Towees

[Mike Cleven]

phil cash cash wrote:
>
> just a note,...i seem to recall that a Maori-type "patu" or "patu patu"
> was collected during an archaeological expedition in the Columbia
> Plateau during the 1890's.  it is (or once was) on display at the
> Smithsonian Institution under the "patu" name.  in wonder if this [to'i]
> or [towee] is of the same root as "patu".

This is all getting rather interesting.  Descriptions of the Jargon
often say that there were many Hawaiian words borrowed, but as we know
from Shaw et al these don't seem to have made it into the published
lexicons; obviously Maori and Hawaiian aren't quite the same language
but are closely related, and maybe when a Polynesian word was noticed it
was ascribed as "Hawaiian"; of course actual Kanakas would have spoken
their own variant of the Jargon as well, but it seems that words that
they used _did_ come into the local parlance, whether we consider that
"proper Jargon" or not.  "Towees" and "patu [patu]" aren't given in the
lexicons, but they _were_ "gathered" in the Northwest.....

MC