COOK AND cook: THE MAHO OR MAHAGUA 167 



mats of a sort called je sina, second only to the kind called je 

 toga, which are made from Pandanus leaves. A Samoan species 

 of Trama is called fan ui, fau uta is another plant name, Jauata- 

 galoa is "a species of indigenous cotton," and ma'o is the ''col- 

 lective name of several trees." One tree is called ma'oid and 

 another mafoa. 



In Hawaii, mau-a and ma'ua are recorded as plant names, the 

 former as a timber tree and the latter as food in times of scar- 

 city, as also stated of kemau, which may refer to the same plant. 

 Mao and hulu hulu are given by Watt as Hawaiian names of a 

 native wild cotton {Gossypium tomentosum) . Cotton and okra 

 are called vau van in Fiji, referring no doubt to the fact that 

 these plants resemble the vau, this being the Fijian name of the 

 maho. Anotherclose relative of the maho is Thespesia populnea, 

 called mulo mulo in Fiji, milo or miro in Samoa. It was consid- 

 ered a sacred tree in Tahiti, and called toromiro. In Manga- 

 reva koumiro is a name of the cotton plant. Cheeseman records 

 a species of Grewia as auere in Rarotonga, where au is the maho. 

 Another possible cognate is mamaki, recorded as the Hawaiian 

 name of a special kind of bark cloth made from Pipturus albidus, 

 a bush related to the ramie plant. 



Some of the figs or banyan trees of Polynesia also furnished 

 bark cloth and their names may be modified maho-words. In 

 Rarotonga, according to Cheeseman, aoa is the name of Ficns 

 prolixa, a tree planted to mark boundaries, and as the source 

 of a coarse kind of bark cloth. In Tahiti also aoa refers to one 

 of the fig trees and to bark cloth made from it. AoOi, aofafine, 

 and aotane are names of the banyan and other fig trees in Samoa. 

 Giliau and kiliau are given by Christian as names of the banyan 

 tree in some of the Caroline Islands, where the maho is called 

 gili fau. Another species, Ficus tinctoria, is called mati in Raro- 

 tonga and matti in Tahiti, names possibly equivalent to maute 

 or aute, and suggestive also of names of some of the large 

 wild fig trees in Central America, amate in Guatemala, and 

 chilamate in Costa* Rica. In Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus two 

 species of figs are called atty alu and itiyalu. 



Still another bark-cloth tree is Antiaris bennetti, called mavu 

 in Fiji and mami in some of the other islands, according to 



