TiiEGEAK. — Polynesian Knotvledge of Cattle. 455 



to gnaw ; Samoan, gaxi,, to chew sugar-cane, &c. ; Hawaiian, 

 naih, to chew, chank ; Tongan, gaii, to chew the juice out 

 of anything ; Marquesan, ha-kahu, to bite ; Mangarevan, 

 gagahu, to bite ; Earotongan, ngau, to chew. If this idea 

 of chewing had no parallel in the Aryan languages there would 

 be little to be said ; but there is one most noticeable afiinity. 

 In Maori kataoae means " the jaw." * The English woi-d " to 

 chew or chaw" was chaiuc ; Old Dutch, kaauw-en, to chew; 

 German, kaiien, to chew ; Old High German, chuhcan, to 

 chew {ckuo, a cow) ; Old Dutch, kamoe, the jaw of a fish ;t 

 Danish, kosve, a jaw (cf. Borneo, jawai, face, and Malay, 

 jawi, cattle). Skeat (" Ety. Diet.") says that jaw (also 

 spelt chaic and joioer) is formed from the verb "to chaw;" 

 again, yo^ijZ is from ckatil, whose older form, chauel, is evidently 

 a form of "chaw.".| The Scottish coio, " to eat up as food " 

 (Jamieson, " Scot. Diet."), brings me to another form of the word 

 (as I believe) — that is, the Polynesian kai, "food," " to eat." 

 A curious and unexpected light is thrown upon this word by 

 Mr. Coleuso§ when he says, "Avery old meaning of kai, as 

 a noun, is movable property, possessions, goods, chattels — 

 valuables in the estimation of the ancient Maori." Note here 

 the term chattel. \\ The English word chattel itself means 

 "cattle." The Scottish word kye or ky (pronounced nearly 

 as Polynesian kai) is cows. Ky, cow^s ; ky-hcrd, a cow-herd 

 (Jamieson). Thus it is used for cattle collectively, as the 

 Polynesians used it for food generally. It may be that ky or 

 kai is not a true plural (the plural proper being kine), my 

 reason for throwing doubt upon the original form (if Aryan 

 had a verbal plural) being that Bopp (" Comp. Gram.," i., p. 136, 

 note) remarks that Old High German chuo, " cow," has geni- 

 tive chiLoi, "where the i does not belong' to the case designa- 

 tion, but to the here uninflected base." (Cf. Icelandic kyr, 

 a cow ; dat. and accus., he.) Perhaps the i belonged no more 

 to the plural number than to the genitive case. In Hawaiian, 

 ai (kai) meant not only food, but property generally (see 

 Lorrin Andrews's Diet.). In Tongan kai meant "food," but 

 kakai, "people, population;" the Samoan 'a'ai (kakai), " a, 



* Samoan, 'auvae (kmivac), the chin ; Tahitian, atiae (Jcaiiae), inner 

 part of lower jaw ; Hawaiian, cmwae (kauicac), the chin of a person ; 

 IMarquesan, kouvae, the chin; IMangarevan, kouae, the jaw. 



'i; Kaawae-roa (long-jaw) is the name of a New Zealand fish — syn., 

 hapuka. 



\ Kluge ("Ety. Wort.") gives the German kauen, " to chew," as re- 

 lated to yevofxaL : if so, any connection with a VKAF becomes doubtful. 



§" On Nomenclature," by W. Coleuso, P.E.S., Hawke's Bay Philo- 

 sophical Institute, 10th July, 1883. 



II Scottish chattel, '■ to chew feebly." Jamieson (" Scot. Diet.") says, 

 perhaps a diminutive from kauicen, " to bite." 



