[17] The word roto in Maori is equivalent to lake. Hence Roto-rua, "lake number two;" Roto-iti, "small lake;" Roto-ma, "white lake;" Roto-ehu, "muddy lake;" Roto-mohana, "warm lake," &c.
[18] The term ngawha is used to designate non-intermittent springs and solfataras; puia is applied to geysers and hot fountains; waiariki means a spring suitable for bathing.
[19] Tenakoe, pakeha, "I salute you, stranger," is the usual Maori salutation addressed to Europeans.
[CHAPTER VI.]
TRADITION, IDOLATRY, AND ROMANCE.
Origin of the Maoris—Te Kupe—First canoes—The runanga house—Maori carving—Renowned ancestors—Tama te Kapua—Stratagem of the stilts—Legend of the whale—The Arawa canoe—Noted braves—Mokia—A curious relic—Gods of the Arawas—Mokia by night—Hinemoa—A love song.
When I went to Te Ruapeka to view the runanga house, it was in company with Mr. C.O. Davis, a gentleman well-known throughout the colony as an accomplished Maori scholar, and as one who has done much to advance the spiritual welfare of the natives; and it was to his kindly assistance I am indebted for much of the information I gained on that occasion respecting the singular history of the Maori race, and the remarkable legends connected with the graven images of their curious temple of ancestor-worship.
From the earliest period of Maori history Te Ruapeka has been the principal home of the Ngatiwhakaue, a section of the great Arawa tribe, whose territory extends over the Lake Country to the East Coast. Attracted, as it were, from their first landing upon the island to the magnificent scenery of this portion of the newly discovered land, the Arawas made their homes among the lakes, whose very shores and mountains echo even to the present day with their songs and legends. Whence they and the remainder of their race came, or at what period they arrived from their mysterious dwelling-place beyond the sea, is one of those interesting events in connection with their history which have been lost in the dim vista of the past. The Maoris of the present day refer to Hawaiki as the fatherland of their race, and hence the proverb: I kune mai i Hawaiki te kune kai te kune tangata, "the seed of our coming is from Hawaiki, the seed of man"; but of the locality of this place, beside the belief that it was an island somewhere in the broad waters of the Pacific, absolutely nothing beyond conjecture is known. They have, however, a distinct tradition that their ancestors migrated to New Zealand in certain canoes, the names of which, with the principal historical events connected with them, have been handed down from father to son through countless generations,[20] and although these ancestral reminiscences may appear to the ordinary mind like a labyrinth of mythical fancies, since many of the incidents upon which they have been founded appear to have been dimmed and distorted by the march of time, yet when considered in connection with the rude monuments which serve to perpetuate their memory, they form, as it were, the missing links in the unwritten annals of a splendid, albeit savage, race of people, who by their singular intelligence and chivalrous valour will be remembered in the history of the world so long as the brilliant record of the rise and progress of the British Empire shall endure.
According to general tradition, the first of the Maori race to reach Aotearoa, as the North Island was termed by its original discoverers, was Te Kupe. This hero, who may be looked upon as a kind of Maori Columbus endowed with supernatural power, is said to have severed the North Island from the Middle Island, and thus to have formed the wide channel of water now known as Cook's Strait. His achievements are thus commemorated in a characteristic native song:—
I'll sing, I'll sing of Kupe, great and brave,
Who launch'd his bark and cross'd the mighty wave;
He—when the world from chaos rose to birth—
Divided into continents the earth;
He form'd the valleys, and the mountains too,
And gave the fruitful earth its vernal hue;
Alighting as a bird upon the deep,
He call'd the islands from their death-like sleep;
Then Kapiti and Mana[21] kiss'd the wave,
And Aropaoa[22] left its ocean grave;
These are the signs which my ancestor wrought,
When Aotearoa first his vision caught,
And now will I explore each nook and strand,
And take possession of this fertile land.[23]