WHENCE OF THE MAORI.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 108, 10 May 1927, Page 9

WHENCE OF THE MAORI.

TRACES IK KAROTOJfGA. . OLD CUSTOMS MODIFIED. Institute audiences will greatly miss Dr. P. H. Buck, who gave his last lecture last evening under the auspices of that; body, in the lecture hall of the Un> versity College, his subject being *"Native Life in the Cook Islands." Some time ago he spent a profitable three months investigating Maori customs and inquiring into their material culture. It tva* only by the scientific investigation of these things that any real advance could be made in the matter of the origin of the Polynesians. He said it was generally agreed by the best authorities that the Hawaiiki of the Maori, the land front which they came to New Zealand, was situated round about Tahiti and Raiatea. Rarotonga was one of the stopping places, and the Cook group was interesting to us in New Zealand from that fact. The sailing direction of the people who migrated from Hawaiiki owing t». over-population, and other causes, wa* to keep the prow of the canoe pointing just to the right of the setting sun. la November, the month they set out, that would give a course of south-west by west, and would bring them first to Rarotonga and then would give them a landfall in New Zealand somewhere between the North Cape and the East Capet As a matter of fact the voyages struck land just about half-way between the two capes. Dr. Buck said the Rarotongans knew all about the great migration and could point out the lagoon where the canoes refitted and the exact point whence they took their departure for Ao-Tea-Roa. It was interesting to know that a shrub growing on the seashore at Rarotonga was called pohutukawju According to the tradition the voyager* arrived in New Zealand when the metrosideros tomentosa was in bloom, and they gave the first tree they saw in the new land the name of the last tree ther had seen in the land they had left— although the two were not in any way related botanicallv.

Many of the habits and customs of the people of Aitutaki (where Dr. Buck spent most of his time) were vividlr described and illustrated by means of lantern slides. He explained the native way of house-building, and showed how the New Zealand house came to be so different from the common pattern in his ancestral island, one of the main reasons being the more rigorous climate of their new home. He also showed the change that had come over the universal double canoe of the islands, and other matters of daily use.

At the close of a highly-interesting lecture Dr. Buck was cordially thanked.