264 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



Buka, Baravon, Nggela, Belaga: tambu, sacred, holy, prohibited. 

 Merlav: vatambu, to make holy. Omba: tambetambe, to worship. 

 Dukeof York : tabu (watabunabulu) , sacred. Dobu, New Britain : 

 tabu, sacred, holy, prohibited ; watabu, to hallow. Suau : tabuna, 

 sacred. Pokau: kabukabu, id. Mekeo: afu, id. Motu: koau- 

 aku, id. Aneityum : in-tap, a sacred place ; itap, sacred, holy, for- 

 bidden ; imiitap, to hallow, to make sacred. Mota : tapu, sacred. 

 Malo: sab, saburu, id. Tanna: asim, id. Bierian: ham, id. 

 Motu: tabu, a very important feast, a species of mythical beings. 

 Arabic : dabba, dabbu, to prohibit. 

 An interest exterior to our present study pertains to this word in the 

 fact that it is one of the two words, tattoo the other, which the English 

 has borrowed from the Polynesian. 



In scarcely altered skeleton of vowels and consonants tapu occurs in 

 Polynesia and in Melanesia. In the western island world it undergoes less 

 variation than almost any of the Polynesian loan material. In Omba the 

 final u becomes e, in Efate and Aneityum it undergoes a terminal abrasion. 

 We need give particular attention only to the following forms. 

 Malo sab (of a man) saburu (of a woman). This needs but the establish- 

 ment of the t-s mutation to prove its identity. I have already (17 Journal 

 of the Polynesian Society, 212) proved it to exist as between Polynesia and 

 Viti; in the material now under examination it clearly appears in talinga 

 (350) ear Marina salinga, buto (247) navel Buka vuso, mate (318) to die 

 Aneityum mas. 



Next upon this follows Tanna asim . Taking the s as now accounted for, 

 we have to consider a p-m mutation. In note 190 I have found a case 

 which is susceptible of this interpretation, and taking that with this there 

 seems to me a probability of this change. We have abundant proof of a 

 nasal reinforcement of p and b, mp and mb. It is quite possible that when 

 such a nasalized consonant was transmitted at second hand to others to 

 whom the double consonant was harsh they might excise the radical mem- 

 ber of the composite and in their ignorance of the true form retain the 

 purely accidental nasal. Bierian ham, then, would derive from Malo sab 

 in the vowel and from Tanna asim in the p-m mutation, while the change 

 from s to h is so common as to call for no note. 



208. 

 tafe, tabe, to flow out, to go out. 



Samoa, Tonga, Futuna, Niue, Uvea: tafe, to flow, to run. Fotuna: 

 no -tafe, id. Tahiti, Mangareva: tahe, id. Paumotu: take, a 

 river. Nukuoro: tahea, to drift along. Maori: whakatahe, to 

 clear from obstruction, as a watercourse or channel. Hawaii : 

 kahe, to run, to flow. Marquesas: tahe, to flow, to gush, to 

 stream, to trickle. Rapanui: tahe, to flow. Nuguria: tahe, 

 a current. 



Viti : ndave, to flow ; ndavendave, the channel in which liquids flow, 

 or the source of them ; ndaveta, a passage through a reef. 



Nggela: t ave, to flow. Motu: atahedid, to overflow. Malekula: 

 jivjiv, to run (nose). Malo: madividivi, id. Baki: jevi, id. 



Aramaic: dub, to flow out. Hebrew: zub, id. 



