5 fi 2 Tm mac tions . — ^ fiscf I In neo m . 



spade ; hence, koamia, " digging, planting :" but to Mr. Tregear 

 ko, of course, means "cow." N(jahuru, agtiin, means " ten,' 

 and here, as commonly understood, "autumn, or harvest time," 

 (i.e., the tenth month from May or June, the beginning of their 

 year). But Mr. Tregear says: '■'■Hum is exactly the Gothic ulu, 

 the Enghsh wool ; the word as now used by the Maoris being 

 applied to the hair of an animal, the feathers of a bird, etc., only 

 because they had lost the sheep. Nnuhnnt, 'the wools,' (plural 

 nfjn,) was the sheep harvest, the shearing."' And he proposes 

 the new reading of the proverb : "At cow-herding, one man ; at 

 sheep-shearing, many." But ngahuru, "the wools," used abso- 

 lutely, is not a happy phrase, whether in Maori or English. 

 Suppose, however, we take nga in its natural sense of naija, how 

 is it then ? Naga being a serpent, or crocodile, nar/ahnru would 

 mean " snake's wool," or " crocodile's wool;" and the proverb 

 would run : "At cow-herding, one man ; at crocodile-shearing, 

 many." And who could blame those simple people, if they did 

 come in numbers to see that sight ? 



A philological Philistine, an unbeliever in the naga theory, 

 might well object that if a Maori tried to say '■^ naga' he would 

 not say " nga," but "naka," and that therefore the word, if 

 found at all in Maori, should be found in the latter form. If 

 the justice of this criticism were admitted, the theory would 

 suffer the loss of some most serviceable etj^mologies, but it would 

 I hope, still survive. For, not only does the word naka appear 

 in Hawaiian, and there mean "trembling, afraid," but there is 

 in Williams's Dictionary a word disregarded by Mr. Tregear, 

 and that is nakahi, and its meaning is " a serpent." I am quite 

 aware that even Maoris Avould assert this was not a Maori 

 word ; but seeing that without it the nai/as might be driven from 

 New Zealand, just as they were getting established, and a most 

 interesting theory suffer an irreparable loss, could not the new 

 philology, which seems well inclined to adapt itself to the needs 

 of its votaries, be induced to interfere, and to declare it to be an 

 ancient Maori word ? For supposing, even, it could be shown 

 that some missionary or other Englishman had, as he thought, 

 introduced the word to represent the English " snake," what 

 would that have been but reminding our Maori brothers of a 

 word they once knew well bat had forgotten ?''' 



* After I Lad written this, I found that Fornander, (" The Polyuesian 

 Race," iii.. p. 214,) actually couuects the Hnwaiiau naka with S.ixou siuica, 

 a snake ; 0. H. German miecclio, a snail ; and Sanscrit naija, a serpent. In 

 Hawaiian the Maori k disapi^ears, ng becomes n, and t is represented hy k : 

 hence Hawaiian naka = Maori tujata, a form not so easily connected with 

 snaca, etc. Evidently, an etymologist who has at command both these 

 forms and feels at liberty, without discussing their relative age and stability, 

 to use the one most suited to the occasion, possesses an instrument of great 

 power. 



