It is evident that the terms borrowed from the children’s lips have no intrinsic meaning whatever. Hence, if a Bakaĭri child calls its father and father’s brother “tsogo,” its mother and mother’s sister “tsego”;[462] if a Macúsi names his paternal uncle “papa” as well as his father, and an Efatese names his father and all the tribe brothers of his father “ava” or “tama”;[463] if the Dacotahs apply the term “ahta” not only to the father, but also to the father’s brother, to the mother’s sister’s husband, to the father’s father’s brother’s son, &c., and the term “enah” not only to the mother, but also to the mother’s sister, to the mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter, &c.;[464] if, among the New Caledonians, an uncle, taking the place of a father, is called “baba” like the father himself, and an aunt is called “gnagna” like a mother;[465] if, as Archdeacon Hodgson of Zanzibar, writes to me, a native of Eastern Central Africa uses the words “baba” and “mama” not only for father and mother respectively, but also, very commonly, for “any near relationship or even external connection;” if, finally, the Semitic word for father, “ab” (“abu”), is not only used in a wide range of senses, but, to quote Professor Robertson Smith, “in all dialects is used in senses quite inconsistent with the idea that procreator is the radical meaning of the word,”[466]—we certainly must not, from these designations, infer anything as to early marriage customs. Of course there are other terms applied to kinsfolk besides words taken from the lips of children, or words derived from these. But though considerable, their number has been somewhat exaggerated. Thus, for instance, Professor Vámbéry, in his work upon the primitive culture of the Turko-Tartars, says that the terms for mother, “ana” or “ene” have originally the meaning of woman or nurse, being derived from the roots “an” and “en.”[467] Exactly the reverse seems to be the fact, the terms for mother being the primitive words. In the same way, I cannot but think that Professor Max Müller and several other philologists are in error in deriving “pitár,” “pater,” “father,” from the root “pa,” which means to protect, to nourish; and “mâtár,” “mater,” “mother,” from the root “ma,” to fashion.[468] It seems, indeed, far more natural, as has been pointed out by Sir J. Lubbock and others, that the roots “pa,” to protect, and “ma,” to fashion, come from “pa,” father, and “ma,” mother, and not _vice versa_.[469] I am the more inclined to accept this explanation, as Mr. A. J. Swann informs me, from Kavala Island, Lake Tanganyika, that among the Waguha, the words “baba,” and “tata,” which mean father, also have the meaning of protector, provider.