540 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Here we have a word which, although used in New Zea- 

 land for "carved work," once meant "to make known by a 

 mark or sign, to reveal, wisdom, knowledge, to teach, to pre- 

 dict, to foretell," &c. If we consider that it could not 

 possibly have always been restricted to signify either wood- 

 carving or the twisting of worms in decayed wood we have a 

 clear example of decadence, and this view is borne out by a 

 very remarkable coincidence. In an erudite paper by Pro- 

 fessor Lacouperie on the pre-Chinese languages,* we find that 

 he has written as follows concerning one of the aboriginal 

 tribes of China, dispossessed through the conquest of their 

 country by the immigration of the present inhabitants : " The 

 Li are reputed to have known the art of writing, which they 

 seem to have forgotten. Captain J. Calder has found near 

 Yu-lin-kan some characters scrawled on the walls of a temple, 

 which I think may have belonged to the writing of Tsiampa. 

 -"We know that several migrations from the latter country took 

 place in the tenth century. In some parts of the island the 

 Li women carry a piece of lacquered wood, on which are 

 written several lines of a ballad ; the writing, however, is like 

 the wriggling of worms, and cannot be deciphered." We have 

 then, in this extract, a record of a parallel case to that of our 

 own Maori word ivhakairo. 1 think that, if it is a similar 

 case, it is a very pathetic cause for reflection. Here is an 

 expression which signifies to make marks or signs which others 

 can understand, and regard as the vehicle of wisdom and 

 knowledge, by which they teach, communicate, and know 

 beforehand ; plainly, it is an inscribed character. Then it 

 becomes used to signify making marks on the skin by which 

 persons may be known or recognised ; then, as the characters 

 lose their interpreters, the word implies " dimly seen, imper- 

 fectly understood." At last, the significance of the marks is 

 quite lost, intelligence has gone out of them, and the word 

 becomes merely a name for carved wood, or for the twisting 

 of worms in rotten wood. Surely, a sad and pitiful history of 

 a vanished culture and a lost civilisation. 



We now come to some curious words, of which the mean- 

 ings are obscure, but which are full of interest. The Maori 

 word ta, "to tattoo," is in its most common sense used as " to 

 strike with a stick"; and as the tattooing-chisel {iilii) is tapped 

 lightly but firmly in order to drive the points of the instru- 



take notice. Aniwan, iro, to know ; faka-iro, to teach. Paumotuan, 

 tairo, to mark, to stamp ; faka-iro, to signal, a signal. Morion, hoko-airo, 

 to carve (iu wood, &c.). Niuc, ilo, to know ; iloilo, wisdom, knowledge. 

 Futuna, iloiloa, to know, to recognise, to find, to discover ; faka-ilo, to 

 make known, to show, to announce, to learn, to explain. For the god 

 Ailoilo, see Journal Polynesian Society, vol. i., p. 44. 



* " Transactions of the Philological Society," London, 18S5-S7, p. 464. 



