MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1938, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

NATURE’S DESIGN. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) To those living in view of its principal features, very few of us know or care about their past history or present condition. Maori tradition which died out 70 years ago has been strangely confirmed and unconsciously repeated by science. At one period we were a vast group of small islands, extending nearly 2000 miles N.E. to S.E. These were ' since raised by volcanic action to one vast continent, subsequently sunken to its present form, which is again being slowly elevated, as indicated by the fact that within the present century Wellington and Napier have risen more than 10 feet. The North Island is now five or six hundred miles long. The' Ruahine (“Two Young Girls") range is about eighty miles N.W. to S.E., and rises from 1500 to 4000 feet. Almost parallel with this are the Kai Manawa ranges. South of the Manawatu Gorge the Tararua ranges extend toward Wellington. The principal mountains are Tongariro and Ngauruhoe, 7517 feet, active volcanoes. Ruapehu 9008 feet, almost extinct, and Egmont, a dead crater, 8260 feet, a perfect cone. Lake Taupo, in the centre of the North Island, is like an inland sea. From it flows the great river Waikato. One can but wonder at the source of this everlasting crystal flow of millions of gallons per minute. It is beyond the material imagination of man, so we revert to the works of Nature and the design of the Great Architect of the Universe. In his primitive, though, to our minds, unorthodox belief, the Maori was a genuine worshipper of the Author of his being, and attributed all such blessings directly to their true source. Yet we refer to them as heathens. Without water there could be | no life.