NATURE—AND MAN

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19765, 21 December 1935, Page 11

NATURE—AND MAN

PICNICKERS & TRAMPERS RISKS FOR FORESTS.

(By Leo Fanning.)

The holiday season of high summer always brings risks of damage to forests by fire and the spoiling l of beauty-spots by raids on ferns and the scattering of tins, bottles and other discards of picnickers. Smokers and billv-boilers are again earnestly requested to remember that a carelessly thrown cigarette-butt or glowing dottle of a pipe or live ashes of a picnic fire can cause much mischief. Small children are usually eager to pick wild flowers and ferns. They have an eagerness to possess the beauty, even when it is doomed to : wither quickly in their little warm hands. It is the duty of the elders to teach the young folk to be kind to .the wild things of Nature. This subject is helpfully mentioned by a contributor to “Nature Magazine” in an article aptly headed “Guests in the House of Nature.” “ ‘Mother Nature’ is a phrase that should not be spoken without thought of its meaning, but rather with full intent and reverence,” the writer remarks. “Nature not only is our mother by generation, but, a true mother, she offers always that solace we humans so often sorely need. Where do we turn, instinctively, to rest the body and soothe the spirit? Where to escape from the rush and jangle of every-day life, and to seek respite, even if briefly, from clashing human contacts? Where but to Nature, her woodlands and waters, to be at one for a time at least with trees and herbs, and all living things ? “ Seekers of recreation, comfort, peace, we are guests in Nature’s house and we should so conduct ourselves. Not only courtesy as guests, but gratitude as pilgrims to a healing shrine, should guide our actions. How then do we behave? Alas! That it must be confessed man’s behaviour towards Nature has been as a rule anything but that of courteous guest or grateful worshipper Rather has he been an ingrate and a vandal.” Maori Reverence of Forest God. A delightful description of an oldtime Maori house-warming by James Cowan makes one wish that presentday Maoris and other New Zealanders had the forest-reverence of the Maoris’ ancestors. Here is Mr Cowan’s chronicle: — The house-blessing by the native priest begins with a charm to propitiate Tane-Mahuta, the god of the! great forests, from whose domains the trees were taken to build the house.

Tane's forests are sacred; those towering children of the wood gods must not be felled for any light reason; it is a serious matter to lay axe to a great totara or red or white pine or a kauri rising there like a solemn king of the forest, a veritable embodiment of the spirit of the bush. ’ Then comes the chant for the removal of the tapu from the chisels, mallets and axes used in working the timbers of Tane into carved figures representing gods and departed sacred chiefs. The tools used by the caiwers are placed in the front of the house while this chant is recited. In some tribes the twig of the. rata tree is used by the priest to tap the tools and the principal carvings when he recites his runic measures. Next; the house is addressed as a personification of the forest god. It is Tane regarded as a home for man. This is finely poetical passage. It prays that the various parts of the building may be bound firmly together so that it may stand stoutly, steadfast:

“Bind, bind together, O Tane, that into thee may not enter the cold

.and stormy elements—the Frosty 'Wind, the Great Rain, the Long Rain, \ the Cold Sleety Rain, the Hailstones. Stand firmly, 0 Tane, against the assault of the God of Gales, Tawhirimatea! May all be safe and warm within thy walls. These shall dwell within thee—Warmth, Heaped-up Warmth and Glowing Heat—these are the persons that dwell within thee, 0 Tane, standing there before me. May all be joyful within thy walls!” i