On the whole, either cocoanut kernels were called 'brains of Tuna'
because 'cocoanut'='head,' and a head has brains--and, well, somehow I
fail to see why brains of Tuna in particular! Or, there being a story to
the effect that the first cocoanut grew out of the head of the
metamorphosed Tuna, the kernel was called his brains. But why was the
story told, and why of Tuna? Tuna was an eel, and women may not eat
eels; and Ina was the moon, who, a Mangaian Selene, loved no Latmian
shepherd, but an eel. Seriously, I fail to understand Mr. Max Muller's
explanation. Given the problem, to explain a no longer intelligible
plant-name--brains of Tuna--(applied not to a plant but to the kernel of
a nut), this name is explained by saying that the moon, Ina, loved an
eel, cut off his head at his desire, and buried it. Thence sprang
cocoanut trees, with a fanciful likeness to a human face--face of Tuna--on
the nut. But still, why Tuna? How could the moon love an eel, except on
my own general principle of savage 'levelling up' of all life in all
nature? In my opinion, the Mangaians wanted a fable to account for the
resemblance of a cocoanut to the human head--a resemblance noted, as I
show, in our own popular slang. The Mangaians also knew the moon, in her
mythical aspect, as Ina; and Tuna, whatever his name may mean (Mr. Max
Muller does not tell us), was an eel. {17} Having the necessary savage
major premise in their minds, 'All life is on a level and
interchangeable,' the Mangaians thought well to say that the head-like
cocoanut sprang from the head of her lover, an eel, cut off by Ina. The
myth accounts, I think, for the peculiarities of the cocoanut, rather
than for the name 'brains of Tuna;' for we still ask, 'Why of Tuna in
particular? Why Tuna more than Rangoa, or anyone else?'
'We shall have to confess that the legend of Tuna throws but little light
on the legend of Daphne, or on the etymology of her name.'
I never hinted that the legend of Tuna threw light on the etymology of
the name of Daphne. Mangaian and Greek are not allied languages. Nor
did I give the Tuna story as an explanation of the Daphne story. I gave
it as one in a mass of illustrations of the savage mental propensity so
copiously established by Dr. Tylor in Primitive Culture. The two
alternative explanations which I gave of the Daphne story I have cited.
No mention of Tuna occurs in either.