Trege^vk. — Curious Polynesian Words. 513 



precipice by his bearers. Palanquins (fata) were also used in 

 Samoa ; but in Tahiti the king or any exalted person rode on 

 the shoulders of a man. If the Maori word maxgeee, lazy, 

 was a general word for lazy, it should show itself in some of 

 the other dialects, but does not. 



TAEEPAEEPA, to fMp in the iciml, to flutter. Several 

 Polynesian words are akin to this both in sound and meaning. 

 Tahitian, tarepa, to shake or flap, as a loose sail in the wind ; 

 TAEEPAEEPA, to shake repeatedly . Hawaiian, kalepalepa, to 

 flap, as the sails of a ship ; to flap in the ivind, as a flag or 

 ensign. Paumotan, t.areparepa, to shake, to shiver, to tremble. 

 But the Hawaiian kalepa, peddling, haivking, to sell merchan- 

 dise from p)lace to place, introduces us to a new phase of 

 meaning. It arises from the custom of flying flags on canoes 

 as a signal that those on board have something to sell, and is 

 a, compound of lepa, a border, a hem or fringe of a garment, an 

 ensign or flag ; lepalepa, a torn fragment of native cloth, used 

 as a flag. The Samoan lepa, to lie to, as a vessel, and the 

 Tongan leba, to heave to, to put the head of the canoe into the 

 xoind, may be connected with either meaning — either to lie to, 

 having something to sell as merchandise, or from the flapping 

 of the sail when the bow of a vessel is brought up into the 

 wind. There is a possible connection of taeepaeepa with 

 REWA, to float, the Tahitian eevaeeva meaning /??//«(/, as many 

 flags. 



KOKIRI, to dart or thrust any long body end-foremost ; to 

 charge, as a body of men. None of the Polynesian compara- 

 tives seem equivalent to the Maori, although the Mangarevan 

 ETU-KOKiEi (for WHETU-KOEiEi), a shootiug-star, shows some 

 coiTCspondence of meanitig. There is nothing in the composi- 

 tion of the word itself to give an explanation of its etymology. 

 Looking to the constant interchange in Maori-Polynesian 

 dialects of k and t, it is almost certain that tokiei, to shove, 

 to thrust lengtJncise, is a variant of kokiei. The Tahitian 

 TOiEi, to drag a log, bark and all, explains the etymology at 

 once; the Maori to, to drag, and kiei, the bark or skin; al- 

 though few would have suspected this to have been the primi- 

 tive meaning of kokiei. 



UA, rain. This word is well and faithfully represented 

 in all the dialects, UA meaning rain in Samoan, Tahitian, 

 Hawaiian, Earotongan, Marquesan, Mangarevan, &c., and uha 

 rain in Tongan. The origin of this word and its radical does 

 not appear directly in any of these, but the Hawaiian u means 

 the breast of a female ; to ooze, to drip, to drizzle, as rain. In 

 Maori and in almost all Polynesian dialects the word u means 

 the breast, and its compounds 7nilk, even when u itself does not 

 mean milk. The Maori form is waiu (wai-u) ; the Tahitian, 

 u, i7iilk; Hawaiian, ui, w milk; Earotongan, u, milk; Tongan, 



