^lO C. SKOTTSBERG 



yau o Naunaii (Santaliim): arbiisto de la familia de las santaldceas, tambien 11a- 

 mado nan opata, poniue creci'a en los barrancos (opata) de la costa, entre rocas y 

 I)iedras. Ahora ha desaparecido. I.os ultimos ejemplares (jiie algunos de los natives 

 actuales recuerdan haber visto todavi'a, se ban secado hace unos 50 anos. El nau opata 

 daba, como friitos, niieces del tamano de castafias, los "mako'i nau opata". Carl 

 Friedrich Behrens nombra nueces entre los friitos que los islenos les regalaron en gran 

 numero a el y a sus compaiieros. Hotii Matiia y su gente parecen haber trafdo gran 

 cantidad de cstas nueces, i)orciue de ellas se alimentaron en los primeros meses des- 

 pues de haber llegado a la isla. Al excavar la tierra en cuevas (jue estaban antigua- 

 niente habitadas se encuentran cascaras de estas nueces. Estas cascaras generalmente 

 no cstan ([uebradas sino ([ue han sido abiertas en forma de un pecjueno circulo, para 

 ser usadas por los ninos en el juego del trompo. La madera del arbusto se utilizaba, 

 j)or su cx([uisito aroma, para confeccionar un perfume, como los veremos en otro capitulo. 



This description does not at all fit either Santaluin or Myoportwi. The fruit 

 of SaiitaluDi is an ellipsoid drupe with a thin fleshy mesocarp and a very hard 

 endocarp, and I have never seen or heard of a kind the size of a castafia (chest- 

 nut); in the largest I have measured (S. pyrularhan Gray) the drupe was 16-18 mm 

 long and the stone 12-15 mm. According to HlLLEBRANl) (joy. 390) the drupe 

 measures up to 24 mm in length, but I have not seen any as large as that. Nor 

 have I ever heard that the kernel is used as food; the idea that Hotu Matua's 

 party could have maintained itself for months on nothing else is preposterous, 

 and I fail to see how the stone could be used as a whipping-top. The Jiatinau which 

 grew along the coast and produced the "cascaras" found in the caves cannot 

 have been a species of Sajitaluui. Fortunately this could be proved. Mr. STEELE 

 had told me that Father FLnglert had sent him two shells for his collection 

 of l^aster Lsland curios and had promised him more, of which he intended to 

 send me samples. As time went by and no more came I asked him the 

 favour of sending me one of his precious specimens as loan, and he willingly 

 consented. It is a hard, brown and smooth, almost globular shell, 2.5 cm high, 

 3 cm wide, 2 mm thick, with a large irregular hole in the basal part. It has 

 nothing whatever to do with Saiitaliini. A passage in Me'I'RAUX's book, p. 353, 

 j)ut me on the track. He quotes a song which the children used to sing when 

 the tops were spinning, and it tells that the spinning-tops were made of viakoi 

 — 'riicspesia popiibiea cajxsules! A comparison with herbarium material showed 

 that Mr. Steele's specimen is a typical capsule of yy/r.sy^ri-/"^, one of the "nuts" 

 found in the caves. They made \ery poor food but good spinning-tops. We 

 did not see Thcspesia on the island, but Metrai X observed it growing on the 

 cliffs at Poike (the eastern headland). F^vidently the word nau or nauuau has 

 been altogether misplaced by the blaster islanders, although both Metraux 

 and bLxcLERi- were told that it was the name of Santaluni. We find the same 

 word in Tahiti and the Tuamotu Islands for Lcpidiu))i bide7itaiuni Montin, and 

 this is called iiaupata, strikingly like FLxglert's }iau opata, in Marquesas; in 

 Tahiti naupata means Scaci'ola frutcscens, which is called naupaka in Hawaii and 

 }ii^ai{}ii!;au in Rarotonga, and on Rapa }iau is used for So)icJius oleracens. All 

 these {plants were used as medicine. 



