MAORI MEMORIES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1938, Page 11

MAORI MEMORIES.

KITENGA (Discovery.) (Recorded by J.H.S. for' "Times-Age.”) The fame or honour of having been the first to discover New Zealand (after the Maoris, of course) is contended for by three navigators, each of a separate nationality. The French claim that de Gonneville of Normandy visited this country in 1504. He brought back a native of this unnamed and unknown land to France, who married a relative of the adventurer. The grandson of this mixture reported that “de Gonneville's papers were destroyed by an English cruiser,” and in 1663 a Parisian, writing under the initials F.P.D.C., said "he had tried in vain to revisit the land of his ancestors to Christianise them.” According to that writer the description given corresponded with lhe customs of the Maoris.

The Spaniards declare that “Juan Fernadez left Western South America in 1576, and after about a month came to a fertile and pleasant land of brown men and women.” This country is supposed to be New Zealand. Considering that New Zealand Is 7000 miles from their place of departure, this is an impossible conjecture. Some small island was, no doubt, their discovery. They also claim to have introduced pigs to New Zealand. Why, then, were the Maoris go delighted to receive from Cook a present of pigs, which were named Kapene Kuka in his honour, and cutely made Tapu by the priests until they became Tini (many). They claim also that the Maori word pouaka for pigs is the Spanish name pouca. It is merely their only means of pronouncing “pork.” There are certainly other resemblances, but they spring from a different source, the Sanscrit language, from which all Polynesia derived theirs. ' Had the Spaniards visited our shores, we should have found other traces than words, but not a footprint remains. The real discoverer was neither French, Spanish, nor British. We must find him tomorrow.