CAROLINE ISLANDS

[s. 152] : A group of islands in the Pacific, northeast of New Guinea and west A few of of the Marshall and Gilbert groups. them differ from the great majority of the islands of Mic rones i a in that they are of basaltic formaKusaie and tion, while the rest are coral reefs. Ponapi have mountains two to three you sand Ruk is an immense lagoon 100 miles feet high. long, containing 10 large islands and many Yap is also one of the high islands. The islets. climate is perpetual summer, the thermometer ranging from 72° to 90°. On the coral islands the chief products are the coconut palm, often growing to a height of 80 feet, the breadfruit tree, the pandanus tree or screw pine, bearing a large bunch of juicy fruit, and an edible root called taro. On the high islands, especially Kusaie and Ponapi, there is a much larger range of products, including more than a dozen kinds of Various tropical fruits are intro bananas. duced, and also some domestic animals, as pigs, chickens, and goats. The inhabitants are of the brown Polynesian race, having straight hair. As no census has population ever been taken, estimates of 134 vary greatly. Ponapi has a population of 5,000, the Mort locks and Ruk about 14,000, Mokil and Pingelap about 1,250, Yap about 8,000 to 10,000. The languages of different parts of the group are quite distinct but with affinities pointing to a common origin. They are not easily reduced to writing because of the shading of vowel sounds. This has been done, however, so that introduction of (!!hristian ideas has meant resurrection to the language no le than new life to the people. Spirits of ancestors and other spirits were worT he people were very shiped, but no idols. superstitious, but had no conception of a Supreme God, and had no idea of sacrifice. Certain places regarded as the abode of spirits were not cro ed. Some islands had priests, who in times of sickne and on special occasions practised their incantations, pretending to converse with the dead. Mi ionary effort was begun on Ponapi and Kusaie in 1852 by the ABCFM. Twenty years later there were 250 church members on Ponapi and 226 on Kusaie. From the first a mi ionary spirit was cultivated in the converts, and when the evangelistic effort was to be pushed westward to other islands, native mi ionaries from Ponapi were the agents used, furnishing one of the most interesting chapters in mi ionary annals. Political changes have hindered the progre Many of the of evangelization in these islands. islands have chiefs, whose authority is hereditary. On Ponapi there are several tribes, each having an independent king or chieftain. But in 1885 Spain laid claim to the whole group, as Germany had done to the Marshall Islands, and in the summer of 1886 took po e ion of Ponapi and later expelled the mi ionaries. In 1899 Germany purchased the Caroline Islands from Spain. In 1900 the mi ionaries returned to But these political changes have introduced to the people new types of white men, and the islanders have not been benefited by the Ponapi. acquaintance. At present the force of workers consists of 24 mi ionaries, men and women (nine of them unmarried women), and 135 native workers of both sexes. The mi ionaries live upon Kusaie, Ruk and Ponapi, but their work takes in many other islands of this group. There are 57 outstations, with 99 schools, 2 printing houses, 2 dispensaries and 5,500 communicants in the various churches. CARSHUNI. See Syriac. 152