DATA AND NOTES. 297 



dictionary, but Dr. Codrington had the benefit of notes on Viti by Lorimer 

 Fison, a most competent authority; therefore this does not contravene but 

 supplements the earlier dictionary. 



In the order in which I have arranged the Melanesian material it will 

 be seen that there is a simple and easily followed sequence down to Alite, 

 except for three items which need comment. In Gog -g suffixed to a stem 

 determines its use as a noun, the same holds true of Pak; the two taken 

 together argue the same explanation of the Tanna form. These, therefore, 

 are not to be taken for a mutation to the final palatal. So little is known 

 of Alite that we are not in a position to judge nguaua satisfactorily. I 

 have examined all my material carefully with a view of identifying con- 

 sonant mutations between Alite (and its neighbors Saa and Bululaha) on 

 Malanta, and Vaturanga across the strait, and to no result. It will be 

 plain that ngua echoes Vaturanga ngasuve, thus ng(a)(s)u(v)a; but this 

 wholesale amputation of vowel and consonants too much resembles the 

 freehand proof of Semitic origins to meet with cordial approval. Malekula 

 khasap and akasu belong somewhere in this sequence which retains the 

 initial consonant. So, too, do Nggao, Nggela, Bugotu, and Savo, in which 

 the final syllable has been abraded. We find a small group in which the 

 initial consonant has been abraded, Ulawa, Saa, Bululaha, and Malekula 

 Pangkumu; and in the last the third consonant has vanished, although 

 under the protection of a final vowel, but compare fua (360) Malekula 

 Pangkumu mi uan for a vanishing /. 



The Indonesian offered by Macdonald and by Codrington does not seem 

 susceptible of coordination. The Arabic is, of course, out of the question. 



252. 

 laso, the testicles. 



Samoa: laso, the scrotum. Tonga, Niue: laho, id. Hawaii, 



Nuguria : laho, the testes in man and animal. Fotuna : raso, id. 



Tahiti: raho, pudendum muliebre. Maori: raho, the testicles. 

 Ambrym: luho, testicles. Paama: as'i, id. Malekula: list, 



erasi, raso n, id. Bierian: loho, id. Malo: laso, id. Mota: 



lasoi, the male genitalia. 

 Macassar: laso, penis. 

 Arabic: h'isy', h'usy', h'usyat, h'usa', testicles. 



It is quite uncertain what was the primal sense of this stem. In Samoa, 

 Tonga, and Niue it distinguishes the scrotum, and in Samoa the testes are 

 designated by the name fua (360) fruit, to which Codrington assigns the 

 root sense of anything globular. This use of fua extends into eastern 

 Polynesia. Tahiti: hud, testes. Marquesas: hud, genitalia in general. 

 Hawaii: hua, testes. Mangareva: ua, genitalia. 



In the area of Tongafiti colonization (Futuna therein inclusible) and in 

 Melanesia wherever the word is identified, laso has passed definitely from 

 the scrotum to its contents. In the latter subdivision Mota exhibits for 

 laso the same comprehensiveness that fua exhibits in the Marquesas and 

 Mangareva, if it be not too violent an interpretation of our vocabulary 

 definitions to assume this to apply only to the male parts. The switch of 

 sex in Tahiti raho is unexpected ; the entry is derived from Tregear's com- 



