KORERORERO TORONGA.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1920, Page 10

KORERORERO TORONGA.

Tales that are told of Maori and Pakeh.l for the Taranaki Daily News. By "Ingoa Kore." (Eights reserved.) RA-TANA NGA-HINA OF RANGI-TI-KEI. Five .and twenty years gone by, since this nature's gentleman visited Australia with a well-known Pakeha friend from Rangi-ti-kei. Though Maori was his only tongue, and instinct his only mentor in matters that pertain to manners this silken bearded, frock coated, dusky, giant was looked upon with favor and interest at the hotel tables in Melbourne and Sydney, where his companion was more than onco asked if this friend was an Indian Prince. Hia mentality and fine personality won homage from the white people, just as with the Maori it had assigned to him the rank of a Chief; though, like many another nobleman, he was of lowly birth, his mother being a "Mokai," or slave, his sire an unknown quantity. He became an honored chief ,of the Ngati-apa tribe at Pare-Ava-nui; but when they fell before the onset of civilisation or dissipation he retired to his farm at Tura-kina, the railway station near which is now named after him.

When Lord Ranfurly was en route to i New Zealand, Ratana's people and the i adjoining tribe, the Ngati-rau-kawA, were deeply concerned about the activities of the Fenians in Ireland, and had i conceived the idea that were threatening to depose Queen Victoria, and place an Irish woman on her ' throne. Ra-tana at once wrote the Queen's representative at great leagth, extending to him the cordial welcome of the Maori people to Ao-tea-rda; telling, too, of their love for his Queen and the Motherland, and giving an assurance of abiding loyalty to his Excellency. This poetic letter, written in the pure old language of the Maori, one may feel .assured, lost nothing of its graceful dicr tion from an oral translation by Sir James Carroll, a pastmaster in the intricacies of both languages. The conclusion was rendered thus: "And may the great A-tua, in his abounding cave, bless and protect the beloved Queen of our hearts; me paka te Airi." These last four words were declared by Sir .Tames to be an unauthorised interpolation. He said they had no place in the. pure Maori of the text, and he was quite at a loss to know their meaning. At Lord, Ranfurly's request they werereferred back to Ra.tana through his Rangi-ti-kei friend and counsellor, whose reply was to this effect: The Maori mind could conceive no greater compliment to his lordship's native tongue, and no stronger way in which to express his detestation of the disloyalty of the Irish Fenian than by the use, or rather the corruption, of a common British oath, coupled with the nearest approach to the name of the Irish which his limited knowledge of our language permitted. In the absence of any equivalent in his own tongue, he, quite without thought of guile, wrote it as "Paka te Airi." When this reached the newly arrived Governor he laughed as a hearty Irishman can, and gasped with a broader brogue than usual, "The very best of the joke is 'lm Irish me'self." Many years after, he wrote Ra-ta-na's friend in Rangi-ti-kei to say that this wonder- - fully beautiful letter and its joke against his own nationality was used with great effect at many an after dinner speech in England and indeed in Ireland. He added also that such poetic sentiment and expression, philosophy and insight, coming from the representative of a people whom they had hitherto regarded as ignorant barbarian aborignes, had opened the eyes of the British people, as it had his, to the mentality and :.oble character of the Maori race, over whom he wa9 then to be a ruler. The present day knowledge of the Sinn Feiner and the Maori attitude towards them are very similar to Ra-ta-na's; but now, of course, they express it in degenerate English. We are soon' to lose the original language in its dignity, beality, and comprehensive simplicity, for much of which we have to thank Professor Lee, of Cambridge, who in 1820 constructed the first written Mao'i language. With an intimate knowledge of six other tongues he avoided their defects and elaborations- It is almost a pity that this model medium of spepch should not be included in the curriculum of the public school. Then would we appreciate to the full a classic prose poem such, as that which came from the untaught pen of Ra-.ta-na Nga-hi-na.