464 Tr ansae tions . — Miscellaneous . 



boat; French barque, &.C., it would seem to be unnecessary 

 to go outside of the (acknowledged) Aryan languages to the 

 Coptic bari. Probably barka, baka, or vaka meant the hide of 

 vacca, the " carrying animal." Nay, even our word bark (of 

 tree), of which the etymology is unknown, may be absolutely 

 the same word as bark, a ship (cf. Sanscrit valka, bark of 

 tree), in the sense in which the Maori word for " hide," 

 " skin," also means " bark of tree." In Sanscrit vaha is 

 "bearing," "carrying," as in Mnoxi v alia ; but vahata is an 

 ox, vahatu id., vahala a raft, a float, vahitra id., vahin a boat, 

 &c., Vakshu the Oxus Eiver. It is a curious fact that 

 Turner, who appends to his " Samoa a Hundred Years Ago " 

 a comparative table of forty dialects, gives for " canoe " in 

 very many islands vaka, va'a, vaa, &c., and then, for Hawaiian, 

 kau, a canoe.* 



Turning for awhile from the subject of bearing and 

 swimming, what is the connection between "cow" and 

 " voice " ? (It may be the -v/G-U, spoken of before, from the 

 bellowing of the herd.) That these words are radically con- 

 nected in some way is certain. Our word "voice" is 

 (through Old French voix) from Latin vox, a voice. Skeat 

 writes uox, a voice (the likeness to "ox " may be purely acci- 

 dental, if there is such a thing as accident), from ^ WAK, to 

 resound, to speak. (Cf. Sanscrit vach, to speak.) But the 

 Sanscrit vach, speech, voice, with variants vak and vag (as 

 vak-])atu, eloquent; vag-isa, an orator), is the name of Saras- 

 vati, as the Goddess of Speech. She was the Sacred Cow,f 

 the Mother of the Vedic poems, the Fount of Wisdom, " the 

 melodious cow who milked forth sustenance and water." 

 " That dauditer of thine, O Kama! is called the Cow— she 

 whom sages denominate Vach" (Atharva Veda). Here ap- 

 pears the link between the Polynesian vaha, to carry on the 

 back, and vaha, the mouth, speaking, talking.]: 



In the Gatha Ushlavaiti mention is made of " the im- 

 perishable cow Bdnyu-skereti." Haug {I.e. 159), in a note, ex- 

 plains this as a myth-name of the earth, and as meaning " pro- 

 ducing the two friction-woods " — the friction fire-sticks. The 

 sticks for producing fire by friction are, amongst the Maoris, 

 always spoken of by some word compounded with kau : thus, 

 hau-ahi, kau-ati, kau-noti, kau-rimarivia, &c. (whether related 



* The Aneifcyum (New Hebrides) word for canoe is nel-cau ; while 

 " tree " (Polynesian ra-kau) is in-cai. The Hawaiian form kau, canoe, is 

 properly tau, of which I shall presently treat. 



t Cf. the Cornish coivs, to say ; Egyptian kau or ka, to say. 



\ Maori, waha, to carry on hack, the mouth : Hawaiian, wahaa, to 

 talk : Mangarevan, va, to speak ; vaha, to put in evidence : Marquesan, 

 vavalia, to answer : Tongan, fahafaha, to go shouting : Malagasy, vava, 

 mouth ; vavana, loquacious. 



