30*2 LANGUAGE OF NEW ZEALAND. [PART II. 



which might properly be termed picture-writing. I 

 have, however, already observed that certain carv- 

 ings represent historical, and especially genealogical 

 facts ; and the spiral lines of their tattooing, and the 

 arabesques painted on their houses, are perhaps the 

 remains of an ancient art of that description, 

 although they certainly are not used for that pur- 

 pose at the present time. Tui, or tuhi, means to 

 paint or to carve ; and the same word has been 

 adopted to express writing, with which art many of 

 the natives are now acquainted. 



It may appear superfluous that I should have 

 troubled myself to give a vocabulary and some gram- 

 matical notes on the language, as it could not be 

 expected that I should have acquired a sufficient 

 knowledge of the language in the short time of 

 eighteen months. I disclaim any pretensions to 

 the character of a linguist, as I am too well aware 

 how perfectly a man must be acquainted with a lan- 

 guage before he can enter into the niceties of its 

 component parts, and of its grammatical structure ; 

 as William von Humboldt has done with the Kawi 

 language of the island of Java, and its sister- 

 languages the Polynesian dialects, in his book, at 

 which I could, unfortunately, only glance after I 

 had written my grammatical notes. What has de- 

 termined me not to keep back the few observations I 

 had made on the language, and my collection of 

 words, is, that in the only vocabulary of the New 

 Zealand language which has been published, that 



