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Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara, Volume III

Note 61 — XX.

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The derivation of the name Pomáre, which has since become that of the Tahitian dynasty, is purely accidental. The father of Otu was once travelling among the mountains, and had to camp out in the open air. The bad weather gave him a violent cold with hoarseness, which induced one of his companions to name the night spent in such discomfort Po-mare, i. e. a night (po) of cough (mare). The chieftain so acutely felt the pertinency of this name that he adopted it as his own name.—(Vide Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. ii. p. 70.)

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