MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1939, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

UTU. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) That sacred word Utu, applied equally as a recompense or retribution, like other attributes of a religious nature was never named. Like the love of a man and a maid, or that of two united in something akin to friendship, but more subtle, a lifelong mental, spiritual, and material union, was always tapu (sacred, unspoken). Equally silent was one’s gratitude for kindness or a gift, (hoatu noa), an evil thought or deed (mea kino). In either case Utu was the word applied equally to retribution, recompense, or reprisal. Land, the most sacred material possession, when taken by conquest was the proper Utu for loss of life, otherwise it could not be morally given or accepted. Being our medium of exchange for anything, land, property, services, compensation, evils or benefits, we naturally adopted the word Utu and applied it to money. When the Maori realised that his sacred symbol Utu was debased and converted into a Mea noa (common thing), he naturally lost all spiritual regard for it. Its appearance in the Church, the Pakeha equivalent for his ancient Whare Wananga, the home of learning, and of the spirit of his Gods, and his ancestors, he was greatly distressed. These simple people could not understand our theology, and were utterly perplexed to find a “debased symbol of Utu in the plate to pay for a drink of wine, and thus cultivate a taste for the. evil which was to ruin us.”