Tregear. — Polynesian Knowledge of Cattle. 449 



■was applied sometimes to human beings : iniaaohi, name of 

 children whose father has gambled them away; puaakunulaai, 

 a woman gambled away by her husband. One of the great 

 Hawaiian kuptut (wizard ; Maori, tupua) was Kamapuaa, 

 "■ the son of the puaka" (tama-puaka), who was the child of 

 Hina and Kahikiula. This name (Maori = Tawhiti-kura) , ' ' The 

 red one from afar," shows that this puaka was of a reddish 

 colour/'' Kancpuaa {Tanc-puaka) was the god of husbandry, 

 and of him the ancient proverb says, " iJc akiia kowaa o Kane- 

 2)uaa," " A furrow-making god was Tane-puaka." Primarily, 

 doubtless, the furrow-making animal was a pig (Latin piorca, 

 (1) a sow, (2) a ridge between furrowsf ) ; but it could hardly be 

 applied to an animal used in the name of the god of agriculture 

 unless the animal was in use for purposes of tillage. There 

 are many legends in Polynesia as to the conflicts of men with 

 puaka which would certainly seem to imply a knowledge of a 

 different beast from the friendly porcine pets of the South Sea 

 Islanders. 



Although I consider the Polynesians not to be aborigines 

 of the Pacific, still their immigration must have been in a 

 very ancient and prehistoric epoch. The genealogies are not 

 trustworthy beyond a certain limit, and, although the evidence 

 to be found in one island may confirm that of another as to 

 the existence of certain real personages, when we get to 

 Atea (daylight), Atua (god), Taichito (ancient), Kore (nothing- 

 ness), &c., we are evidently among a class of ancestors whose 

 generations are likely to be unreliable as to time and dates. 

 An immense period has evidently elapsed since the advent of 

 the Polynesians into the Pacific, and it would be perhaps the 

 most wonderful thing in the world if they had handed down by 

 oral tradition complete stories relating to their life in other 

 climes and under different conditions. The old has given place 

 to the (comparatively) new ; the scenes, incidents, and crea- 

 tures they lived amongst in ancient days have faded from the 

 memories and traditions of men utterly unable after centuries 

 of existence under altered conditions to conceive the old life 

 or the old environment. The knowledge of the life on the 

 great plains where the fathers of the Aryan stock fed their 

 herds has passed as completely from the knowledge of the 

 fair Polynesian as from the memory of the English peasant ; 

 but the languages of both bear the ineffaceable impression of 

 the old life to an extent only to be understood by one who 

 searches very diligently. To a pastoral people their cattle are 

 their all (as I have quoted at head of paper) — food, beverage, 



* Kaniapiiaa v!CiS worshipped as a god. His wife is Pele, the goddess 

 of volcanoes, whose home is in the great crater of Kilauea. 



t The English " balk," or " bauk " — perhaps a corruption or another 

 form of porca. 



