Tirourou

Tregear's Dictionary gives tirourou, a stick for forking up sow thistles. It is not clear as to why sow thistles should have a special form of stick assigned to them, or as to why they should be so forked up, unless growing as weeds in a cultivation ground, when, presumably, any weeding implement would serve the purpose. When collected for food, the leaves of this plant appear to have been plucked, the root being left unmolested, hence the expression katokato puwha. If the tirourou was an agricultural tool, then its use would scarcely be restricted to the rooting up of one species of plant. The same work gives turourou, a stick for stirring up fire. A stick used to reach anything with is termed a rou, as also is a certain form of ladder.

The tirourou, says Hakaraia Pahewa, was a form of wooden rake used to rake dug ground, to bring clods to the surface that they might be pulverised. This instrument had a curved handle to page 96the end of which was lashed a short crosspiece, to which five wooden tines were lashed with aka. Such an implement has never before been heard of as an old Maori tool; it was probably an idea borrowed from Europeans.

Te Manihera Waititi, of Whanga-paraoa, states that the tirourou was an implement of pre-European times, called by his clan a purau. This was used in lifting earth in the construction of earthwork defences. Apparently his purau differs from the wooden rake described by Hakaraia Pahewa as a tirourou.

Tukari.—Some form of wooden spade.

Williams' Maori Dictionary gives matakahikatoa as the name of a digging implement. It sounds like a descriptive name for an implement fashioned from the wood of the manuka.