"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 [manu] 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 ..." (William Churchill, The Polynesian Wanderings.)