362 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



" to put down for remembrance," "to describe," " to mark out," 

 "to designate," " a writing;" kakau-kaha, "to print, paint, or 

 mark on the skin ;" kau, "to put down," as words on paper, 

 "to fix the boundaries of a land or country," "to dot," "to 

 give publicity to a thing," " to rehearse in the hearing of another 

 that he may learn;" (cf. Maori, tanira, " a pattern," "copy," 

 "teacher," "pupil ;") kaukau, "to take counsel," " to revolve 

 in one's mind." Tahitian, tatau,* "to count," "to number;" 

 ihotatau, " reckoning up of descent," " genealogy." Samoan, 

 tan, " to count," " that which is right and proper ;" tau'ese, " to 

 count wrongly;" taufau, "to teach a pigeon." Marquesan, tatau, 

 "to reckon," "count." The general idea to be gathered from 

 them all is to mark or dot (tattoo) for counting, or for making 

 signs or emblems by which one thing could be known from 

 another. That the word should stand for "teaching ; learning ; 

 fixing boundaries; giving publicity," etc., awakens serious 

 thought.! 



" Nature," reporting a meeting of the British Association 

 (last but one), says that Mr. Haliburton, when speaking on the 

 subject of the tau, affirmed that the natives of the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands, one of the most isolated groups in the Pacific 

 (near the American coast), used this symbol "on large sheets 

 of copper, to which they assigned a high value, and each of 

 which they called a tau" Here, then, we have evidence of it 

 as writing, and as a medium of exchange. But the most con- 

 clusive evidence of the value of tau as in counting, in its 

 meaning " ten," and its exchange use, is in the consideration of 

 a totally different word, the explanation coming from far-off 

 Madagascar. The Malagasy contains many Malay and some 

 Polynesian words : among them the equivalent for the Maori 

 hoko, " to barter." 



Hoko, in Maori, has two distinct meanings: one is "to 

 barter," now used in modern speech as " to buy or to sell ;" the 

 other meaning, when hoko is used as a prefix to numerals, 

 signifying ten times the subjoined numeral. Torn = three, 



course, raised upon the surface of the tablet. These tablets are wet with a 

 piece of cloth well soaked in the dye, after which the tapa, which for this 

 purpose is well bleached and beautifully white, is laid down upon them and 

 pressed into close contact. The dye is made from herbs, etc., of various 

 colours." — Wilkes' " U.S. Exploring Expedition," p. 112. 



Compare English tmr-viaher, the "person who, in weaving, works flowers 

 into his work." — Wright's " Diet. Obs. and Prov. Words." 



* When the Roman officers numbered their soldiers after an engagement 

 they wrote a tau, T, against the names of the living. 



t Tekau, the Maori word for " ten," if equivalent to the cross sign, shows 

 a form of crossing by the clasping of the ten fingers, or two aims. Thus, 

 the Roman X, the decern ("ten"), is only the Asiatic form of tau, and it may 

 be found that tekau (worn down) was the " tek " of cikci, de<j, teg, etc., as 

 "ten." 



