Page:Maori Division of Time.djvu/12

8 human generation, and that is assuredly not a precise one. The unit was not an arbitrary one of a certain tale of years, but actual genealogies were employed, a fact that rendered precision impossible. A generation may be shortened or lengthened; two persons descended from a common ancestor of 250 years ago may count, the one ten generations from that ancestor to himself, the other possibly but eight. This imperfect system of chronology cannot be termed a satisfactory one, but it is the only one that can be utilized in dealing with the traditional history of the Maori. In order to introduce uniformity the Polynesian Society has fixed upon twenty-five years as representing the Maori and Polynesian generation.

The Maori had some peculiar ways of defining lapses of time, some of which appear vague to us. A few quotations from traditionary stories will illustrate this: "Whatonga remained one autumn with his sons." Inasmuch as he arrived in December this would mean that he remained about five months with them. Names of the lunar months were commonly employed in fixing time, as—"The old man was lying in the porch of the house, basking in the sun of Tatau-uruora (November), the division of the year that impinges upon Akaaka-nui (December)." And, again: "It was decided that the canoe-race should be held in Tatau-uruora of the Orongonui season of the year." This season of Orongonui seems to have included summer and autumn, but we know not why it was called Rongo-nui; possibly it was because the fruits of the earth are plentiful during that period.

A more precise way of fixing a date was by means of mentioning not only the name of the lunar month, but also that of the night or day of the moon, as in the following: "The vessel came to land at Rangitoto. Having remained at that place for some time, until the Akaaka-nui month of the season, on the Omutu night of the moon the vessel of Kahu sailed from Rangitoto." A very frequent usage was the use of ordinal numbers to designate the months, as—"In the fourth the head of the Cordyline was cut off." The word month was omitted but always understood.

In certain notes on Maori matters collected by Governor King of New South Wales, and published in 1796, occurs the following: "The New-Zealanders reckon time by the revolutions of the moon, and employ one hundred moons as a unit in measuring time." The latter statement is assuredly an error; no such unit was used by the Maori. Of the word tau, now employed by natives to denote the solar year, Williams says in his Maori Dictionary: "Tau = season, year; the recurring cycle being the predominating idea rather than the definite time-measurement." An old native of much knowledge, on being asked in what year a certain event in Maori history took place, replied: "The Maori had no tale of years as Europeans have; their reckoning of time was by months and days, by summer and winter." The Rev. W. Gill tells us that at Mangaia the year was divided into two seasons, or tau. The same system obtained at Tahiti and other parts of Polynesia. Fornander states that the primary meaning of tau in Polynesia is "season," in some cases a season of six months. Occasionally it denoted, derivatively, a year. The Maori