6 Transactions. 



By dropping botli consonants we get ao, the Maori " day, dawn, become 

 light, cloud " ; Tahitian " day, bright clouds, the bright land of heaven." 

 In Mangareva we get a. meaning " sun," where remarkably little remains 

 of raho I 



Unusual forms, such as elo (" sun " in the New Hebrides), loa {" sun " 

 in Mota, " cloud " in San Cristoval), have not been referred to. 



Perhaps it may be allowed to make two conjectures in conclusion. Metro 

 means in Mota " famine " : may this be ma-aro, and mean " a time of sun 

 without rain, when the ground becomes hard and dry " (Hawaiian mala, 

 " to dry up as water, to wither as a tree " ; Mangaia ynaro, " hard and 

 dry " ; Mangareva maro, " hard ") ? Mr. Elsdon Best gives the Maori tciu 

 maro as " a year in which there are no crops." 



The word tataro in Mota means " a prayer." Dr. Codrington writes 

 thus of it : " The tataro of the Banks Islands, which may be called ' a 

 prayer,' is strictly an invocation of the dead, and is, no doubt, so called 

 because the form begins with the word tataro, which certainly is the 'ataw 

 of San Cristoval — that is, ' a ghost of power.' The Banks-Islanders are 

 clear that tataro is properly made only to the dead, yet the spirits {vui, 

 Qat and Marawa) are addressed in the same way." Ataro means " a god " 

 in San Cristoval {tidalo in Florida, tidatho Ysabel, tida^o Guadalcanar). " The 

 soul " in Malaita is alxalo. In Samoan tatalo is " to pray " (Tahitian, taro- 

 taro ; Hawaiian, I'aJol-alo ; Tongan, talo-monu, " solicit by actions the favour 

 of the gods," talotalo, " cast lots "). Apparently the meaning of taro was 

 " a spirit or ghost." A man's spirit was perhaps thought to pass to the^ 

 sky ; he was no longer a ta-nun, a living man, but a ta-mate, a dead man, 

 or a ta-taro, an inhabitant of the heavens ; so in Florida he was no longer 

 ti-noni, but ti-dalo. In the same way the soul was called aMlo, just as 

 ata in Samoan means " a spirit " or " the light " ; Tahitian ata, " a cloud, 

 a shadow, a certain prayer " ; Tongan ata, " the air, free, the morning 

 light, a shadow, reflection " ; Maori ata, " early morning, the soul, a re- 

 flected image " ; Motu (Ncav Guinea) vata, " a ghost " ; Mota atai, " soul." 

 If tataro meant originally " the spirits of the dead," it might easily be made 

 to include other inhabitants of the heavens ; or, if it meant " the gods," 

 then, when ancestor-worship grew up, the term would come to include the 

 ancestors of the tribe. 



The root hara or fora seems to mean " crosswise, lying across." Other 

 full forms of the root are pala, hala, vala, fala. From these we should 

 expect to get ara or ola ; pal, par, &c. ; ba, pa, &c. ; papa, baba, &c. ; and 

 transposed forms such as rapa and lapa. As a matter of fact, all these 

 forms are found. 



The way in which the meaning becomes modified is quite intelligible : 

 from " crosswise " Ave get such ideas as — an angle, a ladder, tongs, a fence, 

 a barricade, the shoulder, layers or strata in rocks, and hence flat slabs 

 and anything flat, or, with a slightly different advance of meaning, the 

 sloping side of a mountain, or an axe where the blade is not only flat, but 

 is set sideways, crosswise, imlike the adze. With these preliminary remarks, 

 as to the meaning, we may follow the changes of form. 



In Wedau, New Guinea, bara is " bent " ; barabarana, " a bend or 

 angle " ; barabara, " a shelf, a wall-plate." In San Cristoval " a fence " 

 is bara ; in Saa Malaita it is para ; while para^a is " the side." The Fiji 

 baravi means " the sea-coast, the side of an island or mountain " ; Maori 

 para-hi, " a steep slope or acclivity." The Mota parapara is " an axe," a 

 recent use of the word, according to Dr. Codrington. The Formosa parai 



