620 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 



westerly, or wind of Barat — as they do of the angin Jawa, that is, 

 the southerly, or wind of Java. Barata, or Bharata, is the ancient 

 term for their country by the natives of Hindustan. In the 

 language of Madagascar, allowing for phonology, precisely the 

 same word is used for the north — viz., avaratra, whose winds 

 wafted commerce from the parent country — viz.. South India." 

 Mr. Thomson had already shown that from Barata there must 

 have been an eastern migration to the Malay Peninsula, and a 

 western one to Madagascar. Mr. Colenso, in his notes to a 

 paper read by him before the Hawke's Bay Institute on " A 

 Charm or Invocation used at the Planting of the Kumara Roots," 

 (quoted above) comments thus on the following couplet from his 

 translation : — 



" And it was divulged abroad by thee 

 At Wairoti (and) at Wairota." 



He says : " Wairoti and Wairota are the names of two places 

 out of New Zealand (real or mythical) not unfrequently referred 

 to, in this way, in their old poetry and myths, and often in con- 

 junction with Hawaiki." Now I cannot doubt that, allowing for 

 phonology, Wairota is equivalent to Barata; whilst Wairoti is 

 probably Wairota-iti, or " Little Wairota :" the new land (that 

 proved only a halting-place) named after the old home. The 

 fact of the names being found in what Mr. Colenso has pro- 

 nounced one of the most ancient of Maori poems, " The Invoca- 

 tion of Pani," which we have seen in structure resembles some 

 of the Vedic hymns ; and the names being connected with 

 Hawaiki, their more immediate though still ancient island 

 home, all strengthen the inference tliat Wairota is identical with 

 Barata. 



That this tradition of Barata is not confined to New Zealand 

 is evidenced in the following extract from a review in the " New 

 Zealand Magazine," on Dr. F. Miiller's work on the Malay race 

 (from the ethnological and linguistic parts of the " Voyage of 

 the Novara") : — 



" We believe that in the Samoa and Tonga Islands we have 

 to seek for the original seat of the Polynesians. 

 The native tradition, however, leads us still farther back. 

 Similarly, as in the eastern insular groups, the name Savaiki 

 describes a land which may be considered as the Eden of the 

 Polynesians, which it surrounds with the poetry of careless 

 childhood. Tradition in Samoa and Tonga preserves the memory 

 of a large island, which is placed in the west, and is regarded as 

 the abode of the departed, and as the point of departure of 

 mankind. The name of this island in Samoan is Pidotu, 

 or Ptirotu; in Tongan, Bulotu. It is most probable that in 

 this expression the name of the Island of Buro is to be recog- 

 nised." It is added, in a note : " The tu in Pulotu is probably 



