Whaia e koe te iti kahurangi;

Ki te tuoho koe, me mounga teitei.

(Seek you the little treasure of your heart;

If you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.)

—Maori Proverbial Saying.

This aphorism or admonition of the Maori is contained in an ancient love-story of the East Coast. It is my favourite among the many fine poetical sayings of the native race. Some years ago an old friend who through a long life of association with the Maoris had imbibed much of their ways of thought sent me one of his treasured books, on the flyleaf of which he had written the Maori lines. It was not long before his death; Maori-like he was sending out his Kupu-poroporoaki, his farewell message.

In effect, the proverb embodies advice to aim high, to be undeterred by small obstacles. In the colloquial expression of a great American: Hitch your wagon to a star.

Pacific Riddles.

It has been the custom to assume that the islands of the Pacific were peopled from outside. That assumption is based on the old belief that the origin of all human-kind was in some part of Asia. But it is equally open to us to admit the possibility of man's independent origin and existence in the Pacific untold ages ago. Who can deny such a possibility?

Human life may have been evolved in what is now the Pacific, coeval with the origin and development of the human animal in other parts of the world. Island empires may have risen and perished. What traces there are, such as those stone statues and half-drowned cities of a vanished race, are probably of comparatively recent origin. The antiquity of man in this ocean is drowned in mystery in more senses than one. Alternate long periods of raise and subsidence must have wrought vast changes.

So the Maori may be a far more ancient race than even we at present believe him to be. We can only speculate and ponder. The Pacific will always remain the great puzzle of the world.

The Maori Whare.

How beautifully a well-built whare of raupo thatch or nikau fronds fits in with the landscape! Whether decorated of front or not, it is the kind of architecture that blends eye-pleasingly with its surroundings. The weathered thatch, the red-painted barge-boards, the very shape and roof-pitch of it, make it a complement of the natural scene, whether hill or bushy valley or bank of lake or stream. How different the pakeha shack, shanty or cottage run up in such surroundings. Here let me quote from Alan Mulgan's book, “Home: A New Zealander's Adventure”:

“In New Zealand a country house rarely adds to the beauty of its land scape; generally it is a blot. That is the land of galvanised iron, which is probably the ugliest building material ever invented…. In England the house is part of the landscape beauty.”

Just as in England, the real Maori house—all too seldom seen these days—was evolved by centuries of life in this country. It adds to, not detracts, from the attraction of the landscape. The page 40 cheap and horrible pakeha shack is seen in too many native kaingas; evil (pakeha) communications corrupt good manners. But there is a distinct revival of the carving art and the ancient form and colour scheme. Nearly every village of importance now has one or more carved houses built in the old-fashioned style. The trail of the corrugated iron roof, unfortunately, is over it all. A shingled roof is a glad sight in these days of the cheap and ugly tin-top.

“Our Mother's Milk.”

Europeans have often failed to appreciate the depth of the Maori's profound attachment to his ancestral lands. Pakeha farmers, pakeha city dwellers, are often such nomads, restlessly selling out or otherwise removing, that they do not understand the reluctance of the Maori to quit a place for which he has fought and which he has occupied for many generations.

There is an eloquent speech by an aged chieftainess—an old lady whom I knew, the late Heni te Rei, of Otaki—preserved in the official report of the Native Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, when the Kapiti Island Reserve Bill was under consideration. Several leading men and women of the Ngati-Toa tribe protested against the proposed purchase of the island by the Government, and Heni was one of them. Addressing the Committee, she said:

“We claim that this land is the waiu or mother's milk, handed down by our ancestors from generation to generation; the expression ‘mother’s milk’ refers directly to the income derived from Kapiti Island in the form of rent moneys, and also to the birds which it produces and the fish which may be taken off the coast. When I discovered the Bill that had been proposed by the Government to deal with the island in this way, I have been weeping ever since; I cannot agree to the island passing over to the hands of the Government and from us, because it has been the valued possession handed down to us and that we hold in remembrance of our ancestors, and no matter how you propose to take it I will never under any consideration agree to it.

“I put it to the Government in this way: That I am absolutely without another acre of land in the world except what I hold in that island; and are they going to take that from me? I am the mother of many children and the grandmother of many grand children. That is all.”

Such was the rangatira woman's pathetic protest. Her lamentation was not altogether without avail. The greater part of Kapiti Island is now a State sanctuary for native birds, and no gun or snare molests the feathered proteges of the Government. But the north end of the island, about a thousand acres of it, is still Maori-owned land and likely to remain such.

Place Tales.

One special value of our Maori and pioneer pakeha history is the colour of adventure and endeavour and poetry which it gives to many a place in these islands. There is hardly a spot—at any rate in the North Island—that has not some tale of the times of old attaching to it. We have only to look to the old countries of the world to gauge the interest of these place-stories. Historic and romantic associations are everything in Europe, and in such places as the Highlands of Scotland. America, too, has come to realise the importance of history and tradition as an accessory to scenery, and to make the most of every war tale, of every scrap of Indian legend. But no country could be richer in these materials than New Zealand. Much has been written, and yet much remains that has not yet appeared in books.

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