During The Four Months That I Lived Here, I Got Well Acquainted
With All Of Them, And Took The Greatest Pains To Become Familiar
With Their Language, Habits, And Characters.
Their language,
I could only learn, orally, for they had not any books among them,
though many of them had been taught to read and write by the
missionaries at home.
They spoke a little English, and by a sort
of compromise, a mixed language was used on the beach, which could be
understood by all. The long name of Sandwich Islanders is dropped,
and they are called by the whites, all over the Pacific ocean,
"Kanákas," from a word in their own language which they apply to
themselves, and to all South Sea Islanders, in distinction from
whites, whom they call "Haole." This name, "Kanaka," they answer to,
both collectively and individually. Their proper names, in their
own language, being difficult to pronounce and remember, they are
called by any names which the captains or crews may choose to
give them. Some are called after the vessel they are in; others
by common names, as Jack, Tom, Bill; and some have fancy names,
as Ban-yan, Fore-top, Rope-yarn, Pelican, etc., etc. Of the four
who worked at our house one was named "Mr. Bingham," after the
missionary at Oahu; another, Hope, after a vessel that he had been
in; a third, Tom Davis, the name of his first captain; and the fourth,
Pelican, from his fancied resemblance to that bird.
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