OLD MAORI HISTORY

Shannon News, 4 October 1929, Page 3

OLD MAORI HISTORY

INTERESTING MSS. FOUND. An old Maori manuscript compiled 80 years ago by a northern chief, Aperahama Taonui. lias been found in Auckland. It consists of 43 pages and contains genealogical trees of the northern tribes. Owing to the loss of much important information of this kind the book is-considered- by authorities to be one of exceptional importance (says the Star).

It opens with a description of the discovery of New Zealand by Kupe and tells of his having left some of his family in various parts of New Zealand, including Hokianga, while ho returned to the South Sea Islands. Then the writer records *the arrival of Nukutawhiti in the canoe Mamari. It is stated that Kupe and “Nuku” met in mid-ocean, and the former told the Mamari commander how to navigate his canoe to the Hokianga entrance, where he would find Tuputupuwlicnuo and his tribe settled. The book then goes on to record the safe arrival in the northern harbour of “Nuku” and his associates, whose pedigrees are given down to the time of Toi, whose people were living in different parts of New Zealand and were quite numerous when a later canoe, the Mahuhu, arrived at the Kaipara Heads, bringing the first kumara and uwiii (vam). The wars between the older native.residents and descendants and the. immigrants by the Mahuhu are fully described in the MS.

The MS. deals with matters down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. One genealogy shows forty-two generations from Kupe (900 A.D.) and is within twenty years of the chronology worked out by Mi' S. Percy Smith. The mattor is to be translated by Mr George Graham, of Auckland, and will be of considerable"interest to Maori students.