DATA AND NOTES. 265 



There is no need to comment upon the identifications within the Pacific 

 area except in respect of one particular. Viti ndaveta has a form resem- 

 blance to ndave but the sense does not so clearly hang. I have included 

 inhere because it seems to suggest a radical tafet, which may appear also 

 in Motu atahedid. Yet in Viti the passive is ndavena, in which the sug- 

 gestion of final n is equally worthy of consideration. In Polynesia there is 

 no evidence to warrant the idea that tafe was ever other than an open root. 



209. 



tanga, tonga, tronga, rong, a basket, the stomach. 



Samoa: tanga, a basket. Futuna: tanga, a sack. Niue, Uvea, 

 Rapanui, Nukuoro: tanga, a bag. Tonga: tangai, a narrow 

 bag, a sack. Nuguria: tana-mimi, the bladder. 



Viti: tanga, a bag, a pocket, a purse. 



Arag: tanga, a bag. Sesake: ndanga, id. Motu: tanga, a bag, 

 a deep basket. Tangoan Santo : tanga, a basket. 



Hebrew: tene', a basket. 



210. 



tef i, tefi, tetefi, to cut, to circumcise. 



Samoa: tefe, to cut, as circumcising. Fotuna: tefe, to circumcise. 

 Maori: tehe, the glans penis left uncovered by the prepuce as 

 if circumcised. Tahiti: tehe, to castrate animals, to slit the 

 prepuce above. Mangareva, Marquesas: tehe, to circumcise, 

 to castrate. Rapanui : tehe, to split ; tehetehe, a notch. Hawaii : 

 kahe, to cut or slit longitudinally, to castrate; kaheomaka, 

 kaheule, to circumcise after the Hawaiian fashion. 



Viti: teve, to circumcise. 



Mota : teve, to cut with a drawing motion ; teveteve, a knife. Merlav : 

 tevtev, a knife. Malekula: teve, to circumcise, to cut with a 

 bamboo knife. Bierian: mdeve, to circumcise. Baki: jivi, id. 



Arabic : 'as' aba, to cut. 



Little calls for note in the Pacific identification. In Hawaii we observe 

 the e-a change which does not elsewhere appear. The Bierian mdeve is a 

 variant of the t-nd characteristic of that Epi dialect. The Baki jivi and 

 tafe (208) to flow Malekula jivjiv to run at the nose exhibit the t-j mutation 

 which is rare in Melanesia but is the normal change from Samoa to Tonga 

 before e and *'. 



The word appears in Nuclear Polynesia only in Samoa and Viti, and is 

 there restricted to circumcision. In its occurrence in eastern Polynesia it 

 combines with the circumcision sense that of castration. In Samoa it is 

 defined as "the operation equivalent to circumcision," in Hawaii "to cir- 

 cumcise after the Hawaiian fashion," in Tahiti "to slit the prepuce above." 

 The operation is so singular that in almost all the versions of the Bible in 

 the Pacific the word circumcision has been rendered by peritome, a trans- 

 literation from the Greek, rather than by the employment of this word 

 from the vernacular. 



