundreds, tens of hundreds, thousands, and so on; still from ten to ten. We can discover no reason why the number ten should be chosen rather than any other for the term of numeration, except this primitive practice of counting by the fingers." The whole of his observations on this subject are well worthy of minute consideration. On such elements, the provision of nature, are founded the most sublime and important sciences.--E.]
In measuring distance they are much more deficient than in computing numbers, having but one term which answers to fathom; when they speak of distances from place to place, they express it, like the Asiatics, by the time that is required to pass it.
Their language is soft and melodious; it abounds with vowels, and we easily learnt to pronounce it: But found it exceedingly difficult to teach them to pronounce a single word of ours; probably not only from its abounding in consonants, but from some peculiarity in its structure; for Spanish and Italian words, if ending in a vowel, they pronounced with great facility.
Whether it is copious, we were not sufficiently acquainted with it to know; but it is certainly very imperfect, for it is almost totally without inflexion, both of nouns and verbs. Few of the nouns have more than one case, and few of the verbs more than one tense; yet we found no great difficulty in making ourselves mutually understood, however strange it may appear in speculation.
They have, however, certain affixa, which, though but few in number, are very useful to them, and puzzled us extremely. One asks another, Harre hea? "Where are you going?" the other answers Ivahinera, "To my wives;" upon which the first repeating the answer interrogatively, "To your wives?" is answered, Ivahinereira; "Yes, I am going to my wives." Here the suffixa era and eira save several words to both parties.[25]