MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 February 1941, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

MIMI AHA?" I (Recorded by J.U.S., nt Palmerston North, for the ‘‘Times-Age.”) Chewing intoxicant or narcotic substances like the Malayan, Polynesian, or Hindoos to produce excitement, stupor. or a How of saliva, is not indulged in by the Maori. It is strange that the Maori people have lost or forgotten the attractive art of making an intoxicant from the Kava root. This plant known as Kawakawa grows in abundance here. The flavour of its berries or leaves is of a pleasant warmth. The pure white sap of the rauriki (sowthistle) is every where used by the Maoris as a chewing gum. Its value as i a preventive and a remedy for bladder troubles is well known to all Maoris, but not yet realised by the white men. the chemists, or the doctors. Mimi, a word banned in white social circles, but may be permitted in the Maori lexicon, was freely used by the Maori men and women, to whom nothing in nature could bo regarded as* improper. Aha is an interrogative | i ? i. Rauriki was plentiful before animals | came, and in those primitive days a j hundred lads and. lasses seated on the i grass alternatively and in a circle, j awaited the gatherers, who broke the ' stems and sucked the gum-like sap of i the rauriki in mouthfulls. This they j masticated until it became an clastic j insoluble gum, then from mouth to■ hand and hand to mouth it passed al- j terna'clv between every lad and lass. I each calling to the other “Mimi aha”": ■'Ware." a dark bitumen which ' camo ashore on the Taranaki coast was I also used as chewing gum. but without! the same diuretic result as the genuine! mi tn ia ha. Chewing gum saturated with mimi-j aha would prove a blessing to thous- j antis and a fortune for some enter- ’ prising (hunk! who exploits its vir- ! lues.