t well be called the brain. If
then the white kernel had been called Tuna's brain, we have only to
remember that in Mangaia there are two kinds of cocoanut trees, and we
shall then have no difficulty in understanding why these twin cocoanut
trees were said to have sprung from the two halves of Tuna's brain, one
being red in stem, branches, and fruit, whilst the other was of a deep
green. In proof of these trees being derived from the head of Tuna, we
are told that we have only to break the nut in order to see in the
sprouting germ the two eyes and the mouth of Tuna, the great eel, the
lover of Ina. For a full understanding of this very complicated myth
more information has been supplied by Mr. Gill. Ina means moon; Ina-mae-
aitu, the heroine of our story, means Ina-who-had-a-divine (aitu) lover,
and she was the daughter of Kui, the blind. Tuna means eel, and in
Mangaia it was unlawful for women to eat eels, so that even now, as Mr.
Gill informs me, his converts turn away from this fish with the utmost
disgust. From other stories about the origin of cocoanut trees, told in
the same island, it would appear that the sprouts of the cocoanut were
actually called eels' heads, while the skulls of warriors were called
cocoanuts.

'Taking all these facts together, it is not difficult to imagine how the
story of Tuna's brain grew up; and I am afraid we shall have to confess
that the legend of Tuna throws but little light on the legend of Daphne
or on the etymology of her name. No one would have a word to say against
the general principle that much that is irrational, absurd, or barbarous
in the Veda is a survival of a more primitive mythology anterior to the
Veda. How could it be otherwise?'

Criticism of Tuna and Daphne

Now (1), as to Daphne, we are not invariably told that hers was a case of
'the total change of a heroine into a tree.' In Ovid {14} she is thus
changed. In Hyginus, on the other hand, the earth swallows her, and a
tree takes her place. All the authorities are late. Here I cannot but
reflect on the scholarly method of Mannhardt, who would have examined and
criticised all the sources for the tale before trying to explain it.
However, Daphne was not mangled; a tree did not spring from her severed
head or scattered limbs. She was metamorphosed, or was buried in earth,
a tree springing up from the place.

(2) I think we do know _why_ the people of Mangaia 'believe in the
change of human beings