330 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



ground of their color life is brown — brown mats to sleep upon, brown thatch 

 to shield them from the gods and from the rain, these the browns of mar- 

 cescent leaves, brown tapering trunks of coconuts, the brown of seasoned 

 hard wood in the club without which in hand life is not long to be lived, 

 brown skins to look upon in love or hate and to live within. Not merely 

 the deductions of philology these remarks ; the eye trained in color values has 

 looked upon these scenes, and those who have gazed upon John LaFarge's 

 sketches from the South Sea have seen a suite of studies in brown. 



Their simple arts rarely produce a white; I recall but the white of siapo 

 made from the bast of Broussonetia papyrifera or Pipturus incanus when 

 retted in still waters and bleached in the sun. It is beyond the resources 

 of their few pigments to produce a synthetic white. The red of a few 

 mineral oxides, a purple from a sea mollusc, the yellows of the turmeric, the 

 black of soot, are all that so advanced a people as the Samoans might spread 

 upon a palette. Mix these and brown residts. 



Bathed in white light they see little white in nature. Their eyes no 

 more than ours may rest upon the sun undazzled by its glory long enough 

 to separate from its heat and glare any true sense of color. But there is 

 one object which never fails to yield a white, the moon. Therefore we are 

 not surprised to note in what number of tongues of these remote islands 

 the word which means to shine, to be bright with the undissolved light 

 beam, should be used to designate the moon. There are fewer exceptions 

 than would appear. Niue alone among the Polynesian tongues in this 

 record has the moon in this pula shine. But a glance farther along at the 

 notes upon item 342 will show that these languages which here omit the 

 moon present it in that record as masina, again the shining one, the most 

 conspicuous object in the perfect light, composite white. 



Few of these forms in our three nesiote areas but are self-explanatory. 

 In Rotuma we find the metathesis so characteristic of that language. This, 

 too, I am convinced is found in Aneityum laav-lav. 



The Semitic triliteron is brk. While the resemblance in sense is very 

 close and there is a resemblance in form covering two elements of the 

 consonant skeleton, I hesitate before accepting so violent a mutation as 

 that involved, f-k, when we put alongside of brk the Proto-Samoan pit. 



285. 



bong, black, dark ; bongi, bong, darkness, night, day in calendar reckoning ; 



bongien, darkness ; bong, a dark black powder used in painting. 



Fakaafo, Niue, Uvea, Vate, Fotuna, Tahiti, Manahiki: po, night. 



Samoa : po, night, day in calendar, blind ; pongipongi, twilight ; 



pongisd, darkness. Futuna : po, night, day in calendar; pongia, 



benighted. Maori: po, night, a season; pongia, benighted. 



Hawaii, Mangaia : po, night, darkness. Marquesas : po, night, 



day in calendar, darkness. Mangareva : po, night, darkness, 



obscurity. Rapanui : po, night, late ; po rah, day in calendar. 



Nukuoro: po, pongi, night. Paumotu: matapo, blind (as 



elsewhere in Polynesia) ; potangotango, darkness. Aniwa : kopo, 



night; pouri, dark. Bukabuka: popo, black. Tonga: bo, night. 



Nuguria, Sikayana: bo, po, night, dark. 



Viti: mbongi, night; mbombo, blind. Rotuma: boni, night. 



