former times the Rarotongans used to visit it. It took them two days and a night to reach there in their canoes. There is no such island at the present time, but the Haymet Shoal exists in latitude 27° 30′, which is about 360 miles south of Rarotonga, a distance their canoes would sail over in about the time mentioned.[1] The toka-matie puzzled us all at first, for the translation is "grass-stone," but it soon dawned on me, and was confirmed by Tamarua, that they used the word matie to describe the green colour of the stone brought back by Ngaue. The expression is therefore an exact translation of our word "greenstone," or the pounamu[2] of the Maori. When I asked the old man if he had ever seen the greenstone, he said he had not, and, on my showing him a piece I had with me, he exclaimed, "Ah! It is true then what our ancestors told us of the toka-matie—there is such a stone." He was very pleased at this, but his pleasure scarcely equalled mine in finding that the Rarotongans had a traditional knowledge of the greenstone, and the fact of their giving it a different name showed that they did not derive their knowledge from the Maoris.
To Maori scholars versed in the traditional history of the people, it is unnecessary to say that this Rarotongan story is almost the exact counterpart of New Zealand history. To others, not familiar with Maori traditions, it may be
- ↑ Judge Wilson told me that a trading vessel from Auckland used, at one time in the early forties, to visit an island, the exact position of which was kept secret. But on a subsequent visit the island had disappeared. Col. Gudgeon, in answer to my request that he would make enquiries as to any further information the Rarotongans might have about Mr. Wilson's story, says, "Certainly there is a remembrance of the Tuanaki people and island, and old John Mana-a-rangi had seen some of the people. I do not think the island disappeared more than 70 years ago."
- ↑ Namu is an old Tahitian word meaning "green."
