USE OF TITOKI OIL

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22066, 12 September 1941, Page 8

USE OF TITOKI OIL

HEALING FROM A NATIVE TREE Maoris have found good medicinal uses for various native vegetation. One beneficial product in the old days was oil extracted from fruit of the titoki. The process is interestingly described by Mr J. W. Connell in the ‘‘Education Gazette.” A strong bag (he writes) was woven from strips of flax leaves and the seeds placed in it; the bag was then pounded with a club to bruise the seeds; then a man at each end held the bag and, turning in oposite directions, pressed out the oil. Sometimes hot stones were placed among the seeds to increase the flow of oil. Sometimes the oil was scented with crushed leaves of such plants as tall manuka, tarata, raukawa, kohukohu. and kawakawa. A hair-oil was made by mixing the oil with the extract of a sweet-smelling moss (kopuru); the finished product was known as tiunraukawa. Sometimes the skin of a bird, usually a pukeko. was dipped in this scented oil, rolled into a ball and hung from the neck. The oil was also used for anointing rangatira. It is said that the berries are plentiful every third year; hence the Maori proverb “Rangatira of the titoki year”—i. e., men of lovzer rank anointing themselves with the oil and pretending to be rangatira.

Other uses of the oil were for treating sore eyes, sore breasts, ear-ache, tubercular troubles, sprains, bruises and sores.

“It seems a pity,” comments Mr Connell, “that, at present, little use is made of the oil, although in the early days the Maoris along the West Coast, from Kawhia to New Plymouth in particular, realised full well its many good qualities. The Waikato Maoris appear to have used it mainly for treating sores and bruises and as hair-oil.”