Note on the Poua and other Extinct Birds of the Chathams.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 29, 1896, Page 632

3. “The Poua and Other Extinct Birds of the Chathams,” by Taylor White. (Transactions, p. 162.) [The following note was sent by the author, but too late for insertion with the paper.—ED.] :— “Re the word koko : I have from the first and future readings of this sentence always felt a doubt as to whether ‘the grass floating on the water, named koko’—i.e., duck-weed—is here meant in the Chatham Islander's narrative; or may we suppose the narrative to run thus: ‘He eat grass’—i.e., green food or plants—‘he swim on waters of the lagoon; he call or say, koko.’ To support this idea is the following quotation from ‘Language and Languages,’ by Canon Farrar, page 24: ‘Yet in the following cases also, where the Sanskrit root runs through the whole Aryan family of languages, he cannot avoid referring the names to simple imitation.’ … ‘Koka, a swan: imitative of the cry kouk! kouk!’ Quoted from Pictet, ‘Les Origines Indo-Européennes, ou les Aryas

Primitifs,’ i., pp. 330–535. In the Malay of Macassar, koko means ‘to cackle.’”—T. W., 19th April, 1897.