Bushmen’s Names of Trees

Forest and Bird, Issue 106, 1 November 1952, Page 10

Bushmen’s Names of Trees

By

B. IORNS

AN account of some of the names, mostly desciiptive and many incorrect, given to New Zealand trees and shrubs by the early settlers, and in most cases still in use. We have taken the liberty of making some additions and comments in the form) of Editorial Notes.

Knowing little of botany or botanical names of trees, shrubs or plants, bushmen and settlers developed a motley collection of names for them. Some of these names were true Maori, others crude mispronunciation of Maori, some after English trees, and others descriptive of the tree or some of its properties. Rarely did they resort to the botanical name except when the Maori and the botanical happened to coincide as in totara, tawa, taraire, etc. At times, especially on the higher levels where Maoris were scarce and popular names rare, such botanical names as Lacunosa (Ole aria lacunosa') and Gaultheria were accepted, although the latter with its lily of the valley like flowers, was just as often called snowberry also a bit lower down that long trailing fern, Lycopodium, l was only slightly twisted into lakkerpodium. In all these cases only half the botanical name - was used, and there were no rules about which half either, except perhaps to take the easiest half. The natural consequence of this was that many different names were applied to the same tree in different parts of 'the country. Even the Maoris had some different names according to locality; most of the accepted Maori names originated in the north, and did not always agree with those further south. Some of the names were not exactly flattering to those honoured by having certain species named after them. For instance, that long spiked shrub of the stony plains, the tumatakuru of the Maori, became matagowrie, and is now even better known as Wild Irishman. The sharp-hooked clinging vine the tataramoa, became the lawyer or bush lawyer, which name is universally used even by members of the legal profession who happen to make contact with it, the difficulty of getting out of its entanglements making the name self explanatory. In the snow-line country that bayonet-leaved member of the Aciphylla. genus at one time known as spear grass, is now almost exclusively termed Spaniard. The original bestower of this name probably relieved some of his racial antipathy in the effort. The common manuka was known to many as tea tree 3 , and even at times spelt ti tree, which would make it the cabbage tree, that being the Maori name of that exaggerated lily that so little resembles a cabbage. Pronunciations, or mispronunciations of manuka were evenly divided between marnikker, with the accent on the mar, and mernooker, with the accent on the nooker. The fuchsia tree was always known as the konini, whereas it is the kotu-

kutuku, the konini actually being the berry, being one. of the few cases of a fruit having a name distinct from the tree, as in the acorn being the fruit or nut < ' the oak tree. In the South Island where Maoris were few and the pakeha seldom had opportunities of hearing correct Maori, that golden-flowered tree, the kowhai, became gowhai, and the korari or flower stalk of the flax, got down to a kraddy stick 4. Of course tutu was just plain toot to almost everyone. Porokaiwhiri was too much of a mouthful, so that tree became pigeon berry or pigeon wood. Mahoe on account of its light coloured wood, became white wood or whitey wood. The most evil smelling of the coprosma family seldom got its Maori name of hupiro; it was stinkwood. Another unusual member of the lily family is the supplejack, commonly pronounced as sooplejack, whose tough stems or vines were widely used at one time as pins to hold thatching on hay or grain stacks, also as bows to stretch rabbit-skins on for drying, and last but not least by school teachers in the enforcement of discipline. The kawakawa, mostly pronounced as kuvverkuvver, was also known as the tree supplejack, from a similarity to the dark colour and jointed stems of that vine. Tupari, unbeloved of scantily clad trampers on the snowline, was widely known as leather leaf, leatherwood, leather jacket, and even leather lugs. Its low radiating branches guaranteed that they would always be end on, no matter how approached, and if one pushed the branches aside, he merely arrived at the centre of the bush, so generally climbed over. Houhere, turned into the botanical Hoheria, was from its remarkable inner bark, known as thousand jacket, ribbon wood, and lace bark, the latter being the most appropriate. The kiekie, usually pronounced geggy s , was often confused with the astelia, which although its leaves were similar, had none of the long ropey stems of the kiekie, nor did it climb from the ground up the trunks of trees. The pokaka was known as the white hinau, having a much lighter bark than its brother tree the common hinau, which was known sometimes as new chum’s maire, as the wood and bark resembled maire sufficiently to deceive the inexperienced. The beeches, tawai to the Maori, were almost universally termed birches, except by botanists, but the term beech is better known now, even to those who for convenience still use birch. To distinguish the four different species of beech, as many as seven different colour prefixes were used, black, brown,

red, pink, silver, cherry and white. The latter was applied to the kamahi 6 which was not a beech at all. Perhaps still more colours may have been used for the hybrids that occur between two of the species, truly a rainbow tree. Kamahi was as often as not called tawhero, pronounced tarfero 7 with the accent on the tar, this actually being its northern brother, perhaps not without some justification, as Kirk in his “Forest Flora” suggested making them one species. The maire tawake was. known also as the waiwaka, and sometimes as the bog myrtle from its liking for wet boggy situations and its myrtle-like flowers. Where the maire of it came in is hard to see from any point. Tanekaha was often called celery topped pine, but many stopped at tannykow B . That striking shrub or giant plant, the poro poro, with its large blue flowers so like those of the potato to which it is related, was bulla bull to all and sundry. The fine tree fern, ponga is the Maori, was just plain hunger, in fact all tree ferns were hungers, some being black hungers, some brown, some silver, but all hungers o . Pukatea was always buckerteer. Rewarewa is still widely known as honeysuckle from a resemblance in the flowers to the sweetscented English vine of that name. The Raupo, so useful for thatching grain stacks for the pakeha and whares for the Maori, and generally accepted as the bulrush of the Bible, is still generally termed rarpoo. The rata is still commonly believed to be a parasite, many going as far as to maintain that the rata climbs up its victim, absorbing its sap and eventually strangling it, its red flowers being coloured by the blood of its victim. When ridiculed, one challenged the writer to show what had become of the victim, perhaps inferring that the rata had swallowed it whole. Confusion no doubt arose with the smaller red and white flowered rata vines, which do actually climb up trees, but which do not develop into trees themselves or injure their support trees. One can hardly blame the common man for labelling as grass tree, turpentine wood, or even horse tail, a comparatively small tree, or shrub with tufts of long thin hair-like leaves which the botanists had tagged as Dracophyllum longifolium. Had. they known that its Maori name was as short as inaka, perhaps they would Eave been content with that. Its brother tree the nei nei, with single crowns of

flax-like leaves on the ends only of its hardwood branches, they called spider wood. This was rather apt from a resemblance on a cross section cut of its wood, to that efficient little fly catcher, the pith centre of the wood being the body of ,the spider and the curved rays providing a realistic set of legs. The pines, like the beeches also had their colours, rimu being red pine; kahikatea was white pine, but sometimes abbreviated to what could be spelt as kyke. Matai remained as matai in the North Island, but answered to black pine in the South Island. Miro held its own with meero, but was wrongly believed by many to be a hybrid between the rimu and the matai. All the same it manages quite successfully to hybridise itself into the rimu and matai timber racks and price lists of the sawmillers. Totara remained as totara except when it was shortened -to to-tra. All the panax species were five fingers, except the raukawa which does not resemble its brothers, while the patete was usually included because it looked very like one, but actually was not. Some bushmen who knew the difference distinguished it with the name of snotty gob —no one seems to know the reason why. Sometimes the common panax or five finger was called ivy tree from a real resemblance in its flower heads to those of the English ivy. Mingi or mingi mingi was a comprehensive name applied to many of the smaller coprosmas or karamus, to the larger Leucopogon, and Cyathodes, that small, light green needle-leaved shrub that has red or white berries on different bushes, also to that small tree of the peaty swamps, the Olearia virgata, this being called swamp mingi. That aggressive blue grey member of. the Cassinia genus, the tauhinu, was never anything else but tarweeny. Unlike the manuka, it sprouted from the stump when cut so the young plants had to be pulled up by hand, this being known as tarweeny jerking. It is difficult to imagine an occupation requiring less skill, knowledge or intellectual effort, so social gradings on large holdings started upwards from the “jerker” ll . The true matipou was generally known as the red matipou to distinguish it from the kohuhu, which was called the black and sometimes the silver matipou but was not a matipou at all. The ramarama was just rummy rum. Tawa was pronounced tower as in Tower of London. Such trees as kauri, puriri, taraire, kawaka 12 , pohutukawa and mangeao, seem mostly to have retained their Maori names intact, perhaps because of a larger Maori population and influence in their northern habitats. In this respect even a young pole-like tree known further south as a sapling, was a richer 13 to the northern bushman.

Titoki, ngaio, and kohekohe ll also held their own, but . turepo was milkwood from the sweet milky liquid that emerged when its bark was cut. Actually the two common, akeakes were not related botanically, their association being from the great hardness and endurance of their wood, the name signifying that it might last forever. The black wooded one, Dodonaea viscosa to the botanist, carries the true Maori name of akeake, whilst the yellow wooded one is akiraho a hedge and garden shrub it is better known as golden akeake, the other being known as black akeake; in both cases it was shortened to ake ak (akky ak). The commoner species of karamu at one time had degenerated into krammer trees. Of the two griselinias, the papauma or smaller leaved one was called broadleaf, and the other, puka to the Maori, was booker to most bushmen. So troublesome in the wool of

sheep and on parts of long-haired dogs on account of its clinging burrs or seed pods, the hutiwai was pronounced fairly well; another Maori name for this plant was piri piri, which was promptly converted into biddy biddy ls . . The beautiful white clematis was always cleemaytis, and the formal pronunciation of clemmertis was hotly disputed. Not all knew that the male flowers on their separate vine were half as big again and brighter centred than those of the female flower on its own separate vine. The old timers did not often trip over the Maori letter u, as is so commonly done nowadays when dealing with such names as rimu and karamu, so many being prone to end these words with the mew of the cat, instead of the moo of the cow. The bushman never referred to forest as the forest; it was always the bush to him.

*Ly co podium is actually not a fern, although it was sometimes known as “creeping fern”. 2 Wild Irishman is probably the older name. Mr. Harper remembers this in the 1870’s, but he first heard matagowrie about 1889. 3 Because its leaves were sometimes used as .an alternative to real tea.

4 The sound in Maori represented, for want of a better symbol, by r in the English spelling, was sometimes mistaken by early settlers for d; hence kraddy as a corruption of korari, . In very early days kauri was sometimes written as cowdie. s Or gee-gee (hard g).

6 Karaahi was known to bushmen in some localities as bastard birch. ’From the inability of most Europeans to enunciate the sound in Maori represented by “wh”. Williams Maori Dictionary has this to say of it: “Wh represents the voiceless consonant corresponding with w, and is pronounced by emitting the breath sharply between the lips. . It is a mistake to assimilate the sound to that of f in English, though this has become fashionable in recent years with some of the younger Maoris”. In this case the accent on the tar is wrong; each of the three syllables should be given the same value. B Tanekaha was often referred to as New Zealand oak because of a fancied likeness of foliage. 9 Or punger (soft g). 10 The Northern rata (metrosideros robusta) often commences as an epiphyte in a fork or crevice of another tree; it then sends down a long root to the ground which grows and eventually forms its trunk; often rootlets from this main root encircle the host tree and appear to be strangling it; it is possible that they shorten the host’s life but . this has been questioned. When the host dies, the rata is generally strong enough to stand on its own and it continues to grow.

Tauhinu was sometimes referred to as cottonwood. Kawaka, or kaikawaka, was generally correctly called cedar in Westland in the early days. ■ 13 The reference to richer in this connection, of Maori names being adopted into English, probably arises from a fairly universal misapprehension. This word, used for sapling, usually a kauri sapling, is thought ,by many to be a Maori word whereas rika has quite a different meaning in Maori. A possible derivation is that the long pole-like stems of the young kauri reminded early farmer settlers of rickets, ‘long poles used at home in making hay ricks. Another possible explanation is that it may be a corruption of riki or ririki meaning small, thus kauri riki or kauri ririki, small kauri.

1 Kohekohe was formerly commonly known in Marlborough Sounds as cedar, in this case incorrectly. It is actually more closely related to the mahoganies.

15 Or biddy bid.