368 A MISSION TO VITI. 
The word “ Niu” is common to most Polynesian lan- 
guages, often taking the form of “Nia” and “ Niau ;” 
the New Zealand “ Nikau,” by which the Maoris desig- 
nate their indigenous palm (Areca sapida, Sol.), does be- 
long, and perhaps even “Nipa,” the Philippine name of 
Nipa fruticans, may belong, to the same group of words, 
We further trace the Fijian “ Niu,” or with the article 
“a” (a niu) before it, in the Anao, Anowe, Anau, and 
Nu, by which names a sugar-yielding palm, the Arenga 
saccharifera, is known in different parts of the Indian 
Archipelago. The existence of a collective term for 
“ palms” never having been pointed out, the passage in 
John xii. 13, “Took leaves of the palm-trees,” is ren- 
dered both in the Viwa and the London edition of the 
Fijian Bible, “Era sa kauta na drau ni balabala,’— 
literally, “Took leaves of the tree-fern,” for balabala 
is a tree-fern (Alsophila excelsa, R. Br.). “Niu” is the 
term that ought to have been used, there being two 
kinds of real palms in Syria, but no tree-ferns. 
Only one of all the palms as yet discovered in Fiji 
is a fan-palm, the rest having pinnatifid leaves. This 
is the Niu Masei, Sakiki or Viu, a new genus of Cory- 
phine (Pritchardia pacifica, Seem. et Wendl.), differing 
from all described ones in several important characters. 
The blades of the leaves are made into fans, “ri masei” 
or “ai Viu,” which are only allowed to be used by the 
chiefs, as those of the Talipot (Corypha umbraculifera, 
Linn.) formerly were in Ceylon. The common people 
have to content themselves with fans made of Pandanus 
caricosus. Hence, though there is not a village of im- 
portance without the Sakiki, or, as it is termed in the 
