August 14, 1913] 



NATURE 



611 



the Tonga and Yiti clusters, with Rotuma, Uvea, 

 and Fakaafo. He maintains that there was a later 

 migration of the same race, the course of which 

 into Polynesia cannot now be traced. These 

 second comers he calls the Tongafiti, and regards 

 them as having been so long- separated from the 

 proto-Samoan that their language had independ- 

 ently and divergently developed. But during- the 

 dominance of the Tongafiti in Nuclear Polynesia 

 their speech had become mixed to some extent 

 with the proto-Samoan. 



After the expulsion of the Tongafiti from Samoa 

 about the eleventh century of our era, they took 

 refuge in the islands eastward, the Cook and 

 Austral Islands, which became the centre of the 

 migrations which ultimately reached Hawaii and 

 New Zealand. This central region is not dealt 

 with in Mr. Churchill's present work, and he 

 defines the region discussed as " south-east Poly- 

 nesia," comprising the Paumotu group with 

 Mangareva, the Marquesan and Tahitian groups, 

 and Rapanui or Easter Island. 



Mr. Churchill's material for the examination of 

 The languages consists mainly of the vocabularies 

 collected by the French missionaries in Rapanui, 

 the Marquesas, and Tahiti, with Treg-ear's vocabu- 

 laries of Paumotu and Mangareva, also derived 

 from French sources. All these lack, as Mr. 

 Churchill notes, the fullness and detail of the 

 Samoan, Tongan, and Maori dictionaries of Pratt, 

 Baker, and Williams, for they start with an 

 original list in French, for which their compilers 

 have sought to ascertain the Polynesian equi- 

 valents. 



Mr. Churchill's method in the present work is 

 similar to that followed in the "Polynesian Wan- 

 derings." After a valuable discussion of the 

 Polynesian alphabet, and of metathesis in Poly- 

 nesian words, he deals with the sources and variety 

 of Rapanui speech, deducing from its treatment 

 of modern loan-words (European) its principles of 

 deviation from the Polynesian standard. Then, 

 by an examination of the Rapanui vocabulary, he 

 proceeds to distinguish the words which occur 

 (1) in both proto-Samoan and Tongafiti; (2) in 

 proto-Samoan alone ; and (3) in Tong-afiti only. 

 The first are called general Polynesian. In a table 

 of 957 Rapanui words he refers 436 to general 

 Polynesian, no to proto-Samoan (i.e. with cog- 

 nates in Samoan), and 119 to Tongafiti (i.e. with 

 cognates in Maori). But 292 words are restricted 

 to south Polvnesia alone, that is, have cognates 

 only in Paumotu, Mangareva, the Marquesas, and 

 Tahiti. He states that " the proto-Samoan ele- 

 ment represents an older and more primitive type 

 than is shown in the modern languages of Nuclear 

 Polynesia," pointing- to the migration from Samoa 

 as having taken place whilst two aspirates 

 were in use, and before the formative elements 

 had been acquired which have enabled the language 

 in Nuclear Polynesia to maintain the final con- 

 sonant of a closed stem, a? in Mr. Churchill's 

 proto-Samoan stem ikof, which became i'ofi in 

 Samoan and iko in Rapanui. 



Paumotu is regarded as the "second station of 

 NO. 2285, VOL. 91] 



the Tongafiti migralion after its expulsion from 

 Samoa, and its centre of distribution to the seats 

 of the present great settlements of this swarm." 

 Mangareva is also dealt with as a centre of 

 distribution, and the Marquesas as affording in- 

 dications of their being in the fairway of the migra- 

 tion to Hawaii. All these are numerically dealt 

 with, and their words classified as general Poly- 

 nesian, proto-Samoan, and Tongafiti. A very- 

 important result appears in the statement that in 

 the Paumotu vocabulary, whilst 52 per cent, of 

 its words are cognate with the other Polynesian 

 languages, 48 per cent, are found peculiar to 

 Paumotu. Mr. Churchill regards these words as 

 true Polynesian which have gone out of use, as 

 Polynesian words are prone to do, or have been 

 invented to express a new environment, and quotes 

 Dr. Friederici on word-tabu and the theoretical 

 formation of new words. Here two important 

 facts seem to have been lost sight of. In other 

 languages the words used as substitutes for tabu- 

 words are not usually new inventions, else they 

 would not be understood by the hearers, but are 

 words really belonging to the languages, though 

 not in general use. Similarly, unless a foreign 

 word is introduced, a new object or action is named 

 by a word already known. In the opinion of the 

 present writer, the fact that the peculiar Paumotu 

 words are totally unlike any others in the island 

 region (except a few in the allied Tahitian) appears 

 to show that they are not Polynesian at all, but 

 rather a remnant of some pre-Polvnesian speech. 2 



Mr. Churchill finds in the four languages dis- 

 cussed awide speech-group of broad diffusion and of 

 considerable complexity. He subdivides this into : 

 (1) a Polynesian speech which has passed from the 

 use and memory of other Polynesians ; (2) a later 

 proto-Samoan colony taking refuge from Tonga- 

 fiti tyranny ; (3) a Tongafiti settlement ; (4) a 

 migration of associated proto-Samoan and Tonga- 

 fiti from the west which was caught in the 

 Paumotu chain, only a few stragglers reaching the 

 other groups ; (5) from the Paumotus, part of a 

 subsequent migration reached Rapanui, the last 

 home of the Polynesians. 



Apart from its theory, with all the interesting 

 issues involved, Mr. Churchill's book has the very 

 practical advantage of presenting in a convenient 

 form Rapanui, Paumotu, Mangarevan, Tahitian, 

 and Marquesan vocabularies, with an extremely 

 useful finding-list in English and Rapanui. The 

 student, whether in accord with Mr. Churchill's 

 theory or not, will find it of much value as a record 

 of the languages. Sidney H. Ray. 



THE SOUTH AFRICA X NATIONAL 

 BOTAXIC GARDEN. 



THE work of the last session of the Union Par- 

 liament included the establishment of a 

 National Botanic Garden at the Cape. This was 

 the natural outcome of the cordial reception given 

 in the House of Assembly to the resolution moved 

 by Sir Lionel Phillips on May 6. 



2 Cr. Reports of Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, 

 vol. iii., p. 519 et scq. 



