WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14133, 7 August 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

A CANOE BUILDING.

BT W. 8., 113 KUIIX.

[ALIi RIGHTS RESERVED.]

Thrice within the month I have been asked to describe how the Maori built his canoe. I do not remember that I treated this matter before in the manner requested, and as in looking over my notes I find a very complete exposition collected down the byways of Time, I will here reproduce it, also the occasion which led to the search.

One summer's day, years ago, when I and the world collided and the impact was pleasant, when it was still no rare thing, to "meet with that treasure, a tohunga, in the unevil sense of the term, two companions, never so utterly content as when they foregathered, and compared, and elicited mutual consternations worth much gold. . . . but , . . all! me —sat on a cliff-edge watching a ship under sail. • One was a cunning exponent of his race's traditions and wisdom—as is the pakeha nurse of old rhymes, old tales of impossible beanstalks and bluebeards, simple, but rich in tragic to the stupefied tot on her knee. And the other, your humble servant, this scribe. The matter under obview was a homeward-bound fullrigged ship, every spot where a cloth might be stretched justifying its pressure; and the wind striking a point, one-third aft, between taff-rail and bowsprit, swelled that soaring expanse, not into units, but systems, a blended constellation t of paraboloids and convexities,. moulded and shaded as neither pantagraph nor goniometer might copy or align, as there iconograpked by the Master designer, the wind. F-" c >ry halyard and stay tense as a maid's trystwatch, and unyielding as eternal law; and when that schwarmerei of cones cut at various angles, inclined this way and that to

exhibit unexpected perfections; and uprose a sea giant, and set his shoulder under its stern, and hunching his back, uphove the towering splendour , . . held it level

one awful fraction of time , . . and gliding from under, shook off his burden into a geyser, my companion suddenly snatched at my arm with a grip vice! But when it emerged, scathleas, wet and clean, as a maid steps from her bath, the tension relaxed, and his admiration transcended his nation's canon« of speech, and rendered unto Csesar his dues: — "Pakeha! To tini matauranga oto whanau a Tiki!" (White man! 0 the myriad cultures of this scion of gods "Listen, 0 wind-ears; turn this way waves of the sea; and you, gods of my fathers, note: there is no god but that of the white man, who dwells in the brains of his chil-

dren! . . See his concept®: He says: ' Let

this thing BE' . . and it IS! He says: 'I will test my handwork: I will walk on the eea. I will wander abroad and seek me a champion,' and compare my sinews to his!' So he casts off his garments, and strips to his loin mat, and sets to his travel! Neither to right nor to left: to the front only! Monsters arise in his way . . .he waves them aside . . . and they vanish! He ar-

rives where a champion awaits him. , . .

Does he waver? . . . Does he ponder possible endings? Gods! Hear him laugh!

. . . Now they are in holts . . . this way that way . V . thigh-lock and crutchbar . . . rib-crunch and hip-hug ... a whirlwind of wrenches . . . an almighty

lift ... in, quick, with the heel-hook . . . trammel hie calf-thews . . . And the adverse champion lies prone, a champion vanquished !

"So ho cam© here, and we walked round, and stabbed him in various parts with an

inquisitive finger, and remarked ribaldly.

But we became friends. He told us—nay, what did he not tell us? And we were kind

to his impudence. He said: 'The world is

round.' We replied: 'You lie, show us. And there, look, ho lias proved it! He said: 'So many steps to the moon.' Wo

answered: ' Who has paced and counted

the paces? He says: 'The distance to yonder stake is so many handbreaths.' We tap our heads and wink implicative meanings. But he measures a distance away from the

stake, and conjures awhile with figures, and

tells us a sudden result, which, when we put to the test, 10, is correct; and truth thrusts out her tongue!

" Therefore the world is his. He makes it as he goes. All things are his. lam his. He robs me; he lies to me; he spits at my skin-shade; he preaches creeds and codes: I shall not steal, nor kill, nor look with

lust on my neighbour's wife; yet to do these things are his own happiest mo-

rr.ents! ... Yet I am his! ... . And why? Look at that ship: that is why I am his!

" But the white man is just to me in this: ho saw that my ax© was of stone; my plane, a pumice block my saw, bits of obsidian lashed to a slat; my auger, a flint-flake set in the end of a stick, and whorled with a bow-string; my carving

tools, also obsidian flakes, carefully manhandled. Then ho saw my large meetinghouse, with its inside decorations he saw my war canoe, and its in and outward absolutely true shape and surface, and was just to me. How did the Maori make his

canoe? Silence then, listen:

"'Te aitanga a Tane' (the generation of Tane). Thus the Maori classified the trees of the forest; the offspring of Rangi and Papa, co-progenitors of iran. And when the Maori desired one for use lie thought of Tane, and his soul surged with ineffable pity, because that by his hand one of these children must perish. Hence when he desired a canoe he approached the t>.«c selected ■ with reverential esteem. For these were his kindred, and because, if hie tribesman be not caught in malfeasance, if ho be a consistent provider, an observer of rights, a true friend, and implacable warman, his tribesman was sacred; and because the tree was a distant relation, he also was sacred; especially as destined to be unspeakably disemboweled and cruelly mishandled. Therefore, he, on the day set apart for the sacrifice, advances with respectful exculpatory ceremonial, and clears away the underbrush and rubbish, and when these labours are ended, he hutches down and invokes his familiars. All this he does on bowels empty of food. Then lie takes his stone axe and smites the tree, whereupon a small chip will ensue. This is the first wound, and must be atoned for; -else the forest guardians will turn nasty, and lay a curse upon the labours to come, and cause many mischances, even to the product when finished. This chip he takes up, and says to his workmen: 'Continue the work,' the while he wanders to a distance in stages, at each of which he stops and listens; when he no longer hears the axe blows he halts. Then from his kit he produced a kauahi (fire block and rubber), and lights a fire to consume the chip; no fire polluted by contact with food must be used, all must be without blemish. ; For this chip returns to the gods as a spirit—smoke—as part of the tree so benevolently slain, and whether for canoe or ridge-bone, or housepost whereon ancestral tribe founders will be carved, or pallisade posts for a pa, all are of deadly import, and must be tranquilieed by patient plication. That, for firewood, and common secular uses, the gods will not resent, for they recognise -that the Maori, must live, . W.hfifl the chip h

is ceremoniously burnt lie returns to the tree and collects other chips, since abraded, and lights another fire similarly ignited, and with another set of ceremonials bums these at the base of the tree. The first was burnt in fear of the gods, but these •that Tane may witness how all ritual was duly performed, and that now every vestige of umbrage subside. When these piacular devotions are ended, the tapu is lifted, food may be cooked, and the bowels replenished without fear of retributive anger: ' Kua noa' (it is made common has been assoilzied). "The tree is now attacked in coarse earnest; every blow delivered with a harsh breath expiration . . • • The axe Why, then, this was the pose of it. . . But first, the lean of the tree was debated. That settled, two posts were fixed in the ground on the first scarf side —the side it would fall tothe width of the tree apart, and of height to allow for a scaffold upon which the labourers may stand. From poet to post, a straight rail was tied, to rest the axe-helve upon,, which axe was not helved like the white man 6, at right angles, but firmly bedded and lashed in a recess at the end of the helve-pole, with strong sinnet. Then four slaves grasped the pole, and using the rail for a rest, butted the axe at the tree, across the grain, with might. A hand's breadth higher, another groove was thus graven, and the intermediate wood pecked out with a narrower adze. When the master adjudged the c depth to be just, the rail was raised half a man, and a similar groove graven, and the block between scooped out with the same tool on edge; and if the scarf was deep enough to house a fire, such was employed to char the .wood. Then the other scarf got attention . . . thus . . . and thus . . . until the tree fell. Then the length was measured in ' pae' (extended arms-fathoms); this was our standard. Or the heel and toe, trod in succession, by the will of the master. . . . Not so exact as the pakeha rule, maybe, but very exact for the Maori. The bole now lies prone, cut to length, and the side for the 'riu' (hold)- turned uppermost. Then a fire is built along its centre, lenghthwise, and slaves stand ready with watergourds, and watch * where it ovei'-croaches to quench it. The fire dies: the charred wood is chopped off: and so the body is roughhollowed. Then the master mechanics approach to shape and trim, leaving proper projections, to be bored for the 'rauawa' (gunnel strake) lashings, and the inside is finished. The shell is now turned over and the outside rough-hewn to approximate form; and four posts— at each end and side—equi-distant. from the central, or keel line, are firmly fixed in the ground. From post to post, at each side, a fine strong cord is stretched, from which all'final measurements are set off, which, assisted by the | expert eye of the master, ensures that both sides be exactly alike, in outline of curve— in fact, perfect. : "Thus is a Maori 'waka taua' 'war conoe —Syn. Sir J. I. W. Dreadnought) built. But the end is not yet: for the 'rauawa,' and ' pitau' (figurehead), and 'taurapa' (stern piece) must be carven and fixed which, my son, I have told you before. During these labours no food must be brought near the work, no chips hewn therefrom burnt at the mess-fire; all is done in fear of the gods: of something omitted, ensuring later mischance. Every section of work began with its appropriate propitiatory invocations, as by ancient ritual established; and all thoughts are humbly intent upon future success. For from the day in midwinter when the sap is low, and the tree is felled, two, nay, three years may subtend until the master says: ' Toia te waka kia manuu' (launch the canoe that it float). At which operation a slave is sacrificed and his blood sprinkled upon her side in the ' taingakawa' (sanctifying) ceremony: the name j3 allotted and the labour .'s done."