Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/71

Rh and botanical probability tend to the belief that rice existed in India before cultivation," with much more to the same effect.

All this leads to the legitimate conclusion that rice is a very ancient food plant in India, dating certainly from before the time of Tu-te-rangi-marama, which we shall see was possibly about B.C. 450. I am inclined, therefore, to think that Atia-te-varinga-nui (Great Atia-covered-with-rice) supports the idea that the name refers to India.

As vari has then the double meaning of both rice and mud, it will be interesting to try and ascertain which is the older meaning of the two. As mud must have existed before rice was used, the second meaning is probably the more modern, and the Polynesians, on their first discovery of the rice, applied to it the name of the mud in which it grew. If this is true, it follows that the Polynesians were the originators of this widespread name of vari and its variants, and further, that they gave it this name when living in India, for it has never been attempted to be shown that the name was carried from Indonesia or China to India.

De Candolle and others say that rice is not indigenous in Indonesia, hence it probably came from India, and from what follows as to the discovery of the bread-fruit by the Polynesians, it seems to me a reasonable deduction that this people brought the rice from India and introduced it into Indonesia. Otherwise how could they have discarded rice after obtaining the bread-fruit if they had not brought it with them as it is not indigenous there? The bread-fruit is native to Indonesia, and does not grow in Asia. This shows that they had moved on from India to Indonesia (Avaiki is the place named, which I take to be Java), where they first became acquainted with the bread-fruit.