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The Material Culture of the Cook Islands (Aitutaki)

Incantation

Incantation.

All incantation or pehe used in plaiting a rope, likens the island of Aitutaki to a fish and refers to the myth that it is tethered in position by rope. It also breathes of the pride with which the people regarded their land:—

E Tauviringa no te taura.
E tauviringa no te taura
No Ru-a-nu, no Te Mahanga.
E mahanga ka mou, ka mou.
Ka mou ki porau o ika,
Ka mou ki hatu o ika,
Ka mou ki vaenga o ika,
Ka mou ki hiku o ika.
Ka mou ki te punupunu,
Ka mou ki te utarei,
Ka mou ki te paraoa,
Ka mou ki te tohora,
Ka mou ki te ika taha-i-rangi.
Ka mou ki te ika turia e te anuanua.
Ka mou ki te aviho moana!
Taku henua!

The Plaiting of the Rope.
The plaiting of the rope
Of Ru-a-nu and Te Mahanga.
The knot, it holds, it holds.
It holds the head of the fish,
It holds the fins of the fish,
It holds the middle of the fish,
It holds the tail of the fish.
Within the circle of the sea,
It holds a fish of note.
It holds a porpoise,
It holds a whale,
It holds a fish that reaches to the heavens,
It holds a fish o'er which the rainbow arches,
Held in the immensity of the Ocean.
It is—My Land!

page 72

Remarks. It is hardly necessary to remark upon the importance of cords and ropes to man in a stone-age culture. Nails, screws, bolts, wire and metal bands all had their functions discharged by lashings of cord or rope. The introduction of metals has wrought no greater change in the material culture of the Cook Group than in the various details in which cordage once reigned supreme. Sinnet braid is no longer an absolute necessity. As a result, its manufacture is rapidly disappearing. The imported two-ply twist of factory manufacture has taken its place in fish traps and lashings that are still required. The oranga, the purantea and the papako now hide their diminished heads amongst the ordinary flora and the younger generation of people knows them not. The hau alone retains a measure of its past importance. Nature with the kindly interest it has always displayed in man, has scattered it abroad with a prodigal hand. By the sea shore, in the recesses of the bush and along the modern roads, it grows in profusion, ever ready to yield its bark for any use from the stringing of fish and the tying of food to the mending of a four-wheel buggy. What the flax is to the Maori, so is the bark of the hau to the Polynesian. In spite of civilisation, they will always be needed in cases of emergency.

Civilisation has effaced much that the ethnologist seeks to decipher. The outward shape of the outrigger canoe remains, but the top-sides, seats, and bow and stern covers are nailed on, whilst the segments of the hull are held together by copper bolts. The nikau sheets on the roofs of houses give an outward shadow of the past but on entering within, one misses the symmetrical sinnet lashings that once, not only secured them in position, but contributed ornamentation of a pleasing nature. In fact, the sheets seem to remain in position by a miracle. The miracle is the metal nail driven through the midrib of the leaf into the woodwork of the kaho. The pandanus leaf roof has disappeared from Rarotonga, not through the natural change in culture but through the destruction of the plants by one of the many parasites that accompany improved European transport. Soon the nikau leaf roof will also disappear and the intrusive metal nail will find more appropriate companionship in associating with its true cultural companion, corrugated iron. Cultural changes are page 73inevitable but there are some elements of it that leave a feeling of sadness and regret.