Note 200 — CHAP. X.

In two or three preceding notes, extracts have been made from the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, as marking a strong resemblance between some of the customs of the inhabitants of the Caroline Islands, and those which Captain Cook describes as prevailing at an immense distance in the islands which he visited in the South Pacific Ocean. Possibly, however, the presumption, arising from this resemblance, that all these islands were peopled by the same nation, or tribe, may be resisted under the plausible pretence, that customs very similar prevail amongst very distant people, without inferring any other common source, besides the general principles of human nature, the same in all ages, and every part of the globe. The reader, perhaps, will not think this pretence applicable to the matter before us, if he attends to the following very obvious distinction: Those customs which have their foundation in wants that are common to the whole human species, and which are confined to the contrivance of means to relieve those wants, may well be supposed to bear a strong resemblance, without warranting the conclusion, that they who use them have copied each other, or have derived them from one common source; human sagacity being the same every where, and the means adapted to the relief of any particular natural want, especially in countries similarly uncultivated, being but few. Thus the most distant tribes, as widely separated as Terra del Fuego is from the islands east of Kamtschatka, may, both of them, produce their fire by rubbing two sticks upon each other, without giving us the least foundation for supposing, that either of them imitated the other, or derived the invention from a source of instruction common to both. But this seems not to be the case with regard to those customs to which no general principle of human nature has given birth, and which have their establishment solely from the endless varieties of local whim, and national fashion. Of this latter kind, those customs obviously are, that belong both to the North, and to the South Pacific Islands, from which, we would infer, that they were originally one nation; and the men of Mangeea, and the men of the New Philippines, who pay their respects to a person whom they mean to honour, by rubbing his hand over their faces, bid fair to have learned their mode of salutation in the same school. But if this observation should not have removed the doubts of the sceptical refiner, probably he will hardly venture to persist in denying the identity of race, contended for in the present instance, when he shall observe, that, to the proof drawn from affinity of customs, we have it in our power to add that most unexceptionable one, drawn from affinity of language. Tamoloa, we now know, is the word used at Hamoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to signify a chief; and whoever looks into the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, will see that this is the very name by which the inhabitants of the Caroline Islands distinguish their principal men. We have in two preceding notes, inserted passages from Father Cantova’s account of them, where their Tamoles are spoken of; and he repeats the word at least a dozen times, in the course of a few pages. But I cannot avoid transcribing from him, the following very decisive testimony, which renders any other quotation superfluous. “L’autorité du gouvernement se partage entre plusieurs familles nobles, dont les chefs s’appellent Tamoles. Il y a outre cela, dans chaque province, un principal Tamole, auquel tous les autres sont soumis.”

Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, tom. xv. p. 312.