Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 2 (June 1, 1933)

And “Copper Maori.”

And “Copper Maori.”

Another popular bit of pidgin-Maori is the expression frequently seen in newspapers, and even in books, “kapa Maori,” for an earth-oven, the steam-cooking haangi or umu. “Kapa” here is not a Maori word, it is really “copper.” The expression originated with early-days pakeha sailors, who transferred the word from the boiler in the ship's cooking-galley to the native kainga. So the haangi became the “Maori coppers” and presently was turned about to “copper Maori,” and the Maori hearing this promptly made it “kapa,” which pakehas and even some of the younger generation of the native race imagine is the Maori term for the earth-oven. So persists the beachcomber word of old.

page 48