MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1940, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

- 1 — —"" COOK’S "ENDEAVOUR.” (Recorded by J.U.S. for the "Times-Age.”) In two more years if peace prevails, we should celebrate the memorable leal of A. J. Tasman who was the first European to sight New Zealand in the little Dutch yacht Heemskirk, having as an emergency convoy a still smaller craft, the Zcehan. In what he named "Massacre Bay" four of his small crew were killed by the Maoris, who innocently believed their Waka r.ui (huge canoe) with its komaru ma (white sails) was a taniwha (sea monster) about to devour them. This was in December. 1642. He saw and named Cape Marie van Diemen and Three King. Ho came to the conclusion that this was a huge continent extending to the South Pole. Me reluctantly left Io Captain Cook the real discovery 127 years later. A boy at the masthead. Nicholas Young, was the first to sec and cry aloud' "Land ahoy." so Cook named it "Young Nick's Head." "Poverty Bay." an actual misnomer, was conferred upon that fruitful spot because the cautious Maoris refused to permit a landing by those tangata wr.irua (ghostly people). Then came Hawke's Bay. after Sir Edward Hawke. Lord of the Admiralty, and the Bay of Plenty because of the hospitable Maoris there. Bv their relative fertility, the names of' Poverty Bay and Bay of Plcntv should be reversed. Mercury Bay was where Cook observed tlie transit of Mercury. He named White Island, but did not mention it as an active volcano. Cook make five separate visits here and took Posses sion in the King's name.