DATA AND NOTES. 275 



A particular interest of an ethnographic nature will attend our exami- 

 nation of the areas in which this homogeneity is found traceable. OH 

 seems to be a word of the Tongafiti swarm. It is found at the remotest 

 beaches upon which broke that wave of migration. In the Nuclear Pacific 

 we find it in Samoa, Tonga, Nukuoro, Uvea, Viti, and Niue. In Samoa it 

 has found a lodgment in but the one word cited. In the islands of the 

 Western Verge we find it in Sikayana and Fotuna. In Melanesia it appears 

 only in Efate and Aneityum. Compare with this any of these records 

 showing a word of the Proto-Samoan baggage ; Melanesia is speckled with 

 its occurrences. In this case we are at no loss to account for the Tongafiti 

 word in Nuclear Polynesia, for we know that to have been a halting-place 

 for the later swarm in the permanent home of the former. We know, too, 

 that Samoa by a mighty effort cast off the invaders, and we are therefore 

 not surprised to find so slight a remnant of the enemy's speech. The 

 presence of this Tongafiti word in two of the islands of the Western Verge 

 and in two of the New Hebrides calls for attention. The absence of Tonga- 

 fiti homogenies in Melanesia indicates for that migration a different course 

 in general, but such instances as this go to show that, while our conclusion 

 is in the main true, now and then a small squadron may have found its 

 way down the ancient track, or that when the second swarm was expelled 

 from Nuclear Polynesia some of its fleets may have gone westward to 

 homes where the chances of settlement were but slight. 



220. 



balo-ni, bano-li, balo-si, bilo-si, bulo-si, bulu-ngi, bulu-ni, bunu-li, to wash 

 anything, to wash by rubbing. Cf. bafano 49. 



Samoa : fufulu, fulua, to rub, to wash, to wipe ; fulunga, the rubbing 

 of a thing. Nukuoro : fufulu, fulua, to wash. Tonga, Futuna, 

 Uvea: fufulu, to wash, to cleanse. Fotuna: no-furuna, to 

 wipe. 



Viti: vuluvulu, to wash the hands. 



Malay: basuh, to wash. Malagasy: uza, id. 



Arabic: masa, maus', to wash, to rub with the hands. 



These Efate" forms are in a snarl which needs disentangling before we can 

 give them precise study. We shall first examine the forms which exhibit 

 the skeleton b-l-n. These are baloni, buluni, each being accompanied by 

 a metathetic form, banoli and biinuli respectively. With the b-l-n skeleton 

 I must include the slightly variant bulungi. 



Another skeleton, b-l-s, occurs in balosi, bilosi, bulosi. 



Dr. Macdonald's crossing of reference to bafano can only apply to the 

 forms which I have preferred to regard as metathetic. If he regards them 

 as principal, his identification with fufuluhas no standing; and if he regards 

 baloni as principal, his reference to bafano is irrelevant. 



But neither b-l-n forms nor b-l-s forms can be properly identified with 

 the fulu stem of Nuclear Polynesia, for that is an open stem. Yet in 

 Fotuna no-furuna we find an n as to which we have no explanation in the 

 jejunity of our only account of the grammar of that speech. It may be a 

 formative suffix, even as we know the no to be a formative prefix. It may 

 be the sole Polynesian survival of a fulun stem. It may be grafted upon 



