ANCIENT EGYPT AND THE PACIFIC.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1923, Page 1

ANCIENT EGYPT AND THE PACIFIC.

“Tuiagi,” a pure Zulu word, meaning “be silent,” is the name of a small island in the Pacific. “Funa Futi,” the name of a larger and better-known island in the same ocean, is also pure Zulu for “want more.” Tonga is one of the Friendly Islands, and Aniatonga lies to the north of Zululand in Africa. Now “Ann” or “Aba” is merely the prefix denoting the plural. For instance, instead of speaking of the Zulus and Swazis, the correct Zulu method would be Ama Zulu, Am a Swazi, ergo, Ama- Tonga and Tonga are synonymous.

Again, the Maoris of New Zealand, on the death of any member of a tribe, hold a feast which they call “Tangi,” the death feast. Strange, that in ancient Egypt the same word “Tnngi”, having the same meaning, should have boon used. The ancient Egyptians named the sun “Ra'\ and the New Zealand .Maoris bestow tile same name on tbe same object. Ail these words, meaning the same tilings, being pronounced and spell alike, cause one to wonder how they came across from Egypt to the Pacific, because it is impossible that. they should he coincidences.

Africa was a bustling busy country at one time, inhabited b.v millions of people. They dug for gold ami gems on the Zambesi, and left behind them tangible evidences of their occupancy of Hie district in the wonderful ruins of Zimbabwe. Egypt was a highly civilised. country for over 2000 years before Moses was horn, and as the cities become overcrowded, it is most probable that there was a steady stream of migration further south down the east coast.

Zulu means, literally, “Child of Heaven,’' and the whole of the South African races arc distinct from the negro. The intelligence of the Zulu, like that of the Maori, is of a very high order, and can only he accounted for by the dossing of a highly intellectual race with the indigenes of the remote past. The Zulu is a metal worker of no mean order, and although his appliances may lit- crude, yet he smelts iron and fashions it into liiiely-iinisliod assegais, uinkoutas (stabbing assegais), and boos for tilling the fields. Like the ancient Egyptian, fish is taboo to him, and until the time of the great Zulu, Napoleon. Teliaka. like the ancient Egyptian, he practised circumcision.

Besides the migration south, there was also n- steady emigration from Egypt to India. On the Gogra River is Ondh. there is a town named “Tanda.” which is the Zulu word for ‘‘like” \gi Tanda, T like quite feasible that a, number of those ancient Egypt ions should have gone across India and formed colonics on some of the Pacific islands, inter-inai-ried with the indigenes, and evolved a race who might easily have become the Maoris. There was an ancient Egyptian kind who was named Moeri, and the transition from Moeri to Maori is not impossible. The argument and delineation may sceiu far-letchod, but only by such means can he account for Zulu words in the Pacific and Egyptian words occurring in the language of the Maoris.