202 



THE POLYNESIAN BOW. 



PHILIPPINES. 



Tagal, jjttJia, a liow. 

 Bisaj^a, pan a, a bow. 



MKLANESIA.X ISLANDS. 



Nengoiie, pehna, a Low. 



Aueityuni, fana, a bow. 



Rotuma, /«», a bow. 



Fiji, /axa, to sboot with a bow. 



Fiji, vana, to slioot. 



Eddystone Island, umhuna, au arrow. 



New Britain, panah, a bow. 



Sauta Cruz, nepna, an arrow. 



Florida, ranalii, to shoot. 



PI )LYNESIAN PROPER. 



Tahiti, /««<(, a bow; fa'a-fana, to guard 



property. 

 *Toiigau, fana, to shoot; the act of 



shooting. 

 Samoan, fana, to shoot; fa nan, a bow; 



aufana, a bow; udfana, a volley of 



arrows. 

 Hawaiian, pana, a bow; to shoot as an 



arrow; panapuu, an archer, 

 Rarotongan, ana, a bow (dialect drops/ 



and «'/(). 

 Marquesan, pana, a bow. 

 Fntuna, /«M(f, a- bow; to hunt. 



lu these comijaratives avo have evideuce in a direct cliaiii tlirougli 

 tLe Malay, Melanesiaii, and Polyuesian islands of a clearly marked 

 word /awf* gv pana, as "bow," the probable root being y/ ¥A^ or 

 ■v/ PHAIf. In New Zealand the equivalent for the Polynesian i^is 

 TT'if (as fare, '^ a house," becomes ichare, etc.); consequently we must 

 expect to find the word as whana. The Maori word whana means "to 

 recoil or spring back as a bow;" ''a spring made of a bent stick, as a 

 trap." When we compare the compound words, tawhana, bent like a 

 bow; l-owhana, bent, bowed; Itorowhana, bent, bowed, etc., there can 

 be little doubt but that whana. originally with the Maori meant what 

 it did with all other Pacific islanders, viz, "a bow," and that they 

 knew its use as a weapon. Just as the Maori words amatiatia, taurna^ 

 etc., for the double canoe or ontriggered canoe prove former use, even 

 though the modern Maori knows notbing of such vessel. The other 

 Maori forms, pana., "to thrust away," and lu^nga, "to throw," have 

 taken slightly divergent meanings. 



The Maori word pcwa, meaning " arched, bow-shaped," and " the 

 eyebrows" (with its comiDOund, koroptewa, " a loop or bow") also proba- 

 bly signified a weapon. Petva has been iDreserved as "bow" by the 

 Motu people of New Guinea (a Polynesian colony among Papuans), but 

 may be a foreign word, since it has no universahty in the Pacific as 

 farm has. 



* On page 61 of Mr. Codrington's " Malanesian Languages" appears a note by Mr. 

 Fison as to the Tongans having got the word /aw a with the bow from Fiji. No 

 authority is greater with regard to Melanesiau speech than is the opinion of Mr. 

 Fison, but I believe in this matter that he had been misled by his native informant. 

 In the lirst place, the bow had been in use long before the lifetime of the native in 

 question began, and this makes the etymology of the name beyond his knowledge 

 except as a guess ; and, in the second, the wide distribution of the word among 

 Polynesians makes it probable that the Tongans used the same word as the rest of 

 their nation, and did not need to borrow from Fiji. 



