MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1938, Page 8

MAORI MEMORIES

THE GREAT TRIANGLE. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) Unlike all ancient Western nations who peopled the worlds above the sky with mythical animals, the Maori could not imagine such creatures in the world of their gods. They pictured three beautiful birds that fly without limit, and graceful fishes that swim in the ocean of space. Science says the mental capacity of a primitive race depends upon its power to enumerate. The Australian black could only count up to the five fingers of one hand. The Maori capacity ’<as as limitless as the stars, and by no less than six systems. The civilised nations had great difficulty in calculating the beginning and the end of the year, and in conforming it with the seasons. Their calendar has undergone many radical changes in the course of the centuries. The Maori year began in our first week of June, and was judged by a star. The length of the year was reckoned' precisely to the hour by the nights of the moon. The Maori science of navigation obviously sprang from some ancient, civilisation. They sailed the Pacific from east to west and from north to south. It is not generally realized that the Maori occupied a greater portion of the earth’s surface and traversed a wider expanse of the world’s ocean than any nation in ancient history. It is 4000 miles from Sandwich Islands to Easter Islands, 4000 from there to New Zealand, and 4000 from New Zealand to Sandwich. In this great triangle the Maoris lived as a section of their race which included Samoans, Rarotongans, Tahitians and' others.