Proto Eastern Polynesian: *Maika
REFLEXES IN SOME POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES:
Rapanui: [Maika (Musa x paradisiaca & other banana cultivars)]
Tahitian: Me'a (Musa x paradisiaca & other banana cultivars)
Marquesan: Mei'a (Musa x paradisiaca & other banana cultivars)
Hawaiian: Mai'a (Musa x paradisiaca cultivars)
Rarotongan: Meika (Musa x paradisiaca cultivars)
Maori: Māikaika (Orthoceras strictum, O. novaeseelandiae, Thelymitra paucifolia, T. longifolia & T. pulchella [Orchidaceae]; Māika kā , Arthropodium cirrhatum [Asparagaceae])

RELATED WORDS
*Futi Musa x paradisiaca & other banana cultivars (from Proto Malayo-Polynesian *punti)

Watch this space! This is one of the pages written in 2009 in the prototype stage of this web site, which has been transferred with minimal changes to the newer format. It is still therefore "under construction", but contains the essential linguistic and botanical information, along with other material. Updated text and more pictures will be added progressively as soon as time permits (new pages for plant names not yet discussed are being given priority). If you would like this page to be updated sooner than planned, please email a note to temaarareo at gmail.com.

This Eastern Polynesian doublet replaced the reflexes or the earlier and much older Proto Polynesian word *futi to denote banana cultivars in most Eastern Polynesian languages. Originally it would have denoted varieties of the cooking bananas M. x paradisiaca (which was carried to most parts of Polynesia when they were first settled) and M. troglodytarum (which was brought from Near Oceania, but was not taken to Hawai'i and some other island groups until much later). When other varieties of banana were acquired from contacts with English, French, Spanish and American explorers and traders, they also were generally referred to by reflexes of one of these words.

As far as we know the banana was not carried to New Zealand, or at least did not thrive here. Instead, some species of orchids with edible tubers were named after the *maika, and a kumara variety became known by a reflex of *futi. This reflects the extraordinary importance and utility of the banana wherever it was grown -- the fruit of one of the varieties transported to Polynesia, M. troglodytarum, was not very appetising even when cooked, but, like the orchid tubers, was a useful food and supplement to the more palatable M. x paradisiaca in times of want, and both species had many other additional uses, from lining ovens to providing poultices for wounds and dye from the sap. In the Philippines banana fibre is still used for weaving fine formal garments, and in Hawai'i nectar from banana flowers was a traditional food for babies.