MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 July 1939, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

JAPS AND MAORIS OF ONE RACE.

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”)

In February, 1940, Japan will celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the foundation of its Empire. This is of special interest to every person who is concerned in the origin and history of the Maori race and of New Zealand, of which we have less information than that of Nineveh.

For two years a Japanese student — Kawasi —at Massey College. Palmerston North, was engaged in the study of sheep farming with the object of establishing the industry on his hilltop lands in Japan. He said that farming was but a secondary consideration, his main objective being the study of Maori place names, their meaning and origin, and to compare them with those of his own country. Fortunately, I was able to lend him my manuscript, showing the Maori names of 1000 post offices, with what I believed to be their meaning. This he will use in his book on “The Common Origin of the Maori and the Japanese.”

Kawasi is now certain that the races sprang from the same source, “Hawa Iki” (literally Little Java), 2600 years ago, the Japs going north to a more severe climate and losing stature, the Maoris coming south to this temperate land, where they improved in size. We know as little of the Japanese language as they do of the Maori, but from our mutual comparisons we could not doubt that they were of common origin, the meanings so much alike, the syllables ending in a vowel, and the sound of each vowel similarly used. The Jap. religion, coming from the Shinto, a pure nature worship, corresponds with the original Maori devotion to the gods of the sky, the earth, the forest, the ocean and all things natural.

Kawasi derided our theory that the Maori first came here 700 years ago. He is certain they parted with the Japs, at the equator, B.C. GGO.