Tbegeak. — Polynesian Knotvledge of Cattle. 471 



Maori tara shows its tau derivation also in the floating 

 sense: Tau, to float, = Sanscrit tara, crossing over, a ferry- 

 boat ; tarana, a raft, boat ; taracl, a raft, float, &c. 



I w^rote in the first part of this paper that not only did the 

 cattle provide for the material wants of primitive pastoral 

 communities, but also gave them their deities. I have to 

 show another curious interchange here of the words pa 

 and kau (cattle-words) with names of Maori supernatural 

 beings of the lower class. The great deities of Poly- 

 nesia, Tu, Tane, Tangaroa, Bongo, &c., grew to heights as 

 great above the petty crowd of minor divinities as did Zeus, 

 Indra, Ishtar, and Apis above their half-foi'gotten forerunners. 

 In New Zealand there existed a belief in a class of malicious 

 demons called kahukahu. The word is sometimes applied to 

 a ghost or spirit of a dead person ; but properly it was used 

 only for the spirit of a child dying unborn. They were 

 regarded as "germs" of human beings, which had untimely 

 perished. Thus it was that a certain garment of females was 

 called kahukalm, and why the walls of a house were tapii. 

 (" Ko te kali'ukaJm piri-tara-wluirc.")'-' This was perhaps the 

 reason why the ' kahukahu were called "house-dwelling 

 spirits " {cLtua-noko-u-harc) — on account of the tabooed walls of 

 a dwelling. (Cf. Fijian kau-tahu, the wall-plates of a house.) 

 In both Ireland and Scotland the Taraus were supposed to be 

 the wandering evil spirits of unbaptized children. But the 

 peculiar origin of the Maori demon leaves no doubt as to the 

 meaning. To the Aryan the cow was a sacred symbol, the 

 emblem of maternity and of femininity : the Sanscrit matar, 

 ^'mother," is also "cow." Their Brahmin descendant has 

 always held the "killer of the cow" in greater horror than 

 we could feel for any possible sacrilege. It was the connec- 

 tion of this idea of femininity with the name of the cow-symbol 

 of maternity which caused the j^anniculus to be called kahu- 

 kahu. That at such a period women were looked upon in old 

 times as unclean, so that even their glance defiled, we have 

 much e\ddence in ancient writings, and this would account for 

 these supposed germs of humanity being looked upon as evil 

 spirits. A synonym for these demons is Atua-'poke (unclean 

 deities). When I assert that these spirits, kahukahii, are the 



* Verbi liaJmkahu significatio simplex est panniculus : et panniculus 

 quo utitur femina menstrualis nomine kahukahu dicitur /car l^o-)(y]v. 

 Apud populum Nova? Zelandse creditur sanguinem utero sub tempus 

 menstrualc effusum continere germina hominis ; et secundum prsecopta 

 veteris superstitionis panniculus sanguine menstrual i imbutus liabe- 

 batur sacer {tapu), baud aliter qui'im si formam humanam accepisset: 

 mulierum autem mos est hos panniculos intra iuncos parietum abdcre : 

 et hac de causa paries est domiis pars adeo sacra ut nemo illi inuixus 

 sedere audeat. (See Shortlaud's " Maori Religion," p. 107.) 



