328 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



from 1,200 to 2,000 feet. The other palm mentioned by Hille- 

 brand, P. martii, is only five or six feet high, and is confined mostly 

 to Oahu and Molokai. 



The agency of man in introducing these interesting Fan-Palms 

 into the Hawaiian Islands seems out of the question, since they are 

 home productions in a specific sense and are doubtless ancient 

 components of the flora ; and, of course, grave objections exist on 

 ethnological grounds, if this genus had originally its home in 

 America. With reference, however, to Pritchardia pacifica of the 

 South Pacific, it is not unlikely that man has aided in the distribu- 

 tion of a palm mainly preserved by planting in and about the 

 villages and set apart from time immemorial for the use of the 

 chiefs. 



In this connection the aboriginal names are of some import- 

 ance and may be very briefly here referred to. The Fijian " Viu," 

 the " Piu " of Samoa, Tonga, and Futuna, and the Tongan " Biu " 

 are forms of the same name applied to this palm all over West 

 Polynesia ; and I have shown in my paper on Polynesian Plant- 

 Names that in the form of " Firo " in the Solomon Islands (Bougain- 

 ville Straits) and of " Wiru " in Sundanese, one of the Malayan 

 languages, the same name is given to another genus of Fan Palms, 

 namely, Licuala. But since these W T est Polynesian names do 

 not always conform with the laws of consonantal interchange 

 in this region, they cannot all be considered as indigenous in 

 the languages concerned. If, for instance, " Viu " is an indigenous 

 Fijian name, as no doubt it is, since it follows the phonetic laws 

 affecting the Malayan and Fijian languages, " Piu " must be 

 a foreign word in Samoa and Tonga, and " Biu " must be another 

 introduced Tongan name. . . . The Fijians have in " Sakiki " 

 (contracted into " Saii " in the Somosomo dialect) another name for 

 this palm. This is probably derived from " Kiekie," a mat-word in 

 different forms in various Polynesian groups, and applied in many 

 islands to the plants that supply the materials for mat-making, 

 such as Pandanus and Freycinetia. 



The Hawaiian generic name of " Loulu " for these palms appears 

 to be quite local ; but it may possibly have a common origin with 

 " Roro," one of the Fijian names of Cycas circinalis. It is pointed 

 out by Hillebrand that the Hawaiian name of the edible kernels of 

 these palms, " Hawane " or " Wahane," occurs in the Marquesas as 

 " Vahana " applied to the palm, a comparison that is on linguistic 

 grounds quite legitimate. " Vaake " is another Marquesan name, 

 which recalls " Vakoa," the Malagasy word for Pandanus. 



