Towees

[Lisa M Peppan]

Said "Ross Clark (FOA LING)":

>> "Towees" are trade axe blades, more often spelled "toes".
>> I'm pretty sure this is from Polynesian /to?i/ "adze" (could
>> be Tahitian or t-style Hawaiian).

To which Mike Cleven replied:

> This isn't a Jargon word, but often I've noted maritime/sailors
> words/argot that must have been current throughout the
> Pacific (the trade circle being PacNW-China-Oz/Hawaii-
> PacNW), without ever reaching much farther than bars on
> shore, and while being part ofhe trade lingo and the vocabulary of
> ship's logs, never becoming part of the CJ.

So I went to my eclectic collection of non-English dictionaries and
found:

on page149 of the paperback "New Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary" (University
of Hawaii Press, 1992) two words for adze: "Ko'i" and "lipi" . . .

and on page 39 of my "Let's Speak Maori" (Bruce Biggs, 1969), one Maori
word for ax: "toki" . . .

which strikes me as being in keeping with the comments made by both Ross
and Mike.  Unfortunately I don't have a Tahitian dictionary ( yet) but
through the similarities I've seen between Hawaiian and Maori, I imagine
they exisit between all the Polynesian languages.  And as employee
records shows one Tahitian man was employed by the Hudson Bay Company in
the early 1800s (George Borabora from Tahiti), I see a definite
possibilty for the Polynesian laguages et al being a probable
source/contributing factor of "towee".

But this is, of course, just my two cents worth.  :)

Lisa