The order of succession to the crown has not been of late interrupted; for we know, from a particular circumstance, that the Futtafaihes (Poulaho being only an addition to distinguish the king from the rest of the family) have reigned in a direct line, for at least one hundred and thirty-five years. Upon enquiring, whether any account had been preserved amongst them, of the arrival of Tasman's ships, we found that this history had been handed down to them from their ancestors, with an accuracy which marks, that oral tradition may sometimes be depended upon. For they described the two ships as resembling ours, mentioning the place where they had anchored, their having staid but a few days, and their moving from that station to Annamooka. And by way of informing us how long ago this had happened, they told us the name of the Futtafaihe who was then king, and of those who had succeeded, down to Poulaho, who is the fifth since that period, the first being an old man at the time of the arrival of the ships.
From what has been said of the present king, it would be natural to suppose, that he had the highest rank of any person in the islands. But, to our great surprise, we found it is not so; for Latoolibooloo, the person who was pointed out to me as king, when I first visited Tongataboo, and three women, are, in some respects, superior to Poulaho himself. On our enquiring who these extraordinary personages were, whom they distinguish by the name and title of Tammaha?[191] we were told, that the late king, Poulaho's father, had a sister of equal rank, and elder than himself; that she, by a man that came from the island of Feejee, had a son and two daughters, and that these three persons, as well as their mother, rank above Futtafaihe the king.
[Footnote 191: 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.--D.]
We endeavoured, in vain, to trace the reason of this singular pre-eminence of the Tammahas, for we could learn nothing besides this account of their pedigree. The mother, and one of the daughters called Tooeela-kaipa, live at Vavaoo. Latoolibooloo, the son, and the other daughter, whose name is Moungoula-kaipa, reside at Tongataboo. The latter is the woman who is mentioned to have dined with me on the 21st of June. This gave occasion to our discovering her superiority over the king, who would not eat in her presence, though she made no scruple to do so before him, and received from him the customary obeisance, by touching her foot. We never had an opportunity of seeing him pay this mark of respect to Latoolibooloo, but we have observed him leave off eating, and have his victuals put aside, when the latter came into the same house. Latoolibooloo assumed the privilege of taking any thing from the people, even if it belonged to the king; and yet, in the ceremony called Natche, he assisted only in the same manner as the other principal men. He was looked upon, by his countrymen, as a madman; and many of his actions seemed to confirm this judgment. At Eooa, they shewed me a good deal of land said to belong to him; and I saw there a son of his, a child, whom they distinguished by the same title as his father. The son of the greatest prince in Europe could not be more humoured and caressed than this little Tammaha was.
The language of the Friendly Islands has the greatest affinity imaginable to that of New Zealand, of Wateeoo, and Mangeea; and, consequently, to that of Otaheite and the Society Islands. There are also many of their words the same with those used by the natives of Cocos Island, as appears from the vocabulary collected there by Le Maire and Schouten.[192] The mode of pronunciation differs, indeed, considerably, in many instances, from that both of New Zealand and Otaheite, but still a great number of words are either exactly the same, or so little changed, that their common original may be satisfactorily traced. The language, as spoken at the Friendly Islands, is sufficiently copious for all the ideas of the people; and we had many proofs of its being easily adapted to all musical purposes, both in song and in recitative, besides being harmonious enough in common conversation. Its component parts, as far as our scanty acquaintance with it enabled us to judge, are not numerous; and, in some of its rules, it agrees with other known languages. As for instance, we could easily discern the several degrees of comparison, as used in the Latin, but none of the inflections of nouns and verbs.
[Footnote 192: 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 shews 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.--D.]
We were able to collect several hundreds of the words; and, amongst these, are terms that express numbers as far as a hundred thousand, beyond which they never would reckon. It is probable, indeed, that they are not able to go farther; for, after having got thus far, we observed, that they commonly used a word which expresses an indefinite number. A short specimen, selected from the larger vocabulary, is here inserted, with the corresponding words, of the same signification, as used at Otaheite, on the opposite column; which, while it will give, as we may say, ocular demonstration of their being dialects of the same language, will, at the same time, point out the particular letters, by the insertion, omission, or alteration of which, the variations of the two dialects, from each other, have been effected.
It must be observed, however, that our vocabularies of this sort must necessarily be liable to great mistakes. The ideas of those, from whom we were to learn the words, were so different from ours, that it was difficult to fix them to the object of enquiry. Or, if this could be obtained, to learn an unknown tongue from an instructor who did not know a single word of any language that his scholar was conversant with, could not promise to produce much. But even when these difficulties were surmounted, there still remained a fruitful source of mistake, I mean, inaccuracy in catching exactly the true sound of a word, to which our ears had never been accustomed, from persons whose mode of pronunciation was, in general, so indistinct, that it seldom happened that any two of us, in writing down the fame word, from the same mouth, made use of the same vowels in representing it. Nay, we even, very commonly, differed about consonants, the sounds of which are least liable to ambiguity. Besides all this, we found, by experience, that we had been led into strange corruptions of some of the most common words, either from the natives endeavouring to imitate us, or from our having misunderstood them. Thus, cheeto was universally used by us, to express a thief, though totally different from the real word, in the language of Tongataboo. The mistake arose from a prior one, into which we had run, when at New Zealand. For though the word that signifies thief there, be absolutely the same that belongs to the dialect of the Friendly Islands, (being kaeehaa at both places,) yet by some blunder, we had used the word teete, first at New Zealand, and afterwards at Tongataboo, on our arrival there. The natives, endeavouring to imitate us as nearly as they could, and so fabricating the word cheeto; this, by a complication of mistakes, was adopted by us as their own. Great care has been taken to make the following table as correct as possible:--
English. Friendly Islands. Otaheite.
The sun, Elaa, Eraa.
Fire, Eafoi, Eahoi.
Thunder, Fatoore, Pateere.
Rain, Ooha, Eooa.
The wind, Matangee, Mataee.
Warm, Mafanna, Mahanna.
The clouds, Ao, Eao.
Land, Fonooa, Fenooa.
Water, Avy, Evy.
Sleep, Mohe, Moe.
A man, Tangata, Taata.
A woman, Vefaine, Waheine.
A young girl, Taheine, Toonea.
A servant, or Tooa, Toutou, or teou.
person of mean rank,
The dawn, or Aho Aou.
daybreak,
English. Friendly Islands. Otaheite.
The hair, Fooroo, Eroroo.
The tongue, Elelo, Erero.
The ear, Tareenga, Tareea.
The beard, Koomoo, Ooma.
The sea, Tahee, Taee.
A boat, or canoe, Wakka, Evaa.
Black, Oole, Ere.
Red, Goola, Oora, oora.
A lance, or spear, Tao, Tao.
A parent, Motooa, Madooa.
What is that? Kohaeea? Yahaeea?
To hold fast, Amou, Mou.
To wipe or clean Horo, Haroee.
any thing,
To rise up, Etoo, Atoo.
To cry, or shed tears, Tangee, Taee.
To eat, or chew, Eky, Ey.
Yes, Ai, Ai.
No, Kaee, Aee.
You, Koe, Oe.
I, Ou, Wou.
Ten, Ongofooroo, Ahooroo.
Having now concluded my remarks on these islands and people, I shall take my final leave of them, after giving some account of the astronomical and nautical observations that were made during our stay.