258 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



InViti we find matha of the mas a stem; this renders it quite unlikely that 

 mati has any relation thereto. If Viti mati fails, then Efate maV is left un- 

 supported. We are therefore justified in rejecting this identification, so far 

 as it enters Polynesia; we can only recognize an Efate- Viti identification 

 to be added to the list of words established in Viti as of Melanesian source. 



Of course even without these considerations the proposed Semitic iden- 

 tification fails utterly on the ground of sense, for it can have no relation 

 whatever to words of the meaning here involved. 



199. 

 mata, mwata, a snake. 



Samoa, Tonga, Futuna, Niue, Uvea : nga ta, a snake. Maori : ngata, 

 a snail, a slug, a leech, a looper caterpillar. Fotuna: ta-ngata, 

 a snake. 



Viti: ngata, a snake. 



Malo, Rubi, Dobu : moata, a snake. Mota, Mugula, Sariba, Misima : 

 mata, id. Suau, Tavara, Awalama, Taupota, Wedau, Galavi, 

 Boniki, Mukawa, Raqa, Kiviri, Oiun: mota, id. Santo: mata, 

 maura, id. Bierian: n'mata, id. Malekula: na-mat, id. 



Baki: maro, id. Murua: mateta, id. Nada: moteta, id. 



Arabic: 'it' at', 'at'a', a snake. 



The parent of these forms is a problem. It can scarcely have been ngata, 

 for ng is a consonant which in all the Melanesian languages here adduced 

 is susceptible of ready reproduction as ng or n. Still less can it have been 

 mata, for in one of the Efate forms, in Malo, and in Mota (Codrington dis- 

 tinguishes it as mata) we see a positive effort to express not the pure m 

 which they have and use but something somehow different, a suggestion 

 of mb. We have no means of determining or of representing a parent 

 sound which shall class as its children ng-mw-m. 



The identifications of this ngata are in other respects distinctly satisfac- 

 tory. I can not include therewith the Baki maro and its congener Santo 

 maura. These we shall consider true Melanesian material. The absence 

 of the word from the Tongafiti migration (except Maori with its modified 

 sense) is a zoological rather than a linguistic lacuna; it is conditioned by 

 the fact that east of the strait which parts German from American Samoa 

 there are no snakes. 



The Semitic words mean snake; they possess an a and a t apiece, but 

 these are insufficient proof of identity. 



200. 

 mauri, to live; maurian, life. 



Samoa : maui, a Manu'a salutation, 'ua mdui mat. Tonga, Niue : 

 moui, alive, life, to live. Futuna, Uvea: mauli, id. Vat6: 

 mauri, to live. Aniwa: mouri. Nukuoro: mouni, to live. 

 Fotuna: no-mauri, id.; ta-mauri, life: emauri, to feel well. 



Viti: maurimu, a word of blessing used by the priests when people 

 take a thing to the house of the god ; conjecturally, mauri, life, 

 and -raw, possessive suffix of the second singular, "thy life," or, 

 "may thou live." Rotuma: mauri, to live; amauri, to make, 

 to live; amauringa, savior. 



