448 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



in which such collections can be made ;'■' but a few interesting 

 relics have been preserved — sometimes almost unintentionally 

 — by early writers on the Islands. Mr. Mariner, who was 

 shipwrecked at Tonga, and was a prisoner there for many 

 years, before the arrival of the missionaries, made it his 

 pleasure after his return to England to compile a vocabulary 

 and to describe the people among whom he had dwelt so long.f 

 A wonderfully correct and interesting work his unusual powers 

 of observation and memory enabled him to produce. He tells 

 us, concerning their variety of songs and dances (choral 

 dances), that some of them are called Havioa (Samoa), but 

 that one variety, the Nnha fashion of singing, is always 

 in Tongan; and continues,:]: "The poet describes, among 

 other tilings, the animals belonging to the country [Pa^M- 

 langi= the name of the place Europeans are supposed to 

 come from, and stands for Europeans themselves], stating 

 that in the fields there are large pigs with horns, that eat 

 grass." It is certain that the Polynesian word imaka, used 

 now (and at the time of the first discoverers) in the sense of 

 "pig,"§ had in former times a much wider acceptance, as 

 "large animal," and has been applied to the pig as "the" 

 animal i)ar excellence, because the only large animal surviving. 

 The word is thus used (as " animal ") in the ancient " Deluge 

 Chant " of the Marquesas, where, in describing the entry of 

 the different creatures into the ark or vessel, the expression 

 is used, " Mea 'pitiki i taliuna te tai a te puaa," "To tie 

 up in couples the various kinds of animals. "|| The word 

 jouaka was generally applied to cattle, horses, &c., on their 

 introduction by Europeans, as, Tahitian, imaahorofenua 

 (land-running animal), a horse ; louaaniho, a goat, &c. : but 

 it was sometimes applied formerly even to men, as pnaa- 

 huaira, an undaunted, fierce, athletic person. Its proper 

 use seems to have been that j;z;aa (jniaka) means all hoofed 

 animals, while uri {kiiri) is reserved for all quadrupeds not 

 having hoofs (except the rat). In Hawaii, puaa, as " animal," 



* New Zealand, Mangaia, and Hawaii have done best in this way, 

 Tahiti (perhaps most interesting and wonderful in kingcraft and priest- 

 craft) is almost unrepresented ; but Miss Teuira Henry has possession of 

 the documents collected years ago by the earliest missionary student of 

 folk-lore, and her valuable work will soon be forthcoming. 



t " The Tonga Islands," by W. Mariner. 1818. 



X L.c, ii., p. 319. 



§ The IMaori word poalia, for pig, Avas probably given them by the 

 Tahitian interpreter, Tupaea, who was with Captain Cook when he gave 

 the New-Zealanders their first pigs. Had the Englishmen given a word 

 they would probably have said " pig," not " porker," and the Maoris would 

 have called the animals ^nfci. 



11 This ark in the Hawaiian " Deluge Song " is called Waa (vaka, 

 aha, waka, &c., of different Polynesian dialects), or, in its full title, 

 Waa-hnlan-alii (in Maori letteva =Waka-ivharazi-ariki), the "Extended 

 Ship of the Lord." 



