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Of the Division of Time in Otaheite
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Whether it is copious, we were not sufficiently acquainted with it to know; but it is certainly very imperfect, for it is almost totally without inflexion, both of nouns and verbs. Few of the nouns have more than one case, and few of the verbs more than one tense; yet we found no great difficulty in making ourselves mutually understood, however strange it may appear in speculation.
They have, however, certain affixa, which, though but few in number, are very useful to them, and puzzled us extremely. One asks another, Harre hea? "Where are you going?" the other answers Ivahinera, "To my wives;" upon which the first repeating the answer interrogatively, "To your wives?" is answered, Ivahinereira; "Yes, I am going to my wives." Here the suffixa era and eira save several words to both parties.
I have inserted a few of their words, from which perhaps some idea may be formed of the language.
| Pupo, | the head. | Oporema, | the hand. | |
| Ahewh, | the nose. | Manneow, | the fingers. | |
| Roourou, | the hair. | Mieu, | the nails. | |
| Outou, | the mouth. | Touhe, | the buttocks. | |
| Niheo, | the teeth | Hoouhah, | the thighs. | |
| Arrero, | the tongue. | Avia, | the legs. | |
| Meu-eumi, | the beard. | Tapoa, | the feet. | |
| Tiarraboa, | the throat. | Booa, | a hog. | |
| Tuamo, | the shoulders. | Moa, | a fowl. | |
| Tuah, | the back. | Euree, | a dog. | |
| Oama, | the breast. | Eure-eure, | iron. | |
| Eu, | the nipples. | Ooroo, | bread-fruit. | |
| Oboo, | the belly. | Hearee, | cocoa-nuts. | |
| Rema, | the arm. | Mia, | bananas. |
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 229, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/230.html