Tregear. — Folynesian Folk-lore, 503 



in many of them. The Marquesan mahina, Tongan mahina, 

 Mangaian maina, Samoan masina, and Hawaiian mahina all 

 mean the moon : and, although in some of these languages 

 (Maori and Tahitian, for example,) this word is replaced by 

 marama, yet the Sanscrit words mah, the moon, ( v^ ma, to 

 measure,) and rama, light, white ; also, the connection of this 

 word with Kama-Chandra (Moon-Kama), point clearly to a 

 time when "iH«" was the Polynesian (as the Aryan) word for 

 moon, in ma-rama and masina, both phrases signifying 

 "shining," "bright," moon, i.e., moonlight. And in those 

 Polynesian dialects where hina does not mean "white" when 

 standing alone, it means " white hair," (in Maori and Hawaiian), 

 which is explained by the Indian myth that Krishna was the 

 black hair, and Kama the white hair, plucked from the head of 

 Vishnu (as twins of Darkness and Light). 



Somewhere in Europe or in Asia the name of Hina, or Sina, 

 must have been cherished as a lunar name, since the sect of 

 the Gnostics called the moon "Sin" (Sina) in their mystical 

 language. In the great Mesopotamian valley the word lingered 

 for ages. Sin, the moon-god, was worshipped by the Assj^rians 

 and Babylonians, and probably before the dispossession by those 

 nations of the earlier Accadian people. On one of the Babylonian 

 cylinders the king Nabonidus writes of " Sin, the illuminator of 

 heaven and earth, the strengthener of all ;" and in another place 

 we find-'-': "As the emblem of the Sun-god was the solar orb, 

 the emblem of Sin was the crescent moon." " Sin was the 

 patron-god of the City of Ur." But this "Ur of the Chaldees" 

 was named thus because they worshipped there the " bright 

 illuminator;" and the root iir, to shine, is the common property 

 of the world's languages. " Ur signifies light or fire, and is to 

 be found in every dialect of the Celtic"! So in the Hebrew or, 

 to shme, and the Latin uro, to burn ; but in none purer than the 

 Maori ura, to glow. It is not an Aryan word only, but an 

 Asiatic word, common to all races springing from the vagina 

 gentium. In the opening verses of the Sanscrit " Hitopadesa," 

 where Siva is invoked under the name of " Dhurjati," he is de- 

 scribed as yad-murdhni sasinas kala, (literally, " on whose head 

 the moon's sixteenth part,") meaning crescent-crested. The 

 word sasinas may be akin to the Polynesian Sina, although 

 sasin, moon, is generally derived from sasa, a hare, as though 

 the moon was called " the hare-marked," Etymologists often 

 alter their opinions as time goes on. 



The connection or confusion between the lunar Hina, and 

 Hina the fish-goddess, lies probably in the fact of Hina the 

 swimmer being " Ina the bright, fair one," and " Ina who rivals 



* " Assyria, its Princes, Priests, and People." — Sayce, 

 t " Gaelic Etymology."~Mackay. 



