LONG-PARTED COUSINS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 6

LONG-PARTED COUSINS.

The members of the delegation of Maoris who have just gone from Wellington to the Cook Islands, are not likely to find more than has already been made known by pakeha searchers, particularly the late Mr. S. Percy Smith, president of the Polynesian Society for

many years. But they are sure to have a joyful reception in Barotonga and other islands of the group, the last of many Hawaikis on the long Pacific migrations, as preserved in Maori traditions. In Mangaia Island especially they will be reminded of the ancient connection, for the old legends are preserved there more fully than in any other island of the group. The old sages of Barotonga,; where Mr. Smith gathered so much interesting lore on his six months'' voyage of investigation in the South Seas in 1897, have long gone to their fathers, and the information they gave is on printed record. 1 The learned man, Tamarua Orometua, who lived at Ngatangiia, was the aged.chief who supplied Mr. Smith with traditions that exactly tallied with well-authenti-cated Maori history of the canoe migrations six centuries ago.

The representative Maoris of Botorua, Taupe and the East Coast who have gone to Barotonga will find the names of their ■ ancestral pilgrim ships, the Arawa, Tainui and Takitimu (or Takitumu), quite familiar to their Polynesian cousins. These sailing canoes and others came in the first place from Tahiti and Baiatea, and Barotonga was a calling place on the long ocean voyage for provisions and repairs. No doubt also some natives of Barotonga joined the various vessels there, besides those crews who built their canoes in Barotonga and sailed thence for these shores. Many names of Barotonga localities are borne by places in New Zealand to-day, such" names as Maketu, Arorangi, Wai-kokopu and Awarua. The ancient. connection between Maoris and Earotongans was renewed many years ago, when numerous Maoris visited the Cook Islands in whaleships and trading schooners, and in this way there was an interchange of traditions that are embodied in the local lore to-day. Over half a century ago the chief Paul Tuhaere, of Orakei, and his Ngati-Whatua people owned a schooner, the Wikitoria (Victoria) and in this vessel many Maoris visited Barotonga and many Polynesians came to Auckland;, and there were intermarriages. I remember that when I first went boating down to Orakei something over forty years ago there were several Earotongans living* there. Several schooners owned and manned by natives of Barotonga and Aitutaki, with white men to navigate them, came into the Waitemata in the 'nineties. The dialectical differences between Maori and the tongue of Barotonga are slight, but Maoris going to the islands for the first time find it necessary to. get the assistance of an interpreter. It is not long, however, before the, strange words and idioms become familiar. Maori is probably a purer form of the tongue of ancient Polynesia than any other dialect except perhaps that of the remote islands of the Eastern Pacific. Barotonga, like Tahiti, is given to eliding' the "h," as "in "haere" and "hoki;" and the folk at Tahiti drop all the consonants they possibly can, and soften down the others, a reflex perhaps of their constitutional aversion to avoidable exertion. - ' —J.C.