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A LINGUIST REVISITS the NEW ZEALAND BUSH Bruce Biggs

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A LINGUIST REVISITS the NEW ZEALAND BUSH Bruce Biggs A LINGUIST REVISITS THE NEW ZEALAND BUSH Bruce Biggs University of Auckland The Fiji, Samoa, Tonga region has a relatively rich flora.1 Somewhere in this area was the homeland in which the Proto-Polynesian language was spoken and we may be sure that the Proto-Polynesians, like their descendants, had a vocabulary matching the richness of their environment, with each plant having its own name. More than 200 Polynesian plant names have etymologies and rather less than half of them have reflexes in Maori. It is interesting to consider reasons for the loss of some names and for changes of meaning that those retained have undergone in New Zealand. As the ancestors moved eastwards across Polynesia the flora became ever sparser in the sense that there were fewer different species. But those that were found in the eastern islands were, for the most part, the same as or similar to those they already knew and the nomenclature was to hand. The names for plants not found in the new environment were finally forgotten. For example the Puzzlenut, known to the Proto- Polynesians in their western homeland as *lekileki, is absent from the eastern islands and the word is unknown in the eastern Polynesian languages. In the new environment fewer plant names were needed.2 The absence in New Zealand of many Polynesian tree names such as *tamanu, *fesi, *mosokoi, *rjatae is significant. As we have seen, some of the species they named did not grow in Eastern Polynesia and the names had been lost before New Zealand was discovered. This may have been the case even when the tree and name are now found in Eastern Polynesia. It seems likely, for example, thatmosokoi “Canaga odorata” is a fairly recent introduction to the eastern islands so its name is understandably absent from New Zealand.3 *fesi “Intsia bijuga” is one of the largest and most important trees of the west, with hard, durable and highly valued timber. Neither the tree nor its name occurs in the eastern islands, the immediate homeland of the Maori, so we need not be surprised that none of the New Zealand timber trees are named for it. rjatae “Erythrina spp.”, however, is a name found everywhere in Eastern Polynesia where the showy blossoms and large size make the Coral or Flame Tree one of the most striking sights of the island coasts. But the name is not found in New Zealand, either because no tree reminiscent of Erythrina was found here (the genus is absent from New Zealand) or possibly because it was introduced into Eastern Polynesia after the Maori ancestors had left. The fact that the name is not found in Hawai’i but is found in Marquesan, the immediate Hawai’ian homeland, gives some weight to the latter possibility. The Polynesians had special names for certain parts of particular plant species. Thus the striking inflorescence of the Pandanus was known as *siyano, the flamboyant red flowers of Erythrina had the special name *kalokalo. The hairy core of the Breadfruit was called *fune, while a Breadfruit crop had the special name *fuata. The Coconut, as became its economic importance, had a whole special vocabulary. The central, unfolded leaf sprout was *tola, the frond was *niikau, the butt of the midrib was *palalafa, the outer skin of the midrib was called *kalawa, the coarse fibre enveloping the base of the fronds was *kaka, while the fibrous outer covering of the nut was *pulu\ the flower-spathe was *taume, the spadix was *loholoho\ the milk was *suqa, the cream *lolo, the flesh *kano\ the grated flesh after its cream was expressed was *penu and the nut at each of its many stages of growth had a new name. When a tree was not found in New Zealand any such special vocabulary tended to be lost, so Maori is without *siqano, *kalokalo, *taume, *loholoho. When a name has survived it has been given a new, somethimes surprising meaning. *fune “breadfruit core” has become Maori hunehune “pappus of the raupoo (Bulrush)”; Maori kaka in eastern dialects means “clothing in general”; *taa, the old word for a hand of bananas, is now found in Maori taawhara the edible flower bract of kiekie “Freycinetia banksii”\ *sakari, which means “coconut” in a few Eastern Polynesian islands, has come to mean “ceremonial feast” in its Maori form haakari. When the East Polynesian discoverers reached New Zealand they entered once more a region of floral diversity whose richness was matched only by its unfamiliarity. Now their botanical nomenclature was less than adequate to provide names for all the plants they encountered. There are basically three ways in which people innovate names. Firstly, a totally new word can be coined. This is, in fact, seldom done, though it is said that the English words “gas” and “kodak” were deliberately coined. I know of no Polynesian examples except onomatopoeic ones such as Maori korukoru “turkey” and perhaps heihei “fowl, chook”. Secondly, a word can be borrowed from another language, usually a word by which the referent is already known. So, in English, we use the borrowed word kauri for Agathis australis. 67 68 Bruce Biggs This is common practice among languages, but was not available to the Maori ancestors because they were linguistically isolated. Thirdly, a new meaning can be assigned to an old word, as when English settlers called Phormium tenax Flax, and Knightia excelsa Honeysuckle. A modifier may be added, as with New Zealand Spinach, Bastard Sandalwood and White Pine. This third device was used by the Maori. Plants that were the same as or similar to those at home were given the same names, or names modified by any one of several morphemes that added the meaning “like” to the word. Reduplication is such a morpheme, so the New Zealand kawakawa “Macropiper excelsum” means *kawa-like, *kawa “Piper methysticum” being similar in many respects to the New Zealand plant. Po(o)- and koo- are Maori prefixes which appear to have the same force, as in Maori pohue, the name for several trailing plants, which are in that respect, at least, like the *fue “Gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris)”. In Maori koowharawhara “Astelia sp.”, ultimately from Proto-Austronesian*panDan “Pandanus spp.”, we see two of these features used, the reduplication morpheme in this case being of considerable antiquity. In Fiji varavara is used for several Liliaceous plants, and in several Polynesian languages cognates of*falafala refer to varieties of yam and plantain. In these latter cases the perceived resemblance was perhaps with the edible Pandanus fruit. Reflexes of *fara in New Zealand provide an interesting example of the problem faced in naming all the new plants. Throughout Polynesia the Pandanus is known by some reflex of the Proto-Polynesian form *fara. In accordance with the general rule that reduplication reduces the force of a word, reduplicated reflexes of *fara named plants similar to but different from the Pandanus, both in Polynesia and New Zealand. The Maori forms containing the regular reflex whara exhibit both reduplication and the prefixing of koo- “like”, and puu- “clump”. So koo-wharawhara “Astelia banksii”, denotes a plant “somewhat like the Pandanus” as indeed it is. Puu-wharawhara, another name for the species, is literally “clump of Pandanus-like plant”. Harakeke is less obviously cognate, but Proto-Polynesian */ is often reflected ash in Maori and there is a Polynesian base *keke “hard, strong” so hara-keke with its fibre of great tensile strength may have meant “the strong Pandanus”. Notice that the other flax species (P. cookii) is called whara-riki “the small Pandanus” and that a variety ofP. tenax favoured for weaving because of its long fibres, was known aswhara-nui “large whara ”. The reasons for assigning old names to particular New Zealand plants are not always obvious. Why, for example, was the great forest tree Dysoxylon called kohe or kohekohe when, throughout Polynesia, *kofe is Bamboo? The only point of resemblance that I can see is the New Zealand tree’s habit of sending up long, straight suckers, which are bare of leaves and could be likened to the poles of bamboo.4 Again, why were several New Zealand forest trees and shrubs of different genera ( Phebalium, Olea, Eugenia, Fuscanus) called maire, a name applied everywhere else to a scented, twining shrub or a scented fern? The maire-hau “Phebalium nudum” does have scented leaves, as its name implies, but, as far as I am aware the other species do not. Here the name may have been assigned because of a resemblance in leaf shape to the Polynesian shrub, Alyxia sp. Throughout Polynesia the Beach Hibiscus (//. tiliaceus) is known by a reflex of Proto-Polynesian*fau. The wood, which is soft and very light, is often used for canoe outriggers and the bark is used everywhere for tying and binding. In New Zealand, species of several genera have names which are reflexes of *fau, the names having been chosen apparently because of some attribute shared with the Polynesian tree. The whau “Entelea arborescens” has the lightest wood of any New Zealand tree. A dialectal variant whau-ama means “outrigger whau”. In some dialects, the vowel a has become o by assimilation to the following u, and as wh may not precede a round vowel it has, willy-nilly, becomeh. So we get hou-ama and hou-here “Lacebark (Hoheria spp.)”. The latter means “the tying *fau” and the bark is suitable for that purpose. The whau-paku “Panax arboreum”, or little whau, does not resemble the Beach Hibiscus in general form, but shares with it soft wood and a central core of pith.
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