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I must remark that the greatest part of the southern Language was not taken down by myself and I am inclind to beleive that the person who did it for me made use of more letters in spelling the words than were absolutely nescessary. The Genius of the Language especialy in the Southern parts is to add some particle before a noun as we do ’the’ or ’a’; ’the’ was generaly He, or Ko; they also often add to the end of any word, especialy if it is in answer to a question, the word Oeia which signifies yes, realy, or certainly. This sometimes led our gentlemen into most longwinded words, one only of which I shall mention as an example. In the Bay of Islands a very remarkable Island was calld by the natives Motu Aro: some of our gentlemen askd the name of this from one of the Natives, Who answerd I suppose as usual Kemotu aro; the Gentleman not hearing well the word repeated his question, on which the Indian again repeated his answer, adding Oeia to the end of the name which made it Kemotuaroeiea: this way at least and no other can I account for that Island being calld in the Log book &c Cumattiwarroweia. The same is practisd by the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands only their Particle instead of He, or She, is To, or Ta; their oeia is
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 219, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-249.html