DATA AND NOTES. 343 



Malo, Santo, and the Togean Islands. Knowing this to be a loan word we 

 are better warranted in regarding it as a misunderstanding or an inten- 

 tional misapplication on the part of the borrowers, three among fifty- 

 odd. I do not regard the use of fanua for town or village to arise 

 from the rare house sense. The village sense is found in Sesake, Mota, 

 Kabadi, Laur, Lambell, Motu, Santo, Saa, Fagani, Bicol, and the Visayas. 

 Rather does it seem to me to record the fact that our connotation of land 

 is wider by far than is within the scope of these poor islanders. When 

 one lives at the edge of the jungle and has to wage a steady fight against 

 the voracity of the advancing timber the dread forest is not a land or a 

 country, it is the dripping abode of the gods ever vengeful. Land is only 

 the place of human habitation, hence a village or a town, the designation 

 varying as foreign observers may choose to record their impression on a 

 volumetric scale which is always loose. 



293- 

 fata, uenr\ uere, uete, kofeta, a bench, shelf, stand, platform. 



Samoa: fata, a raised house in which to store yams, a shelf, a hand- 

 barrow, a bier, a litter, an altar, to carry on a litter; fatamanu, 

 a scaffold. Tongan: fata, a loft, a bier, a handbarrow, to 

 carry on a bier; fataki, a platform. Futuna: fata, a barrow, 

 a loft; fatataki, two sticks or canes attached to each other at 

 each side of a house post to serve as a shelf. Niue : fata, a 

 cage, a handbarrow, a shelf, a stage, (sometimes) the upper 

 story of a house. Uvea : fata, a barrow, a bier. Fotuna : fata, 

 a stage. Tahiti: fata, an altar, a scaffold, a piece of wood 

 put up to hang baskets of food on ; afata, a chest, a box, a coop, 

 a raft, a scaffold; pafata, a cage, a box; ahata, a box; ihata, a 

 box, a cage, a scaffold. Paumotu: fata, a heap; afata, a box, 

 a chest. Maori: whata, a platform or raised storehouse for 

 food, an altar, to elevate, to support. Moriori : whata, a raft. 

 Marquesas: fata, hata, hatad, shelves. Rapanui: ha ta, a table. 

 Hawaii: haka, a ladder, an artificial henroost; alahaka, a ladder. 

 Mangaia: ata, a shelf; atamoa, a ladder; atarau, an altar. 

 Mangareva : avata, a coffer, a box. 



Viti: vata, a loft, a shelf; tavata, a bier. 



Aneityum: ne-fata, a press, a shelf; noforofata, a ladder, scaffolding. 

 Motu : vatavata, a ladder. Tanna : nafatafata, a stage. Bierian : 

 kovata, id. Malo: ivasa, id. 



Malagasy: vata, vatra, a box, a trunk, a coffer. 



Hebrew: 'omed, a platform, a place; 'cmdah, a lodging-place. 



The Samoan fata is a pair of light timbers pointed at the ends and tied 

 across the center posts of the house, one in front, the other behind the line 

 of posts ; rolls of mats and bales of sennit may be laid across these timbers ; 

 baskets of reserved victuals may be hung on the ends. The litter and the 

 barrow are two light poles with small slats lashed across at intervals. The 

 Marquesan fata is a stout stem of a sapling with the stumps of several 

 branches, a hat tree in shape, though found among a barehead folk. These 

 illustrations are sufficient to show what is the common element in all these 



