254 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



to split open ; bora a basket woven out of the frond of a coconut palm whose 

 stalk is split asunder." He is looking not only at bworai, hut at the Arabic 

 he is about to suggest. The slitting of the stalk would appear to the 

 islander, as to us, the first and least important of the operations whereby 

 the basket is produced. 



193- 

 kafika, the rose apple. 



Samoa: nonufi'afi'a, the Malay apple. Futuna: kafika, a fruit tree. 

 Niue: kafika, a lofty tree. Fotuna: kafika, the rose apple. 

 Tahiti: ahid, Malay apple. Maori: kahika, the white pine. 

 Marquesas: kehika, kehia, ehia, tree names. Hawaii: ohia, a 

 tree name. 

 Viti : kavika, Malay apple. 



Mota, Lo, Maewo, Arag, Marina: gaviga, the rose apple. Tangoan 

 Santo: kabika, khabika, id. Santo Wulua: keviga, id. Malo: 

 avica, id. Merlav, Lakon: gavig, id. Mosin: gevig, id. 

 Leon: vegig, id. Motlav: na-gveg, id. Norbarbar: geve, id. 

 Re tan: vege, id. Malekula Pangkumu: havih, id. Pak: 

 marag, id. Sasar: merag, id. AloTeqel: mereg, id. Tanna: 

 ni-gauvug, id. 

 Hebrew: tapuah, an apple. Arabic: toffah, id. 

 The Proto-Samoan is kafik. 



The modern Samoan has reduced this stem by the initial syllable, but in 

 compensation it has incorporated the name of the custard apple (Morinda 

 citrifolia). With mere color justification this nonu passes in Samoan over 

 to varieties of the kafika {Eugenia malaccensis) as nonuui the white and 

 nonu'ula the red variety. It will, therefore, be not out of place to introduce 

 a brief record of nonu, all the more since it is one of the very few words in 

 Polynesia which points at all clearly to a Sanskrit source, nona in that 

 language being the custard apple. 



nonu: Samoa, Nukuoro, Gilberts, British New Guinea, Tonga, Niue, 

 Futuna, Marquesas (noil). 



nono: Tahiti, Mangareva. 



nino: Mortlocks, Marshalls, Tagalog, Pampangas. 



nunu: Viti. 



nona: Sanskrit, Malay. 

 In reducing the element of the composite which pertains to Eugenia 

 malaccensis Samoa with its fi'a differs from every language in the Polynesian 

 system ; yet this vanishing tendency of the first syllable shows itself in the 

 initial abrasion which gives us Tahiti ahid, Marquesas ehia and Hawaii ohia. 

 In Melanesia the trisyllabic form is maintained intact in Mota, Lo, Maewo, 

 Arag, Marina, Tangoan Santo, Santo Wulua, and in Malo with the abrasion 

 of the initial k as in the extremes of eastern Polynesia. Our next group 

 includes the dissyllables which now appear as closed stems through abrasion 

 of the final vowel ; these are Merlav, Lakon, Mosin, Leon, Motlav, Malekula 

 Pangkumu, and Tanna. We find yet a third group, dissyllables of open 

 stem through the abrasion of the final consonant of the last preceding group ; 

 these are Norbarbar and Re tan. 



