ORIGIN, AS TRACED BY THE LANGUAGE. 181 
we proceed further, we must show that this is a Maori com¬ 
pound word, bearing a most appropriate meaning for any 
intoxicating beverage, being the substance that burns and 
carries off the senses. Ka we have already considered ; in va 
or well we have the Latin veho, Sanscrit waliana, English wain, 
waggon, and the simple root in Maori wa, to carry.* 
But to return, from Jcahweh wine, we have kahveh, Turkish, 
for the Italian caffe and English coffee. But what, it might 
be asked, has this to do with wine ? A great deal, for when 
Mahomet forbad his followers the use of the one, they found 
out a substitute in the other ; and, therefore, they naturally 
transferred the word for wine to it. The false prophet propa¬ 
gated his faith, not with the sword of the Word, but of steel, 
and wherever he went, he carried his law and institutions with 
him. How far west did his faith prevail ? even to the pillars 
of Hercules. Europe itself was threatened ; its fairest parts 
fell under the sway of his followers. The Bysantine throne 
itself was ascended, and Spain for many years was the abode 
of the Moor. So also in the East, Persia, Central Asia, India, 
and even the remote islands of the Indian Archipelago and 
Polynesia, bowed to the crescent Therefore, we shall not 
be surprised to find kahweh preserved in the word kava, 
the intoxicating beverage of the South Sea Islands, and their 
substitute for wine and coffee, which in their successive migra¬ 
tions from island to island, they lost, but the name they retained. 
And thus, when they reached New Zealand, the word is still 
preserved, in the kawa kaiva, the piper excelsum, or pepper 
tree of New Zealand, and perhaps in the casava of America. 
The name for a girl is Hine; but when old enough to 
become a bearer of burthens (poor woman’s province) she is a 
tva hine; so when she is a mother and has to carry a child, 
not in her arms but on her shoulders, the Maori way, she is a 
ivaea, a waene or e wae, and her offspring are wanau, and her 
burthens also are called wahanga. 
* Having no vehicle, it is applied to burthens carried on the shoulder. 
In Tahaiti, royalty itself was carried on the shoulders; regular relays of men 
being appointed, as soon as one grew tired, the royal burthen vaulted from 
one pair of shoulders to another. 
