540 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Abt. LI. — On the Native Dog of New Zealand. 

 By Taylor White. 



[Read before the Haivke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 8th June, 1891.'] 



DuBiNG the last twelve months I have collected further hifor- 

 matiou regarding the kuri, or Maori dog, through the " Notes 

 and Queries" column of the Otago Witness, and by private 

 correspondence, and now bring to your notice the answers 

 received. It is noteworthy that the name "kuri," which some 

 persons say is equivalent to " animal," and does not refer 

 to the dog alone, should seem to be closely connected with 

 European or Aryan names for dog ; and, as Mr. Edward Tre- 

 gear informs me by letter, a somewhat similar name is used 

 among the Pacific islands, as follows : " Tongan, knli ; Fijian, 

 koli ; Baki, kiili ; Api, kuli ; &c. Skeat, our great authority 

 on etymology, says that ' colley ' is related to the Celtic cii, a 

 dog, and gives from an old glossary ' Colezj, a cur-dog.' I do 

 not think you are right about your derivation of ' cur,' as a 

 dog which has been curtailed or cut in any way. Skeat says, 

 ' Cur, a small dog : Middle English, kur and kurrc ; Swedish, 

 kurre, a dog; Old Dutch, korre, a watch-dog, giving as pro- 

 bable origin a sound as of growling or barking.' I do not 

 hold with this. I think that the root is kur, to run, as found 

 in French courir and Latin curro. Cur is ' a dog which runs 

 away,' and k2i — as seen in the Greek kvmv, a dog ; the Celtic 

 cu, a dog ; &c. — is evidently the same root, the original kur, 

 kuri, kuli, or colley meaning ' the swift animal.' Years ago 

 I said in ' The Aryan Maori ' that I believed the Maori dog 

 was the degraded descendant of the dogs which once guarded 

 the herds oi the Maori people in Central Asia. Eemembering 

 this, do not the constant comparisons to a shepherd's dog 

 made by those who saw the old kuri seem remarkable ? And 

 note the European and the native names."* Cu is also Irish 

 for dog ; ci, Welsh : ca, a dog, Gaelic : Euss, suka, a slut : 

 Sanskrit, cvan, a dog ; cava, variegated in colour, also used of 

 hair mixed with grey and white : canis, Latin, a dog ; canus, 

 grey, hoary : chien, French, a dog (Old French, chen, a dog); 

 chenu, grey hairs : grey, Icelandic, a dog ; as also greyhunde, 



* The foregoing is quobed from ]\Ir. Tregear's letter, but I take excep- 

 tion to Mv. Tregear speaking of the kuri as " the degraded descendant," 

 holding that, although the kuri might be greatly altered in habits, there 

 is no proof of degradation as far as size is concerned. We have ample 

 proof that the word " cur," used by Captain Cook, was then the correct 

 term for dog ; and, in place of " runs away," read " the chaser," or, more 

 correctly, " courser." 



