Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/51

Rh The editor, Mr. Smith, in note, p. 210, remarks the different modes of spelling and pronouncing this name, employed by different travellers, and that the C and the T are scarcely to be distinguished in the pronunciation of the language. The fact is, there are few of the natives but who have lost some of their front teeth, owing to an absurd custom of knocking them out as a sacrifice, for much the same purpose as the Tonga people cut off their little fingers: the consequence is, that their pronunciation, to the ears of a foreigner, is exceedingly indistinct: they often confound the r and the l, possibly from this cause; but their indiscriminate use of the hard c, and the t, Mr. Mariner is convinced, arises from this source; for instance, their word for "England" and for "country foreign," as given by Mr. Campbell, is "Kaheite," or "Caheite;" but which properly should be Taheite, and is taken from the island of that name, which we call Otaheite; and why this word Taheite has been adopted to designate foreign countries generally, and England particularly, I conceive to be