In Chinese language “Wan-Ou”—ten thousand things, is an expression for the totality of created beings. In Polynesian language Wanua or Wenua means the earth and all it contains.
In the inscription the Christian religion is called King-Khiao, literally, luminous religion. In Hawaiian mythology when Ku, Kane and Lono created man their invocation was Hi-ki-ao-ola. Any connection? [[355]]
[1] Dieffenbach (Travels in New Zealand, p. 64,) says that phallic sculptures are common on tombs, symbolic of vis generatrix of male or female originals.
In the Fiji group also, rude stones resembling milestones, are consecrated to this or that god, at which the natives deposit offerings and before which they worship. (Fiji and the Fijans, by Thos. Williams, p. 173). [↑]
[2] In the Asiatic Journal, Feb., 1828, I find that in Deccan and in the collectorship of Punah, the Koonbees, living to the eastward of the western Ghats, worship their principal gods in the form of particular unshaped stones. A black stone is the emblem of Vishnu; a grey one of Siwa or Mahades. So, also, stones are consecrated to or emblematical of Mussooba, the god of revenge; of Vital, the god of demons; of Bal Bheirow or Bharos, the beautiful god. Khundooba, the principal household-god of the whole Deccan, is represented at Jejour by a Lingam. [↑]
[3] In Polynesian Researches Ellis explains a similar expression in Tahiti, from the fact that a dark and bronzed complexion was looked upon, among the chiefs, as a sign of manliness, hardihood, and exposure to fatigue and danger, and a pale complexion was considered a sign of effeminacy. The probable reason and explanation of the proverb may be found in the greater amount of tatooing with which the bodies of the chiefs were adorned. As late as the time of Kamehameha I. of Hawaii, his rival Kahekili, King of Maui, had one-half of his body entirely blackened by tatooing. [↑]
The Numerical System, Comparative.[1]
In confirmation of the Polynesian connection with the Aryan stock, at a very early period, I will refer to the numeral systems of both. I believe that it is now pretty well established that the more ancient and rude a people is or was, the more limited is or was its numeral system. The Australians to this day do not count beyond three or four. The wooly-haired indigènes of the peninsula of Malacca count only to two. One is nai, and two is be. The latter calls strongly to mind the Basque bi and the Latin bis, two. The Dravidian languages exhibit signs, by the composition of their higher numbers, that at one time the range of their numerals was equally limited. The Polynesian language gives undoubted evidence that at one time the people who spoke it did not count beyond four, and that its ideas of higher numbers were expressed by multiples of four.[2] They evidently counted one, two, three, four, and that amount called “kau-na” was their tally, when the process was repeated again. That the same system obtained in the Aryan family in early times is evident not only from the marked relationship between the four first Aryan and Polynesian numbers, but the method of counting by fours as a tally still obtains among some of the Aryan descendants.[3]