Manu

1. Bird; manu uru, bird figure (like the drawings or wooden figures once found in caves and houses); manu va'e e-há, four-legged bird (name given to the first sheep introduced to the island. 2. Insect. manupatia, wasp. 3. Bird's egg: mâmari manu. 4. Wild, untamed. 5. Song in which is expressed the desire to kill someone, or in which a crime is confessed: he-tapa i te manu .... Vanaga.

Bird; manu uru, kite; manu rikiriki, insect. P Pau.: manu, bird, insect, brute. Mgv.: manu, bird, beast. Mq., Ta.: manu, bird, insect. Manu nave, great abscess, bubo. Churchill.

Manu i te raá = comet. Barthel.

Manu vae eha,  'birds with four legs'. Barthel 2.

'Several of the early missionaries comment with a fine sense of humor upon the mistake the islanders made in calling the cow when first seen a bird. This is the word which led the good missionaries into the error of their own ignorance.

Manu is as wholesale in its signification as our word animal, it is generic. In the paucity of brute mammalia the first missionaries found this general term most frequently used of birds, and it was their and not a Polynesian mistake to translate manu into bird.

In the material here collected it will be seen that the significations animal and bird are widely extended. In the Paumotu insects are included; the same is true of Mota, where manu signifies beetle as well as bird.

Nor is its applicability restricted to earth and air; it reaches into the sea as well. Samoa uses i'amanu (fish-animal) for the whale ...' (Churchill 2)