TO GODDESS KUI.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 226, 24 September 1929, Page 10

TO GODDESS KUI.

RARE THATCHING NEEDLE.

AN OLD MAORI CUSTOM. PROCESS AND CHANT. A wooden thatching needle, somewhat similar in appearance and size to a sailor's marlin spike, but with a hole in its length more than halfway down towards the point for threading the cordage, is a rare Maori implement nowadays. A good specimen was seen in Auckland yesterday, but 1 'ie local museum is fortunate in the possession of several good ones made from whalebone. The technical name is tuhikaho, and the handle generally takes a human form symbolising the Maori goddess Kui, to whom all grass and reed growths

and house-thatching and the preparation of reeds for mat-making, are dedicated. A part of the ceremonial in the opening of a new house is the offering of a bunch of this growth to placate the mythological personality;

I In the thatching of a Maori house it was customary for two such needles to be used in the process. Two people I manipulated them, one on the inside and i one on the outside, the needles going through to each alternately. Harmony and speed were thus accomplished and the operations were carried out with a rhythmic ehaift, the English words for which meant something like this: — "Thrust outward and thrust it back. Firmly ibnd the hairs of Kui that they may be well set. Carefully weave and fasten these thatching lines, for though errors in thought may not be recognised, errors in thatching arc seen by all and shame would come upon the village and home."