“I Sing of Kupe.”

In the poetic symbolism of the Maori, the Polynesian explorer Kupé’s canoe circumnavigation of some of the islands of New Zealand is spoken of as his god-like severing of them from the mainland. There is an old song heard in Maori villages on both sides of Cook Strait which commemorates the ancient sailor’s deeds:—

Ka tito au,
Ka tito au,
Ka tito au kia Kupé,
Te tangata nana
I hoehoea te moana
I topetopea te whenua.
Tu ke a Kapiti,
Tu ke a Mana,
Tu ke Arapawa;
Ko nga tohu ena
A taku tupuna, a Kupé,
Nana i whakatomene-Titapua,
I toreke ai te whenua—e.

[Translation.]

I sing,
I sing,
I sing of Kupé
The man who paddled o’er the seas,
And cut the islands from the main,
Who set Kapiti isle apart,
Who severed Mana from the land,
And sundered Arapawa;
These are the signs
Of the deeds of my ancestor Kupé,
He who found Titapua’s isle
And left this new-found land.