White. — On the Ceremony of Eahui. 57 



persons were .always distinguished by their posts being daubed 

 with red-ochre, to prevent the law of tapu being inadvertently 

 broken ; and for the same reason sacred persons painted 

 their bodies and clothes with the same red substance, that 

 they might leave a mark behind them where they rested." 



I think we may safely conclude that the name Titiokura 

 was given to that place at the setting-up of raliui there. 

 Waititirau is rather a difficult word to decide upon. Some 

 might take it thus: Wai, " the water " ; titi, " of the mutton- 

 birds " ; ran, "in number a hundred." But, taking the evi- 

 dence of the two place-names already deciphered, it seems 

 that we may safely claim it as a site of a rahui, making it 

 Wai, "the water" (near which); titi, " was set up " ; tiraic, 

 "the peg": or, "the, water of the sticking-in of the peg." 

 In this word T suppose that there should originally have 

 been a third repetition of the syllable ti, as Wai-titi-tirau, 

 and so including the terminal tirau, " a peg." 



My fourth name, Whakatu, would seem to be related to 

 the remarkable word t2itututu, "to stand erect"'; and is 

 a compound of whaka, which is called a prefixed causative, 

 and mostly indicates "to cause," or "to make to do": 

 therefore, Whakatu means, "to cause to stand"; or, more 

 correctly, "to erect or set up; a place where something 

 was erected or set up"; and in all probability indicates 

 " the place where rahui was set or put up." It is not 

 reasonable to make waka, "a canoe," tu, "standing erect," 

 as the original meaning of the name. 



Dr. Shortland says, " The word tajJU is used in the 

 same sense in the Sandwich Islands, in the Society Islands, 

 and, as far as is known, in the other islands of Polynesia. 

 It is probably derived from the word ta, 'to mark,' and_2JZi, 

 an adverb of intensity. The compound word taj^u, therefore, 

 means no more than ' marked thoroughly,' and only came 

 to signify ' sacred ' or ' prohibited ' in a secondary sense, be- 

 cause sacred things and places were commonly marked in 

 a peculiar manner, in order that every one might know that 

 they were sacred. The fundamental law on which all their 

 superstitious restrictions depend is that if anything tajiio is 

 permitted to come in contact with food, or with any ves- 

 sel or place where food is ordinarily kept, such food must 

 not afterwards be eaten by any one, and such vessel or 

 place must no longer be devoted to its ordinary use, the 

 food, vessel, or place becoming tajiu from the instant of its 

 contact with an object already tapu." — ("Traditions and 

 Superstitions of the New-Zealanders," page 101.) 



At first sight I was taken with the likeness of the place- 

 name Motiti ("Flat Island" of Cook) to those mentioned 

 above, and even thought that it might mean " the place of 



