342 COOK and cook: names of sweet potatoes 



mature roots are used to make kao, presumably because they 

 dry better while the flesh is still starchy, before much sugar is 

 formed. 



Related perhaps, to kao and kaunga, are kauahi, kauati, kau- 

 hure, kaunaki, and kaunoti, which are Maori names relating to 

 the sticks that are used for making fire by friction, the wood for 

 this purpose being kept, of course, very dry. Kauati, in the 

 Paumotu islands, means to make fire; auwaki are fire-sticks in 

 Hawaii, and kahu is fire or to burn. In New Zealand again, 

 kauhuri means "to dig; to turn over the soil." Hurt, in some of 

 the islands, means to dig, but in others seed, suckers, or offshoots 

 used for planting. The Quichua name for a green corn-stalk or 

 sugar-cane is huiro. 



That kao and kahu may be related words is further suggested 

 by the fact that one of the Hawaiian varieties is called kahe and 

 one of the New Zealand varieties pokerekahu. The Maori name 

 of the yam is uwhikaho. Although in the Maori language kahu 

 is not reckoned as a name of fire, it is the name of the hawk, 

 the god of fire, reckoned as a child of the fire-goddess Mahuika. 

 Moreover, Kahukura was the name of the rainbow-god of the 

 Maoris, and also the name of the man who, according to one 

 tradition, brought the kumara to New Zealand, together with 

 the taro, the bottle-gourd, and the yam. The traditions indi- 

 cate that the dried sweet potatoes had great importance in former 

 times among the Maoris, perhaps as affording their only supplies 

 of food that could be kept over from one season to another. 



In addition to the drying of sweet potatoes to make kao, the 

 leaves of the plant were eaten, as they are by the Quichuas in 

 South America. The Hawaiian word palula is defined as the 

 leaf of the sweet potato, and as a dish made by roasting sweet 

 potato leaves on hot stones. The word resembles pahulu, de- 

 fined as "potatoes of a second growth," and ponalo, "the dying 

 or drying up of potato tops.'" 



The status of sweet potato varieties among the Polynesians 

 affords the most definite evidence of long-standing possession 

 and familiarity. While almost nothing in the way of detailed 



