In my opinion, W.W. Schuhmacher's (1998) statement looks like his renunciation of his theory concerning American-Polynesian lexical parallels. It is known that T. Heyerdahl (1976: 63) has interpreted the feline figures as important designations of Makemake, the Rapanui god of the sun. That is why if somebody criticizes my opinion, he criticizes Heyerdahl's opinion as well. I have conducted a special investigation of Turkic place names which were left by Turkic conquerors (Mongols etc.) on the territory of Russia. It has turned out that the conquerors called two rivers -- the Bityug (a tributary of the Don river) and the Eruslan (a tributary of the Volga river) -- in honour of the animals which were found far from the European part of Russia. In the first case it was a camel, in the second case -- a panther or a lion (Nikonov 1966: 56, 137). It would be curious to try to find the traces of these animals in the areas of the Don and the Volga. Similarly, the ancient Peruvians could call a place on Easter Island in honour of a beast which played a decisive role in their religion.
The Quechua word for 'gold' is however, sorry, qori. This form was registered in A.D. 1586 (Paez 1970: 121). This word is also included in the name of the main temple of the Incas, Qorikancha 'Golden House' (Stone-Miller 1995: 196). The Rapanui place name Pumakari < Quechua *Pumaqori signifies 'Gold of the Puma, i.e. the Sun'. For example, the following Quechua expressions are composed in the same way: Amarukancha 'House of the Serpent' (amaru 'serpent', kancha 'house; yard'), Rumiñawi 'Stone Eye' (rumi 'stone', ñawi 'eye') as well as the place name (lake and island) Titicaca 'Rock of the Puma' (Aymara titi 'puma' and caca 'rock'). I think that the Easter Islanders transformed the term puma 'puma' into the expression pu ma 'the shine produces'.
The word puma is also registered in Rapanui, Marquesan and Tahitian pumahana 'heat' (Churchill 1912: 244). Notice that this word contains the morpheme hana, cf. Rapanui hana 'warmth, heat', mahana 'heat, hot', Hawaiian hana 'warm', Mangarevan hana 'shining' and Tuamotuan hana 'the sun'.
Churchill, W., 1912. Easter Island: The Rapanui Speech and the Peopling of Southeast Polynesia. Publications of the Carnegie Institution 174. Washington: Cornegie Institution.
Heyerdahl, T., 1976. The Art of Easter Island. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Nikonov, V.A., 1966. Kratky toponimichesky slovar'. Moscow: Mysl'.
Paez, R.A., 1970. Gramatica Quechua y Vocabularios. Adaptación de la primera edición de la obra de Antonio Ricardo "ARTE, Y VOCABULARIO EN LA LENGVA GENERAL DEL PERV LLAMADA QUICHUA, Y EN LA LENGUA ESPAÑOLA", Lima, 1586. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
Schuhmacher, W.W., 1998. [A Letter to the Editor]. Rapa Nui Journal, 12: 55-6.
Stone-Miller, R., 1995. Art of the Andes from Chavín to Inca. London: Thames and Hudson.
Copyright © 1998 by Sergei V. Rjabchikov. All Rights Reserved.