FIRST MOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 93, 19 April 1940, Page 6

FIRST MOUSE.

LANDED IN FAR SOUTH FROM WRECKED SHIP IN 1823. "HINERETA" AND ' TORONAIHI" (By J.C.) In the Centennial history of the B«.v of Islands district, "The Day Before Yesterday," the vicar of Waimatc Xorth. the Rev. Melville Hnreourt. makes men-1 ti>>n of an unwanted immigrant that t-amc with Bishop Sehvyn in 1542. He says that «.t Waimate Xorth "You are not sin prised to learn that the first rnoixse to be seen in New Zealand hopped from Bishop Sclwyn'e packin ca-*es on to the vicarage lawn. Waimate itself is

as quiet as a niou.se.' .

But it mey surprise the author to learn that this Northern legend is long antedated by that of the first far South

The scene was Ruapuke Island, near the eastern entrance to Foveaux Strait; it was there that the Rev. J. H. F. Wohlers the Gernien missionary to the southernmost Maori tribes, settled in 1544. About the end of the year 152.-J a new South Wales Government vessel, the Elizabeth HenricVi, was wrecked at Ktiapukc. The wreck was the means of introducing- mice to the island. The Maoris had never seen a mouse before the immigrant* scrambled eshore on the island, and not havin; a!

name to give the creature, they called it "Henrietta" or as the Maori tongue has it, "Hinerota," after the vessel that •brought it. The name spread as the mice increased or spread, and to this «kiv the Maoris everywhere in the South call the mouse the "hinereta.' .

In the Xorth it came to Ih» called "toroiiaihi,"' after the whaler's blubberslicing tool, the "draw-knife"; this was after«llio people had seen the destructive work of its sharp teeth emong its growing crops and the stored food.

These names for the mouse were iriven to me many years ago by Maoris of the old generation. The word "hinereta" I first heard on Stewart Island, and inquiry brought out the story of its origin from a deseenduiit of Tuhawaiki. chief of Riiapuko Island, the celebrated "Bloody .lack' , of the whalers j,nd traders. Tuhawaiki had a good working knowledge of English, and no doubt he prefixed any mention he made of the "liinereta" with the appropriate adjective.

-As for the other word, it was on Mokoia. in Rotorua. aWut the year 18IKS that I first heard it from .in old Ara«ii tiller of the soil on that fruitful island. He was lamenting the r.ii.ls made in the night on his you up crop of maize, wlri.h he attributed to the aecursed "toronaihi."'

I do not know whether the Xgapuhi people of the North have a similarly coined word for the mouse, but in acordanee with Meori practice, it would quite hkely heve been called "here-wini," after the Bishop.