WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14984, 4 May 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

BY' W.B.

THE WORLD OF WHITE v DISTANCE.

According to those whose • assertion counts, Te Whit i excelled the most accomplished Maori loreist either race could bring. His statistics were exactHe had the gift to discern at once and extract the heart of things; to stress the essential and eliminate all commonplace but that required to be woven in to make his narrative unroll liko a beautiful web on the silk counter of the mercer. This preamble ended, he shall tell us how Kupe, the great Maori explorer, discovered New Zealand and called it " Aotearott"—The World of White Distance. - . ; " Huri penei, huri pera.kana kana kau, he moan a katoa —Swing the view to this side or that, the glance encounters only the wide ocean. The prospect is a blue bowl inverted over a circular section of turbulent sea, on which brine-grimed eyes, pent-shaded by clawlike, quavering hands, have stared for thirty days, each day recorded by a notch on the rauawa (gunwale strake) of their precarious canoe, to keep tally of their voyage. And but for the changing star parallaxes, their only navigation guide', they might be anchored in mid-sea,' so utterly is, to-day's as yesterday's outlook upon the< horribly unvarying expanse! ' 1 And whose are those? corpse-like eyes/ that see only a view-scape of despair?

These, my . son, are those of Kupe and his

tribe-crew, whom the exig'eance- of an over-crowded population have forced into the ocean wastes to seek new lands and homes to propagate their seed .as others before them have sought, some to succeed, some, who can call their number. to perish on the highway of their quest. Thus, every spot, no matter how. large or small, or distant, their interspace, if the soil be fertile, the visitor has dropped some seedlings of his race.

So, O ton, the ages have, stood by and

seen the human ripple widen till it has lapped the limits of the earth. *Here, first the Maori, later the pakeha; who next" The gods can only tell! Why did Kupe leave Hawaiki? Thus ,it was, O friend who understands:— Kupe . loved Kuramarotini—she of many red loin mats —his friend Hoturapa's wife. * But she refused to gratify him beyond this: " Kupe, should my husband die, repeat your wishes; until then silence were best." Then Kupe raked

among the ashes of his thoughts for some

! live ember: "How shall I do away with } Hot it in secret I have the plan of it!"

" Hotu, friend of. my boyhood, to the sea with me to catch fieh." When they had fished some time', Kupe called:! " Hotu, my , line is snagged ' beneath a rock lodge what shall I do?" Upon which Hotu cried: "Let me try." But this was not to Kupe's mind. - " No, Hotu, but dive yon down and ease it, lest- my hook break." Now Hotu loved his friend, and dived. The. next instant lie was overboard ; Kupe cut the anchorrope, and paddled ( swiftly off. ;.. When Hotu rose and* saw' the circumstance' he called ; V Kupe, brin| the canoe to me," I drown!" But Kupe closed his ears and fled, and Hoturapa perished.

♦ ' * • * • ;' I ' When Kuramarotini, whom, for short, O son, we will call Kura, came to the beach to clean the fish, as is! the custom of our women, and saw no Hotu, she cried: " Kupe, where is my husband?" Then Kupe laid many lies side by Ride to choose the likeliest: "Kura, a sea monster reached into our canoe and lifted Hotu out and ate him!" But Kura's wound healed- slowly, and when she thought Kupe would repeat his wish she moved away. Then Kupe hewed him a great canoe, fit for vast voyages, and when much food was prepared he, called the young and strong men of his tribe, and instructing Teia, his daughter by a former wife, to coax Kura to enter, he loaded his canoe, and they embarked that night, and' pushed into the sea to seek new lands, whore he might enjoy Kura in confidence. Thus it. was that Kupe became the greatest of his time. - *

Why did he sail at night-? Because, companion who will not bo denied, that he might lay his course by the starswhich to place in line ahead, and,, which to keep in rear. Why did lie choose the west? Because, friend of endless questions. firstly, he noted that, kuaka (godwit) annually flew that <: .avay. And, secondly, because that evening when the sun set if, laid out a chart upon the sky in bruise-green and red upon - a ground of shame-face grey, ' divided into great lands, and small lands, and tablelands, and uplands, and headlands and mountains,. and valleys, and still lakes bordered by level foreshores world complete—calling " Kupe, here shall/be the home of thy seed evermore come, seek me!" • For, know you, Kupe saw there the image of the- unknown land reflected on the sky, to Jure him, to be a. symbol what io search tor. And Kupe's soul answered: "Great omen, I come!" And after thirty-two days, assisted by the mana of his gods, 10, there lay the picture of his dream-view! But, instead of bruise-green and red, on a ground of shame-face grey, he saw a ridge of white, stretching far as eye could see, supported on lower slopes of tui-blue, fringed with endless borderings of white surf, till the eyes ached to follow them, and he called in ecstasy : "Ko Aotearoa, eh—eh—e!" —Lo, a World of White Distance!— "Here shall be the home of my seed evermore!" tor in Hawaiki there are neither .'snow mountains, nor long shore smf lines: white, yes, but short, ° which a man might sprint in one lap and not lie core distressed. Hunger, Ihiist, bitter dawns, his daughter's death pine, all these were forgotten in that bewildering wonder-view, .he World of White Dis° t a nee. Furthermore, he sailed at night, because then hope is nimble and eager to see what the morrow has to show. Also to gain experience in the handling of his stars.

But many days before this tree had fruited Kupe's sin was searching for atonement,! For the spirit of Hoturapa was with him night arid day—sometimes in a head wind; at others in a storm; again, he held his breath to destroy his slayer with a deadly calm, that he might delay him till his water gourds were dry. and his provender, consumed. Again, he sent him forward with a. wind of progress. to toy with him, to wrench at his hope-strings, as his own were wrenched when he trod water and called: " Kupe, return; they friend is perishing!" And seeing no response. called loader: "Kupe! Knpe! return! 1 drown!" And Kupe closed his ears, and struck his paddle yet the deeper for that call. And now, that, wife, Kura, thoughts of whom were with him in his last agonies, lay in the embraces of his treacherous chum! No; this sin groped tor recompense, and must be gratified. And the remembrance of his vile enormitv bit Kupe harder, because he must be "silent and bear his load alone! How could he confide 111 his bride, or Teia, his daughter, or his tribesmen, that their chief and captain was the treason-lepered murderer

of his bosom friend, and that, their everyday misfortune befel them through Hoturapa seeking recompense?

Thus they drifted on the wilderness of waters, this way that way, all the kumara baskets, but. those reserved for seedlings, empty; ail the water calabashes dry-— for the seedlings, being under tapu, must not be eaten —till some cried: " Kupe, end this madness ! Return!" But Kupe clenched his teeth: "Wait vet another day!" And bringing out the lull strength of his tohunga. antidotes, prayed in this wise: •'Tangaroa (sea god), take mercy on your distant relatives. Behold, their sorrows are gone beyond the strength of man. It so be a victim is required, let the sacrifice be mine! Take Teia, mv daughter, for an offering; but spare my people, who have done no sin!" • * •

When Hoturapa's spirit heard this prayer it was satisfied, and permitted the wind to issue from the north, swiftly, but steady, like , the soaring of an albatross. Then Teia covered her head, and, weeping, sang: "Farewell, O hills of Hawiiiki!- Farewell to the soil of my birth, where my mother lies buried! Farewell to - *the sins, by whomsoever committed, which demand of my body to therefor atone! Farewell to all but the death that is painless; wrap me in the garment of slumber .before you come for your toll ! Tiki, beloved, hold my hand; # does it shiver? Grieve not overlong for your troth-maid; there are others; maybe there, in the land that, you seek and shall find! But when you lie in her arms,-think it is I who clasps you ; for .1 shall bo there. O, woo to the bitterness that attends farewells!"

Then Tiki, her betrothed, took her hand and held it, for he knew she must die! Two days and nights he held her hand. On the second day, behold a long white barrier lay athwart their path in the south. It was the land now known as Te Wai.Pennant he saw first, and, because of its , appearance, called Aotearoa. But when he coasted through Raukawa (Cook Strait) from the west, he called the land on his left: Te-Ao-ra-whiti, the World of the Rising Sun. When you write, be sure to tell it as 1 say:. Kupe, before he sailed through Raukawji thought, the land in front of him to be one world. It was the later voyagers, ' who, discovering 'greenstone there, gave it the name of Wai Pounamu., Be sure and tell them this, lest untruth lead the future times astray.

When Teia, 111 the custom of _ the Maori destined for death, heard Kupe cry ':" Inana, e takoto mai nei, Ko Aotearoa eh eh !"—IjO, there it lies, a World of White Distance!—her hand relaxed, and Tiki covered her facc! She lies buried in ' a small cove, on that coast;' it is her fortune that- no one knows now its exact location, so no curious eves may desecrate the great explorer's daughter's- rest. ■