_Locality._--Latitude 3° 2´ N. Longitude 131° 4´ E.
_Population._--About three or four hundred.
_Physical conformation._--Complexion, light copper, lighter than that of the Malays or Pelew islanders. Face broad, cheek-bones high, nose flattened.
_Pantheon._--Chief deity _Yaris_. Progenitor _Pita-kat_.
The account of Horace Holden,[62] an American sailor, who, with eleven others, reached the island of Tobi, in a boat, and who was detained there two years, is our only source of information for this important locality--_the nearest point of contact between Polynesia and Protonesia_.
No tribes have a harder struggle for existence. During the whole of Holden's residence, only five turtle were taken; fish being also scanty. Hence coco-nuts and the taro formed the chief food. It is reasonable, as well as charitable, to refer the churlishness of their tempers to this state of indigence. Perhaps, also, it is the reason why the men, as compared with the women, take a fair share of the labour of cultivation--a custom rare in other parts of Polynesia.
The effects of hunger in reducing the population are seconded by those of war. And here, the only weapons are the spear and club--_no bows and no arrows_.
The houses "are built of small trees and rods, and thatched with leaves. They have two stories, a ground-floor, and a loft, which is entered by a hole or scuttle through the horizontal partition or upper floor.
"For ornament they sometimes wear in their ears, which are always bored, a folded leaf; and round their necks a necklace made of the shell of the coco-nut, and a small white sea-shell."
All this merely connects them with the Micronesians. The tradition respecting _Pita-kat_ is more important. He "came many years ago from the island of Ternati, and gave them their religion, and such simple arts as they possessed."
_Locality._--West of the Pelews. Nearest point to the Philippines.
_Chief Islands._--Corror, Babelthouap, Pelelion.
_Vegetable products._--Coco-nut, bread-fruit, yam, batata, taro, ebony, sugarcane, orange, banana, bamboo, paper-mulberry. Rice and pulse wanting.
The paucity of quadrupeds, and the abundance of tropical vegetables is common to the Pelew Islands, and the whole of Polynesia. Hence, it is mentioned once for all. The chief exception, however, is an important one. The _hog_ will be found to be _partially_ distributed; and the partial character of its distribution has been one of the instruments of ethnological criticism (especially in the hands of the French naturalists), by means of which the order of succession in which the different islands have been peopled has been investigated.