Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/52

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xliv
INTRODUCTION.

because Captain Cook and his people were the first strangers, and consequently the first Englishmen they recollect to have seen, and who had come lately from Otaheite: hence, Taheite (or Caheite, as they who are too sensible of the inconvenience of wanting teeth call it), very naturally at first signified the land whence Englishmen come; but at length, understanding there were many other countries in the world, they adopted this word as a general name for any foreign land. The more proper word for England, which the best informed among them use, is Pritánë from Britain. The phrase which Mr. Campbell uses for an Otaheitan is "Kanaka boolla-boolla," which should be properly Tanata Bola-bola, and does not signify literally a man of Otaheite, but a man of Bola-bola, which is the last of the Society islands which Captain Cook had left when he discovered the Sandwich islands. Mr. Campbell, in another place, instead of using as above the word kanaka, to signify a man, adopts the proper term tanata', and which is very similar to the Tonga word for man, viz. Tangata. It is well to mention that Ota-