350 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



Motu : guguba, to hold tightly, to squeeze with tight fingers. 

 Malay: gangam, to clutch, to clench, the clenched hand, the fist. 



Java: gagcim, id. 

 Arabic: kamkama, to collect, to seize or catch with the hand, to 



take. 



The Proto-Samoan stem is kum. This is apparent in Efate nguvi and um. 



It is purely a Nuclear Polynesian stem except for the extreme eastward 

 extension to Mangareva. That it is identified only in Motu, Efate, Viti, and 

 Nuclear Polynesia shows it to have been brought by the migration stream 

 through the south gate and along the Viti stream ; and its sole Malay identi- 

 fications lie along the channel which that stream must have followed before 

 leaving Indonesia. 



Our Viti forms are of particular interest. They reduce to stems kum, 

 kuv, and kuh. Of these the first is the stem common to Nuclear Polynesia, 

 Efate, and Indonesia ; the second accords with Motu, far back in the Torres 

 Straits fairway; the third nowhere else appears. The sense is so close for 

 all three as to show their unity in essentials. This is exceptional, but it 

 falls readily into accord with the hypothesis of seed as well as root in this 

 primordial language family. 



In brief, this is that out of a seed of speech roots become such by the 

 addition of consonantal modulants to differentiate specific particular mani- 

 festations of the primordial act or state. I have worked out the value of a 

 number of these consonants when prefixed as coefficients. Ex hypothesi 

 we should look for a similar range of differentiations with consonants 

 suffixed. 



In this instance we have ku as a root thus developed. Its primal sense 

 is clearly something to do with the hand and its elemental activity. What 

 then is the elemental activity of the human hand ? Our ergographs might 

 not register it at a milligramme, but the curling baby fingers are in the 

 position of grasping, the instinct to clutch which Dr. Louis Robinson has 

 said embodies whole ages of comprehension of the first need of arboreal 

 life. In its primal sense ku is the expression of the primordial clutch of 

 this race of primitive speech inventors. Such variety as succeeding conso- 

 nants may affix to the primordial clutch may express the manner or the 

 degree of such grasping. 



In our three Viti stems we find a certain order of degree ; just to hold in 

 clutching hand, kuh; to clench the hand, kum; to clench and hold fast, kuv. 

 In even degree h is one of the weakest of consonants, merely a breath ; m 

 is so little removed from the vowels that it is among the very first of the 

 consonant acquisitions; v is one of the latest acquisitions, a strong sound 

 for men who have long since learned to speak and to speak strong as 

 becomes men. 



300. 

 ika, a fish. 



Fakaafo, Tonga, Futuna, Niue, Uvea, Moiki, Nuguria, Sikayana, 

 Vate, Maori, Marquesas, Mangareva, Mangaia, Paumotu, To- 

 ngarewa, Rarotonga, Manahiki: ika, fish. Aniwa, Fotuna: 

 eika, id. Samoa: i'a, id. Nukuoro, Tahiti, Hawaii: ia, id. 

 Rapanui: ika, fish, animal. 



