Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/224

212 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. 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 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