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The bird list from Manuscript E according to Barthel 2 and after my 'upgrading' (cfr at rona):

manu tara tavake
pi riuriu ruru
kava eoeo taiko
te verovero kumara
ka araara kiakia
kukuru toua tuvi
makohe tuao
kena tavi

There is no obvious bird name here similar to kea. The closest fit is kiakia, the 5th bird in the 2nd half of the list. Barthel 2:

"In a short recitation that accompanies a string game, the next bird on the list, kiakia (number 13), the white tern, is associated with the leaves of the sweet potato:

kiakia kiakia The white terns
tari rau kumara carry the leaves of sweet potatoes in their beaks."

Tari is the first part of tariga (ear), from which we could guess the function of an ear, viz. to carry pendants.

Tari

1. To take from one place to another; he-tari-mai, to bring. 2. Upper end of the sugarcane, which was used in military training as a harmless weapon. Tariga, ear; tariga pogeha, tariga pó, sordo; tariga maîka, bunch of bananas. Vanaga.

1. To pluck, to gather, to reap, to load; kai taria te kai, abundance. 2. To lead, to carry; hakatari, to conduct, to guide, to direct, to escort, to carry, to bring, to pay; hakatari miro, pilot; hakatariga, payment. Tariga, ear, earring; tariga hakarogo, faithful, observant, submissive; tariga kikiu, din, buzzing; tariga meitaki, to have good hearing; tariga pogeha, deaf, to disobey; tariga puru, disobedient; tariga purua, stubborn; tarigariga, chain. Tarirapa, to gather. Churchill

However, tari means to take from one place to another, and the word could therefore rather be an allusion to the 'whirlpool' (cfr under Hatinga Te Kohe in the excursion at haati). The ear looks like a whirlpool and in a whirlpool you will be carried away, in myth to some other place:

... taken round and round to the very lowest center of the whirlpool, when another circle caught him and bore him outward. He told afterwards that when he reached the narrowest circle of the maelstroem the water seemed to open below and he could look down as through the roof beam of a house, and there on the bottom of the river he had seen a great company, who looked up and beckoned to him to join them ...

Fornander ought to have identified the equality of sound and meaning between 'to carry' and the Hawaiian version of tari (which should be kali), I thought. However, he instead has identified Hawaiian kali with 'to tarry', because kali means 'to wait, to tarry, to stay, expect, hesitate'. This kali is the opposite of being carried away, and therefore we can anyhow see a connection between tari and kali.

So much is clear, though, that kiakia indeed is a white (tea) bird. Number 13 fits it better than number 5, because a white bird is coloured like old bleached bones.

Maybe there is a link here to the crab, which has neither feathers nor any other growth on its outside - crustaceans illustrate the state of death. If so, then pikea could signify death and kea could be its opposite (like the bright-coloured lively thrush).

Maybe tea is the light from Moon and kea the light from Sun. Makea tutara was the father of Maui - cfr 'How Maui gave mortality to Man' (among the myths in my Index) - and names are significant.

According to Churchill kiakia could possibly be a general term for white birds:

Kiakia

Dove, gull T. Mgv.: kiakia, the cry of the kotake (a white marine bird). Churchill.

But there is no place for a thrush or a dove in a list of sea birds, and the gull is not represented.