362 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



cobweb. Tahiti: puaverevere, id. Maori: pungawerewere, 



puawerewere, puwerewere, a spider. Hawaii: punawelewele, 



a spider, a web. Marquesas: pukavecvee, punaveevee, id. 

 Viti: lawa, a fishing net; viriialawalawa, a cobweb; butalawalawa , 



a spider. 

 Sesake: kalau, a spiderweb. Mota: talau, id.; marawa, a spider. 



Motu: valavala, a cobweb. Aneityum: nilva, a cobweb; 



nilvanilva, caulfat of a pig. 

 Malay: labalaba, lawalawa, a spider; sarang-lawalawa, a cobweb. 



Visayas : toa, a cobweb. 

 Hebrew : 'araft, to weave. 



This word has provided the theme of a curious paper by Mr. Tregear 

 (32 Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 298). 



There is an enormous metathesis here, and for that reason I have ordered 

 my Polynesian material in two groups, leve and vele. It will be seen at 

 once that the distinction is practically that of Proto-Samoan and Tongafiti, 

 specifically older and later forms. With the Proto-Samoan go the forms 

 in Viti, Efat6, Sesake, Mota, and perhaps Aneityum. Motu is the only 

 Melanesian form in accord with the Tongafiti, and it will be recalled that 

 several times, and no farther away than the last item, I have had occasion 

 to remark upon the resemblance between Motu and Tahiti. 



Nor is this matter of the order 1-v or v-I the only point of divergence. 

 The stem is found free only in Viti, Efate, Motu, and perhaps Aneityum. 

 With it in composition we have two distinct elements. The simpler 

 is ka, and probably ta is the same ; Nukuoro hala differs, yet we assign it 

 provisionally with this element, for it certainly is not associable with the 

 other. We find ka in Tonga, Futuna, Niue, Uvea, Efat6, Sesake ; ta we find 

 in Viti and Mota, and in the latter we find a ma distinguishing marawa the 

 spider from talau the web. These are all Proto-Samoan, and they are all 

 found as compounds upon the Proto-Samoan stem leve, except Uvea which 

 shows a mixture, Proto-Samoan ka and Tongafiti vele. 



The other compounding stem is, in series, apunga, punga, puna, puka, 

 pua, pu. These are compounded upon Tongafiti vele, except Samoa which 

 shows a mixture balancing contrarily the Uvea mixture, for Samoa has 

 Tongafiti punga and Proto-Samoan leve. 



The lau of Efat£, Sesake, and Mota will readily be recognized as a degen- 

 eration form of a parallel Proto-Samoan stem lava, lav, lau. Aneityum 

 nilva seems to be ni-liva, of which n functions as article and according to 

 the common usage of that language extracts the nearest stem vowel; but 

 nilvanilva puzzles me ; I can hardly conceive it possible for a word to con- 

 duplicate article-stem ; this casts a doubt upon the otherwise plain inter- 

 pretation of nilva. 



The Indonesian here recorded preserves the Proto-Samoan stem, whereas 

 more commonly it resembles Tongafiti forms. 



As to the Semitic ; if Mr. Tregear and the Indonesian authorities can find 

 their parent stem in the Sanskrit, and if Dr. Macdonald reads his title to a 

 mansion in Semitic skies, the student of Polynesian may be justified in 

 regarding each with equal doubt. 



