472 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



"bogeys" of our childhood I shall doubtless cause a smile to- 

 appear on the faces of my readers; but the facts are very stub- 

 born. In Maori, poke {boke) means "to appear as a spirit" 

 (Williams's Diet.), and is, I believe, associated with 7)0, either 

 as the abode of souls or as the Cosmic Cow. While engaged 

 in gathering information as to the word pojyoa, " food eaten 

 for the dead," I learnt much concerning these j^oke spirits. 

 Several classes of spirits are poke, but especially the malig- 

 nant kahukahu ; but, whereas the latter is essentially un- 

 clean, the spirit of a dead man only becomes j^oke if the 

 rites of the funeral offering are neglected,''- their manes not 

 being of themselves able to kill or injure living persons, 

 but only to incite the atuas (demons) to do so : the spirit 

 of the adult, if neglected or revengeful, could only plant 

 the germs for the other piokc spirits to nourish. This was 

 the reason why (as amongst the Aryans) it was a great 

 misfortune to a chief to be without legitimate oiispring, 

 and not to have a child to make the death-offering. f 

 Hence come the proverbs " Eahore he ttri, he tangi" — 

 " Without offspring, wailing " — and " Ka ora koc, kapihea" — 

 " You will live (be immortal), having the death-song chanted.";]: 

 If, then, the Maori p)oke means unclean, evil spirit, to 

 appear as a spirit, we shall find connected with it the Samoan 

 2)o'e {poke), " to be afraid," and in this sense a host of words 

 in the Indo-European languages for "spirit" and "fear." 

 The English word boggle — to start aside, swerve from fear — is 



* For description of the offerings of cakes, &c., made for the dead in 

 ancient India and Persia, see Tyler's "Primitive Culture," ii., 30, 30; 

 Ward's " Hindoos," vol. ii., 332. For the Roman festival in honour of 

 the dead (Feralia) see Lempriere, " Clas. Diet." 



t " Parva petunt manes. Pietas pro divite grata est 

 Munere. Non avidos Styx habet ima deos." 



—Ovid, Fast, ii., 533. 



I Mr. Locke, R.M., of Napier, a Maori scholar and "initiate" of 

 priestcraft, informed me that the sacred food for the dead — popon — was 

 the bread made from the pollen of the bulrush {Typluv angustifolia). 

 Those who wish to know more concerning this bread (called ima when 

 " common ") will do well to read the Rev. R. Taylor's (" Te Ika-a-Maui ") 

 account of it. He states that Scinde (India) is the only other place 

 where the bread made from bulrush-pollen is eaten. It is in Scmde 

 called " boor," according to Professor Lindley. " Boor " is evidently the 

 New Zealand j^ua {anjlicc poo-a'h), with the broadened ah into ar, of 

 which I before spoke. Captain Wood, in " Journey to the Source of the 

 Oxus " (Gl), tells us, " It is the solitary bulrush-gatherer, who, with only 

 his 7missnk (inflated-hide float) for support, braves all the dangers of the 

 .stream to procure the root of the bulrush as food for himself and his 

 little ones." For evidence as to Maoris eating root of bulrush, see 

 Colenso, " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. i., 348. The bulrush plant is called in 

 New Zealand ra2(jJ0 (rau-po), where rcm-^-^' leaf." What does po mean 

 here? Bull? As the etymology of "bulrush" is unknown, the word 

 may be older than has been thought. 



