84 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



relationship (directly) to that of " under supernatural in- 

 fluence." Another puzzle: the Paumotuan Archipelago, of 

 which the Mangarevan or Gambier Islands form a small part, 

 is inhabited by natives who only know " tame, familiar " as 

 the signification of rata. 



Outside the area of the true Polynesian we find in Fiji a 

 related word — viz., lasa, "to be easy; contented to be at 

 home ; tame." In the true Melanesian groups the word 

 appears to be unknown or not recorded, with the exception 

 perhaps of the Sinangolo dibilect of New Guinea, in which Zato 

 means " milk." The reason for supposing a possible alliance 

 is that the idea of tameness and of domestic animals might be 

 further applied to the food obtained from animals that can be 

 milked, such as the cow and goat. It is a very doubtful point, 

 however, since it is probable that the inhabitants of New 

 Guinea did not possess such domestic animals before the 

 advent of Europeans. There is no proof that they did not. 

 New Guinea was much too well known to voyagers from the 

 Malay Archipelago and the Philippine Islands for the know- 

 ledge of domesticated animals to be entirely shut off. There 

 is strong evidence for considering that cattle were known in 

 former years as far east as Fiji, since the Fijians at once 

 applied to the introduced animals the name by which buffaloes 

 are known in the Malay Islands. It would seem much more 

 probable that the word lata for " milk " was brought to New 

 Guinea by the Spanish or Portuguese explorers, or by some 

 people speaking a language derived from Latin, in which lacta 

 means "milk." The Dutch would have called milk " ?ueZ^," 

 or some such word. It is not likely to have been the 

 Spaniards, because their word for milk, " leche," would hardly 

 have become lata; far more likely was the Portuguese 

 " kite " to have been introduced along with the milk-produc- 

 ing creatures. At all events, tliis word can be set aside for 

 the present as not requiring full consideration. 



Invading the Malay district proper, we find in the Matu 

 district of North Borneo that rata means " even, level," as it 

 does in the true Malay of the mainland. But in the con- 

 tinental Malay we come for the first time in our journey upon 

 a people who distinguish between the sound of r and I, and we 

 find in Malay both rata and lata. To rata has been assigned 

 the meaning " even, level," which agrees in substance with 

 the Polynesian " tame, quiet, stupid." Hut in lata, ov latah, vfe 

 are met with a new and baffiing sense to the word. Crawfurd, 

 in his Malay dictionary, says that lata is " a peculiar morbid 

 nervous excitability in women," and then gives a second lata 

 as "to crawl or creep," marking the latter with S to show that 

 it is of Sanscrit derivation. In Bima, a bay of the Island of 

 Sumbawa, there dwells a people whose interesting speech has- 



