468 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



the sky): Taliitian rui (ruki), night, to be dark or bhnd : 

 Paumotu, ruki, night : Tongan, roki, dark. The Maori ko- 

 rukuruku is "cloudy;" rikoriko (or, as an Enghshman would 

 write it, rceko-reeko) is "dusky, darkish;" the Tongan form 

 liko-liko, "besmeared with dirt." Scottish (Jamieson) gives 

 coio and koto as "fuel used for a temporary fire:" Cornish, 

 gau, dung (a mutation of cau) : Irish, caorach, a dry clod 

 used for fuel ; caoraclid, cattle ; horan and buacar, cow-dung. 

 Wright (" Provincial Diet.") has cow-hlakes, " dry cow-dung 

 used for fuel;" also dye, "cow-dung collected for fuel," this 

 being the Polynesian tae, dung, ordure.* 



I will now proceed to consider the last important form of 

 the cattle-word in Polynesia, the word tau. I have already 

 in a former paperf drawn attention to this word as used in 

 several peculiar ways, as in writing, tattooing {ta-tau), tying, 

 &c. The ancient Persians, who were " Aryans of the Aryans " 

 (their own proud title), wrote all their literature upon pre- 

 pared cowskins.l This may have been the connection 

 between writing and cattle (English tato, to prepare skins to 

 make them into leather). On the other hand, the most 

 primitive bond of all may have been the use of the tau as a 

 cattle-mark. § 



The word was so general as to be equally shared by Aryan 

 and Semitic peoples — Greek ravpo^, Latin taurus, Eussian 

 tur, Welsh tarw, Gaelic tarbh, Irish tor, Icelandic stjorr, 

 English steer, Sanscrit stliaura, &c., Chaldean tora, Ethiopian 

 tore, Arabic thaiur, Hebrew slior. Probably the one class of 

 language has adopted the word from the other in ages un- 

 thiakably remote. Whether the Polynesian tau form has lost 

 its final r, or whether the others have added it I do not know, 

 but there is one signification at least in which the r sound is 

 found in the Islands — viz., Maori tau, a rope (German ta7i, a 

 rope ; Icelandic taumr, a rein ; English totv, &c.), where tawa 

 also means " rope." But the Tahitian tatira means " a herd." 

 And, while this coincidence fixes the derivation, we find that 

 in all Polynesian dialects except Maori|| a second signi- 



* Samoan tae, excrement, to gather up rubbish ; Tongan tae, excre- 

 ment ; JIaori tutae, ordure, &c. 



t " Ancient Alphabets in Polynesia," " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. xx,, 

 p. 353. 



I See Haug, "Sacred Language, Writings, and Eeligion of the 

 Parsis," p. 136. 



§ Taylor (" The Alphabet") says that " tau, the last of the letters, is 

 the 'sign' or 'cross' used for marking the ownership of beasts" (32), 

 Ezekiel, ix., 4). Bishop Andrews says, " This reward (Ezekiel, ix., 4) is for 

 those whose foreheads are marked with tau " (" Sermons," Luke, xvii., 32). 



II The Maori form here is probably Taiiira, a certain mythological per- 

 sonage, &c., for whom see "Ancient Alphabets in Polynesia," p. 363, 

 " Trans. N.Z, Inst.," vol. xx. 



