POHUTAKAWA

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 December 1934, Page 10

POHUTAKAWA

THE COMING OF THE. MAORI. In the Christmas season the warmer shores of the North Island aie scarletfringed with clinging precariously to spray-drenched cliffs and skirting sheltered bays. Its scar-Ict-giory is loved by us as one of New Zealand's emblems of Christmas tide. Abel Tasman must have marvelled at the beauty of the tree-clad cliffs, rising from the blue waters of the Pacific, but long before that time these trees were venerated by the beauty-loving Maori®, and the story of the love they bor° pohutukawa, is told in an old Maori legend. Ringo (listen), I shall tell you of it. Out of the blue horizon sailed a little fleet of battered w-aka (canoes). Tneir travel-weary crews were bending to their paddles with renewed strength. They had braved the perilous voyage from Hawai-ki, bringing with them their women and children, their household goods and most treasured possessions. They had offered their prayers to Tangaroa. god of the sea, and sailed in search of Ao-tca-roa. Through those months of the perils and dangers of their voyage these hardy, brown-skinned navigators must have thought often of the homeland they had left, where the hills were green' with screw pines and feathery she oaks, and the scarlet-flowering shrub pohutukawas fringed the surfbeaten beaches. Now there loomed out of the blue distance a long, low shore, Ao-tea-roa. Clearer and clearer it grew! What was this red haze about the water? The Maoris were filled with amazement and wonder. “Pohutukawa,” they cried. Surely the gods were with them in their new home, for here was the pohutukawa of their Homeland. Great, inlin it.•?];,- more beautiful than the shrubs they had left, but still the scarlet-flowering pohutukawa.

In the waka were great, chiefs, rangitira wearing the insignia of their rank and daring—the prized redfeather ornaments.' The men who wore them had gained honour as the bravest of the brave. But Io! as the prows grated on the sand the rangitiras flung away their ornaments as they waded to the shore.