A Mokoia Memory.

At the same time there are a great many introduced words which have no exact equivalent in Maori, and it is necessary to dress some of these English words in a Maori mat. Some pakeha-Maori words have a curious history. I shall instance just one.

Many years ago, when I was visiting some old Maoris on Mokoia Island, Rotorua, one of them chanced to mention the “toronaihi,” which he said were making raids on his maize patch with disastrous results to the young growing kaanga. Enquiries elicited the explanation that the “toronaihi” were mice, which were a plague on the island at the time. I went into the history of the word with old Tamati Hapimana, and discovered that the sharp-toothed little raiders, which were not known in New Zealand before the pakeha came, were likened to the “draw-knife” of the coast whalers, the sharp instrument used for slicing up the blubber. A sickle was also called “toronaihi.” An interesting philological pedigree and migration from the whaleship and the longshore whaling station to the Maori wheat-growers' harvest field and then to the island sanctuary of the Arawa, with the first mice, stowaways in some lake canoe. I like “toronaihi,” with its three-fold significance.