228 



EASTER ISLAND. 



meemee to plot, to intrigue. 

 meemeea contemptible. 

 hakamee irony, sarcasm, war song, to 



plot. 

 hakameemee to blaspheme, disdain, 

 depreciate, derision, abuse, insult, 

 menace, despise, mock, offend, dis- 

 parage, ridicule, tease. 

 hakameemeega an insult. 

 Mq.: mee, to despise, mock, insult, 

 depreciate. 

 megeo (mageo). 

 mei of. 



mei a, here, there, since, to spring 



from. 

 mei a mea, issue. 

 mei ra, to result. 

 mei roto o mea, issue. 

 Mq. : mei, of, since. Ta. : mei, of. 

 meika banana. 



Pau., Mgv.: meika, id. Mq.: meika, 

 meia, id. Ta. : meia, id. 

 meitaki good, agreeable, efficacious, excel- 

 lent, elegant, pious, valid, brilliant, 

 security, to please, to approve 

 (maitaki). 

 ariga meitaki, handsome, of pleasant 



mien. 

 mea meitaki ka rava, to deserve. 

 meitaki ke, marvelous, better. 

 hakameitaki to make good, to amend, 

 to do good, to bless, to establish. 

 meitakihaga goodness. 

 PS Pau.: maitaki, good. Mgv.: meite- 

 laki, beautiful, good. Mq. : meitai, 

 good, agreeable, fit, wise, virtuous. 

 Ta. : maitai, good, well. 

 Niue: mitaki, good. 

 A pleasant view of the island life obtains 

 in the fact that this was one of the first 

 words which foreigners learned to recog- 

 nize, and the records of Cook and early 

 voyagers are dotted with myty, for the 

 Polynesian had no intuition to correct his 

 happy feeling that all that was new was 

 good. The Niue identification proves the 

 Proto-Samoan source, but the value of the 

 two elements here in composition evades 

 determination. These are mei (mai) and 

 taki. That it is not a closed stem meit 

 with formative augment aki is shown by 

 two considerations; the general disproof 

 is that our evidence is distinct that this 

 Proto-Samoan migration left Nuclear 

 Polynesia before these formative augments 

 had come into use (see note under iko); 

 a particular disproof is found in Ma- 

 ngareva where the dissimilar duplication 

 tetaki is clear evidence that taki is a stem. 

 In the former element we are confronted 

 with the problem of mei or mai with three 

 instances of the one and two of the other, 

 bearing always in mind the rule that vowel 

 fixity is a scantily violated principle in these 

 languages. Niue exhibits such a number of 

 mutations in the quasi diphthongs as to 

 establish that variety as a subordinate 



meitaki continued. 



character of that language. In the mate- 

 rial collated in The Polynesian Wanderings, 

 page 52, we find no evidence bearing on 

 ai or ei in Niue, but in Tonga we find one 

 instance (Samoa net, Tonga ni) where ei 

 becomes i. I incline to consider mei the 

 origin of this element. We note Mota 

 matai good. 

 Mekemeke the great spirit, represented by 



a bird T (Makemake Q). 

 mekenu (makenu). 

 mene thumb Q. 



menege to grow, great, fat, famous, not- 

 able (manege), 

 menegea grown. 



hakamenege to make large, to aug- 

 ment. 

 Mq. : menene, meneke, to grow. 

 menia adulterer. 



Mgv.: mania, sexual feeling, involun- 

 tary delight from sexual feeling. 

 meniri to sour, to shiver. 



tckeo meniri, to cool, to chill. 

 meniri ko manava, little finger. 

 merere (marere). 

 mereti Wednesday (Mercredi). 

 meriri (mariri). 

 merita merit. 

 merone melon 

 meta the mass (messe). 

 metia Messiah. 

 metua (matua). 

 meua hopeless. 

 migo decrepit, weak, wrinkled. 



mimigo korae mimigo, wrinkled brow. 

 migomigo decrepit, weak, wrinkle. 



paa migomigo, sterile. 

 hakamigo to mock, mockery. 

 hakamigomigo cross, peevish, to dis- 

 dain, depreciate, derision, grin, gri- 

 mace, irony, despise, defy, ridicule. 

 TPau.: migomigo, wrinkled. Mgv.: migo- 

 migo, a fold, a wrinkle. Mq. : mino- 

 mino, mikomiko, mimio, id. Ta. : 

 miomio, id. 

 migoigoi indefinite number, infinity, innu- 

 merable, million. 

 migorigori (migosigosi). 

 migosigosi to interlace (migorigori R, 

 probably a typographical error). 

 PS Sa. : migomigosi, to twine around. 

 Fu.: migo, zigzag. 

 If my interpretation of migorigori as a 

 printer's error in reading the manuscript 

 be correct this will be the sole instance of 

 the sibilant in Southeast Polynesia. On 

 the other hand the mutation s-r has not 

 been identified in a single instance in Poly- 

 nesian, and in Melanesian borrowing 

 appears in but two instances, and those 

 very doubtful. 

 mihimihi fine rain, to drizzle, sleet, thick 

 fog. 

 Mgv.: ua mihi, fine rain. 

 mikamika curly. 



