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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 3 (June 1, 1934.)

The Wisdom of the Maori

page 47

The Wisdom of the Maori

In the great store of proverbial sayings embodied in Maori literature, written and unwritten, there are many expressions peculiar to certain districts; of these are the olden pepeha or local slogans, which may often be heard to-day when ceremonious speeches are made. The following are additional examples of proverbs in general use given in this section of the magazine; these are some typical sayings:—

Ki te hamama popoia te tangata, e kore e mau te ika. (If a man yawns when he is fishing he will not catch any fish. If a person wearies of his work it will never be completed.)

Ehara he urunga tangata, he urunga pahekeheke. (Do not lean upon man, he is a pillow that slips; unreliable.)

Mata rere puku, rite tonu ki te makutu, mata rakau, e taea te karo. (A bullet strikes unseen, like a curse of witchcraft; a blow from a wooden weapon can be parried.)

I kinitia i roto i te matikuku pango. (It was pinched within the black end of the finger nail; a saying for a narrow escape from death or capture. Te Kooti quoted this saying when he met his old adversary, Captain Gilbert Mair, at Matata, after the war, in allusion to his narrow escape from Mair's shots in the Urewera Country in 1871.)

Our Place Nomenclature.

The first bulletin of the Honorary Geographic Board lately issued, gives much useful data about our New Zealand place names and their origin, in particular English names of South Island localities. Many misspelled Maori names are corrected.

The compiler has, however, not given the authority for any of the Maori names mentioned, and certain of the recommendations for the christening of places with new English names do not take into account the fact that good Maori names of those localities exist. There is a note on a now well-known name Moera, applied to one of our Wellington suburban districts, in which the bulletin says that the name is apparently of pakeha manufacture. This, however, is not so. Moera, which means “Sleeping in the Sun,” is an ancient name. The original locality to which it was applied, as the old Maoris of the Atiawa tribe told me many years ago, was the northward-looking slope where Marama Crescent now is, on the southern side of Wellington City, near the route to the Brooklyn hills. There was a cultivation and a small settlement there a century or so ago. In quite recent times the name was transferred to the new township on the Lower Hutt, which it fits very well, but its original scene should not be forgotten.

English and Maori.

There are certain rather curious likenesses between English and Maori words, not only in appearance but in meaning, which must have been observed by those who have studied the native language. There is, “pure,” for example. The Maori word is an expression signifying a rite in which a sacred fire was kindled and prayers were repeated for the purpose of freeing a person or a place from the ban of tapu. Literally it means to purify or to cleanse from dangerous spells or to restore a person to health. So it has practically the same significance as the English word pure.

Another word in this category is “pata” or “patapata.” It means to patter, as raindrops, and also refers to the ripple of little waves on a beach. Yet another is “korihi,” which is the word applied to the morning chorus of the bellbird and tui, and other birds, in the bush. The place name Manukorihi means “Bird Chorus.

Then there is “Kotikoti” meaning to cut, “Ta” is to tap, touch, “Tari,” in one sense, means to wait, to tarry. There is also such a word as “Papa,” father, but that of course is common to many lands. It would be too much to say, perhaps, that the various words mentioned have all come from the one source, but the resemblance all the same is one of the remarkably interesting features of the Maori tongue.

Food in the Swamp Reed.

The Maori, when put to it, could procure sustenance in the most unpromising looking places. As we all know there was food in abundance in the swamp and lagoons in the form of eels and duck, but even the raupo reed he could turn to account for the filling of his meal basket.

The Maori of a past generation knew how to make use of the pollen in the red or brown knobs on the heads of the raupo. This substance, called the pua, or hunehune, was gathered when it was in a ripe stage and shred or sifted, and was dried in the sun and placed in large baskets. These baskets, which had been lined with green leaves, were baked in earth ovens; this converted the pua into solid masses or cakes, which were eatable.

The process of manufacture of this kind of nutriment was rather laborious, and the Maori did not resort to it until he was hard up for food, and in that emergency he could turn many an ordinarily unattractive natural product to some account.

The Long-burning Fire.

An expression often heard from the old Maoris when the history of their land was discussed, as in the Native Land Court, was the “ahi-ka-roa,” meaning the long-burning fires of occupation. A tribe, although temporarily defeated in war, could not be claimed to have been conquered and dispossessed if its members contrived to keep the home fires burning here and there. “My fires of occupation have always burned on this land,” was a statement that constantly occurs in the evidence given when establishing land claims.

There is a story of Te Heuheu Tukino, the Taupo chief who made a deed of gift to the State of the mountain tops in what is now the Tongariro National Park. In the Eighties his tribal rights to certain lands in the heart of the island were challenged by a Wanganui chief, Kepa Rangihiwinui, generally called Major Kemp by the pakeha. This was at a sitting of the Land Court at Taupo. Te Heuheu, fuming like one of his ancient volcanoes with indignation, asked Kepa to indicate when his fires of occupation were burning. All that Kepa could say in reply was that his tribe had made a successful raid on South Taupo in the ancient days.

Te Heuheu thereupon said: “You have no fires on this land, you could not keep them burning. As for me, my fires have continually burned ever since my ancestors came to this country. Look yonder!“—and the old chief pointed to the distant smoking cone of Ngauruhoe, which was visible through the courthouse window. “Yonder is my ahi-ka-roa! It has burned ever since my ancestor Ngatoroi-rangi and his gods kindled it there long ago.”

And that was conclusive. Kepa's claim was not sustained. He could not prevail over the fire of the gods.