and language, but the extension and improvement
of that art may evidently be traced to one source.
The numerals of the more improved tribes are,
with few exceptions, and making proper allowance
for variation of orthography, the same in all. In
all, however, relics of an original enumeration
may be discovered. In the less improved, these
relics are considerable in the lower part of the
scale. In a few, the original numerals continue
unaltered so far ; but in the higher, all agree in
in borrowing from the same source—from the
great Polynesian. *
Besides the class of words now alluded to, a very
considerable number of the most familiar and ordinary
words of every language will be found
the same throughout the more cultivated languages
; such words, for example, as sun, moon, star,
sky, stone, earth, fire, water, eye, nose, foot, hand,
blood, dead.
The existence of a class of words of this description
will hardly be explained by any influence short
of domination and conquest, or of great admixture,
which implies, in that state of society, nearly the
same thing.
As questions of deep and curious interest, it
will occur to ask,—what was the nation whose lan*
The subject of the numerals will be found discussed
more at length in another chapter. ,
guage produced so strange and extensive an influence,—
where its country,—what its state of society,
—and \ihat its name and history ?
On the evidence of language, we may pronounce
as to the state of civilization of such a nation, that
they had made some progress in agriculture,—that
they understood the use of iron,—-had artificers in
this metal, and in gold ; perhaps made trinkets of
the latter,—were clothed with a fabric made of the
fibrous bark of plants, which they- wove in the
loom,—-were ignorant of the manufacture of cotton
cloth, which was acquired in after times from the
continent of India,—had tamed the cow and buffalo,
and applied them to draught and carriage,—
and the hog, the domestic fowl, and the duck,—and
used them for food. Such a nation, in all probability,
was in a state of social advancement beyond
the ancient Mexicans; for they not only understood
the use of iron, and. of the larger animals,
which the Mexicans did not, but the wide spread
of their language across many seas proves that they
had made considerable progress in maritime skill,
which the Mexicans had not. If they possessed
the art of writing, and a national kalendar, the probability
of which will be afterwards shown, their
superiority was still more decided.
There is no living language of the Archipelago,
and still less of any nation, modern or ancie'nt, beyond
its limits, which can he denominated the parent
stock of the Great Polynesian language. It