MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 February 1941, Page 9

MAORI MEMORIES

INTRODUCED FOODS. <Recorded by J.U.S., of Palmerston North, for the “TlmM-Age.”) Prompted by some intuitive idea. Captnin Cook concluded that the unknown people of his indefinite search had few if any of our useful animals, so he brought them the substitute for their probable resort to man-eating, pigs, sheep, goals and fowls. Of these the pigs alone survived because they had wisely been made Tapu by the priests. Poaka is the name given them being the nearest they could pronounce “pork." Pigs living on fernroot were preferred by the Maoris to all other foods.

Potatoes were also the gift of Captain Cook An aged chief who died in 1853 said his tribe received two htmdfulfs and were given instruction how to plant them. They were made Tapu for three seasons, and in the fourth, the first great feast was celebrated Roasted in hot ashes they are preferred to all other nutriment. One strange taste was to soak them until putrid, then dry them and roast the pulp, .Maire came from Governor ICmg. of Norfolk Island, in. 1793, and tw the Maoris had no means of boil’mg food, they treated it in the stunt’ way as potatues. This 100 had a ne.U'eoir udour of which the Maoris seemed to be (ptile indifferent. Tribes living around the boiling ■ springs cooked their food in them A H’.e pig with a rope on a leg would be tossed in and hauled out with a clean skin and well coo!;rd in. a remarkably short time. Two meals each 24 hours, and half a gallon <d water m the interval wcit excellent nd* s of health and et’durI .'., *! w.,. cd jo small gti’eti flax in! and * ,d<m frmn tit* 1 right Imm! \V«>m*»n ale qude m»;*rt tram the men