DATA AND NOTES. 239 



tara, a horn, a spine, crest of a bird ; taratara, prickly, thorny, 

 spiny. Moriori: hokotara, to sharpen. Marquesas: taa, a 

 thorn, spike, point. 

 (b) Samoa: tala, the round ends of a house. Maori: tara, the side 

 wall of a house. Tahiti: tara, the corner or end of a house; 

 fautarajare, the bend of the round part of a house. Hawaii : 

 kala, the ends of a house in distinction from the sides. 



Viti : teretere, combs of some birds, crest of serpents. 



Duke of York: talaglagano, thorny. 



Arabic : torra, crest, comb of a bird ; torrat, extremity, end of anything. 



There is no reason to suspect any closer association between these two 

 groups than is involved in identity of spelling, which, despite change of 

 vowel in Polynesian, extends to their last occurrence. The Viti carries 

 the Efate vowel scheme within the borders of Nuclear Polynesia and serves 

 as the connective for the thorn sense. 



In the architectural tala, Samoa, Tahiti and Hawaii agree upon the ends 

 of the house, Samoa and Tahiti upon their being curvilinear; with a differ- 

 ent plan of structure the Maori assign it to the side wall. Of the Efate word 

 the most that can be said is that it is architectural even if widely different 

 from any Polynesian use. 



The only Melanesian resemblance beyond Efate, Duke of York talaglag- 

 ono, in the east gate of Indonesia, suggests a stem talak, of which no trace 

 survives elsewhere and the gap in Melanesia precludes confirmation. 



165. 

 tere, the mast of a ship, calf (column) of the leg. 



Samoa: tila, the sprit of a sail. Futuna: tila, the long boom or 



sprit to which a sail is bent. Tonga: jila, yard of a canoe. 



Fotuna: jira, mast. Maori: tira, mast of a canoe. Tahiti, 



Rarotonga, Mangareva: tira, a mast. Uvea: sila, yard. 



Makura: no-tire, mast. Tanna: tila, id. Bierian: n'dalin, id. 



Arabic: sariyat, sari, the mast of a ship, a column. 



In devising his second definition Dr. Macdonald has squinted so strabis- 

 mically at his Arabian entertainment that a single degree added to his angle 

 of vision would have turned him into a One- Eyed Calender. 



In the Polynesian group the t-s mutation in Uvea sila is sufficiently 

 common. 



The Melanesian identifications are simple, except Bierian n'dalin. Omit- 

 ting the final n, for which we have no explanation other than that it may 

 be noun-formative, we may reduce the word to tali, and this, it is at once 

 apparent, is metathetic for tila. 



The variety of sense as between boom, sprit, yard, and mast is more 

 apparent than real. It is due to an attempt to establish as a fixed concrete 

 a term which is undoubtedly abstract and descriptive. In the navigation 

 where the triangular sail has an enormous sprit or boom and a short mast 

 tila goes with the longer spar; where the mast is high and the sprit, boom, 

 yard or gaff is subordinate, tila still goes with the longer spar. If we had 

 the data whereby to analyze tila down to its elements we should probably 

 find that it meant no more than long spar. 



