40 Mr. Ferguson on the Antiquity of the Kiliee or Boomerang. 



Vir.— OF THE REMAINING NAMES OF THE CATEIA,— CAIA AND KAILE, 



AND OF ITS ORIGIN. 



Among the different names by which weapons of this species have been so 

 far sought to be identified, viz. Cateia, Teuton, Aclys, Ancyle, and Clava, there 

 is none which approaches either of the appellations by which the Australian 

 instrument is at present known. Now, however, that the close connexion of the 

 crooked implement and club has been established, the following very remarkable 

 testimony of Cluverius, regarding the latter, may be adduced. " The club," 

 he says, " is still the only weapon known to many nations of the new world. 

 Where Horace has called it Caia, as Isidore states, I cannot tell. This, how- 

 ever, I know, that at the present day, the Lusatians, a Sclavonic nation of 

 Germany, call the club Kai,; and that the Poles, also a people of Sclavonic 

 stock, call it Kiy ; but the Germans call it Kaile, and Keile, and Kiele, 

 according to their different dialects : and whether these be all of one and the 

 same original, I know not." — {Cluver. Germ. Antiq. p. 304.) 



With regard to the apparently corrupt passage from Isidore, Lipsius well 

 suggests, that for " Horatius," we should read " Dorcatio," a lost writer quoted 

 elsewhere by Isidore. That Caia, the Latinized Kai of Cluverius, is the true 

 reading, appears beyond question, whoever the writer may be that Isidore refers 

 to. As to the meaning of Kai, it seems to be the radix of the entire family of 

 words hitherto investigated, and to signify essentially something crooked. 



Kay and kayol are the Welsh cavus ; kae is the German hallium, or circular 

 enclosure ; key, jetty, and wharf have all their origin from verbs, of which 

 torqueo is the common equivalent : hence it might, perhaps, be inferred that /cat 

 in the Greek has the same force as vau in the Hebrew, the link, namely, by 

 which one part of the subject is connected with the other. 



As to the kiele of Cluverius, it also is clearly of the same stock ; we have 

 it in our keel of a ship ; the ceola, or curved vessel itself, of the Anglo-Saxons; 

 the galleon of the Spaniards ; and the English yawl and galley. We have it in 

 the Latin qualus, and Welsh kailh, synonymous with the Irish kliav, the Belgic 

 kit, and the Latin carina and lancet., in all which, the same signification is con- 

 spicuous. Without a needless accumulation of examples, kiele may be taken as 

 likewise descriptive of a crooked weapon ; and when it is considered that this 



