MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 September 1940, Page 9

MAORI MEMORIES

FAIRIES AND DEMONS. (Recorded by J.H.S.. of Palmerston North, lor the “Times-Age.”) Fairies and fairy stories of the Maoris were as true to their men and women as to theix and our little children. Imagination led them to an implicit belief in their charming little Pake-pakeha (white fairies) who lived in the forest blooms. In contrast to their own dark skins and darker moko (tattoo) the first white people were met with the pleasing cry from a thousand voices “Haere mai nga Pakeha rahi” (Welcome as our guests you great white Fairies', and as such were they regarded until by trickery, strong drink and firearms they robbed the Maori of his one immortal symbol, the land of his fathers. Then they became the sons of Nga Whiro (evil spirits).

One memorised record of the Tainui canoe voyage is that these Pakepakeha (little fairies) came as passengers, and were ruled by a Royal Queenly creature named “Peri,” which strangely enough is the name for similar fairylike people in Peru. Other reports of the original inhabitants of Aotea roa state that they were fairies named Patu paearehe.

Still other classes were the Karitehe who watched for the Maori girls gathering the sweet Kie Kie for food, when they were carried away to some unknown region and never again returned.

Koraha tahai (robbers of fern root land) was the name of a much feared fairy lady who stole the new born babies. The Taniwha was a monstrous water reptile universally feared, but havingno more evidence of existence than the Lough Ness monster.