Teegeae. — Curious Polynesian Words. 537 



fisli. Marqnesan, kupu, to insult, to affront. Moriori, kupu, to 

 beivitch. It seems difficult to connect these meanings of oath, 

 invocation, insult, with a ivorcl or simple speech, h\it a probable 

 key is given in Mangarevan, where we find that kupu means 

 an miprccation, a curse : kupukupu, to niter terms of hatred; 

 to demand the entrails, &c., of another, as " I will have your 

 bowels ! " If this was the original idea, then probably kupu 

 is a transposition of puku, the belly. 



KAIPUKE, a ship. Many ingenious and many wild 

 guesses have been made as to the etymology of kaipuke, which 

 is apparently a na^tive word for a modern and foreign object. 

 Good Maori scholars have 'not been ashamed to assert that the 

 meaning was KAi, ifo ga^'; puke, a hill; because the sails of 

 the ships seemed to hide or devour the hills (ships were first 

 seen, however, off the coast) as they passed. The word is 

 more probably a survival of some Polynesian form, still partly 

 preserved in Tongan, wherein buke means the deck oi a canoe ; 

 the outioorhs of a fortress : faka-buke, covered with a deck ; 

 to cover over a paddling-canoe fore and aft. Thus kaipuke, 

 as a ship, in distinction from an open canoe, is almost certainly 

 ^' that xvhich has a deck." 



KOI, sharp, as a blade or point : koikoi, a point of land ; 

 a spear; thorny. All Polynesian dialects, except Samoan, 

 have the word with the same meaning. Tahitian, oi, sharp, 

 as the edge of a tool ; faa-oi, to grind or sharpen a tool. 

 Hawaiian, oi, the sharp edge or point of a weapon ; hoo-oi, to 

 be sharp, as an axe, knife, or spade ; oilua, two-edged. Earo- 

 tougan , KOI, sharp. Mangarevan, koi, poin ted ; to cut to a sharp 

 point : takoi, the crest of a mountain. A curious, but doubt- 

 less na.tural, employment of the word is in the sense of our 

 idiom " to look sharp," to be quick, wgent. Tahitian, oioi, 

 rapid, swift, quickly, briskly. Earotongan, kokoi, quick, sharp, 

 speedy. Mangarevan, kokoi, to hasten. Paumotan, koikoi, 

 urgent, qjiick, p)recipitancy ; koikoimau, sudden, unexpected. 

 There is a singular but doubtful comparative in the Haw^aiian 

 Koi, an axe. As the Havraiians lose the Maori k and change 

 t to k, this word koi, an axe, I'eally represents the Maori toki, 

 an axe, and is perhaps only a coincidence to the eye ; but, as 

 the same Hawaiian vrord koi also means a sharp voice, it may 

 be one of the few words unaffected by letter-cha,nge common 

 to these two dialects. 



KEEOKEEO, to blink the eye, to icink : kekero, to look 

 out of the corner of the eye, has probably contracted its mean- 

 ing somewhat. Mangarevan, keeo, ai large extent of land : 

 AKA-KEEO, that ichich disap)pears ; to see in a confused ivay ; 

 not plainly visible on account of the great distance ; to look 

 with one eye, closing the other. This gives us a wider mean- 

 ing, and suggests a reason for winking the eye. 



