MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1939, Page 8

MAORI MEMORIES

AGAIN THE MOA.

(Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”)

Doubt has commonly been given as to whether the Moa was living when the Maori canoes arrived. The use of words and phrases should satisfy us on this question to say nothing of the preservation of the remains of the giant bird and the Maori legends concerning it. Moa means also a sleeping place in a garden and round stones found in their gizzards. Place names are Pukumoa (moa bowels), Papa Moa (moa flat), Moawhango (hoarse voiced moa), Tataramoa (moa tangled in bramble). There is now no doubt in the mind of scientists of every country that the Moa is the king of birds of the air, the sea, the earth or of fossil remains. A century ago this country was regarded abroad as a myth, or at best a mere dot like the’ home of Crusoe, and the moa a fairy tale. Of course the biggest bird and the smallest country for its sole habitation were inconsistent in the ideas of evolutionists . Now, however, geologists and naturalists are satisfied that we are but the small surviving spot of a vast continent extending north and south for thousands of miles, now sunk beneath the great ocean of Kiwa. Tn an ancient Maori Waiata (song) reference is made to the Koromiko “as the very tree with which the Moa was roasted when all its fat was melted down.” In a Maori dirge of lament for the slain (Aue) the words conclude: “Even as the total destruction of the Moa.”