LETTERS

The Editor, ‘Te Ao Hou’ Dear Sir, I was interested to read of Col. C. M. Bennett's suggestion for New Zealand to make more use of its Maori population in trade and relations with South East Asia, reported in your issue No. 66. As a New Zealander working with Blackfoot Indians in Canada, I would heartily endorse this suggestion — although not confining it to only South East Asia. In my job, I have invited a Maori friend, Lou Rewita, of Opotiki, to attend some of the Indian functions. We have also had a Samoan boy, Tony Palepoi, working on the Reservation. The acceptance of both by the Indian people, was instantaneous and overwhelming. There seems to be a natural affinity between the Indian and the Polynesian; one that could be encouraged. I firmly believe that with very little help, the Maori could be one of the country's most potent envoys overseas. Peter Cresswell, Executive Director, Napi Friendship Association, Box 657, Pincher Creek, Alberta, Canada.

The Editor, ‘Te Ao Hou’ Dear Sir, I have just finished reading an old copy of Te Ao Hou (June, 1965, No. 51), the only one I ever happened to hold in my hands; and it gave me the idea of writing to you in case you might help me. I would very willingly correspond with a Maori interested in linguistics (about his own language and Polynesian related ones) and in Maori folklore, mythology and legends. As I would propose him to exchange books dealing with these subjects it might be of some interest for him to know French (I should send him French books in exchange). I can add that I am a teacher in a grammar-school and 29 years of age. If you could insert a short advice in ‘Te Ao Hou’ with my request I am sure it would help me much. I thank you warmly beforehand. Yours sincerely, M. Daniel Truc, 17, av. R. Schuman 13 — Aix en Provence France

The Editor, ‘Te Ao Hou’ Dear Sir, I congratulate Mr Bokalamulla on his article ‘Greetings from Lanka’ and Te Ao Hou for publishing it. The essay is one more indication that it has become obvious to the unprejudiced eye of more and more people that the Polynesian culture is not ‘homegrown’ on the individual islands of the Pacific but has been carried in migrations over vast stretches of time and place from other culture centres. As far as languages are concerned this principle has been accepted in the form of Grimm's Law of sound shifts and nobody is amazed that. e.g., Celtic in the far West is a relation of Sanskrit in distant India, and it can be proven by certain regular sound-changes in these related languages, that they all represent variations of some original parent language. In many Polynesian institutions, ideas, tales, myths and the names of their heroes, the origin can be traced to Sanskrit languages and, further and outside Sanskrit, to the Middle East. For India was only one of the many ‘Hawaiki’ and there are quite a number of names for stars in the Maori Calendar which go back to the Middle East. E.g., PAREARAU = Jupiter, one of the food stars of the Maori, can be equated to the Babylonian fertility god BAL or BEL ELAUHIM or Elohim. PAREARAU BALE LAU (him) L and R are interchangeable. B becomes P in Maori. Once again I wish to express my appreciation for the tolerant editorial policy of Te Ao Hou which allows space to a school of thought now out of fashion, but traceable over a century. I am convinced that co-operating teams of researchers across the Pacific, India and the Middle East would prove the correctness of this line of reasoning. Adele Schafer