The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1919, Page 6

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6 The Lutheran Pioneer.

cause of a number of deplorable defections, be-
sides giving our enemies chance to say of us that
we have no respect for the dead. And let us tell
you, dear readers, in a region such as that of
Southern Louisiana, where people are wont to de-
posit their dead in tombs and vaults that cost more
than the houses they lived in when yet in this life,
such a charge can do, and actually does, incalculable
harm.”

A seemingly insignificant thing may cause much
trouble, as we all know. A boy’s playing with fire
caused the destruction of a large part of Hamburg
years ago, and we remember having read that the
trespassing of a pig was the cause of a great Euro-
pean war. So here the want of a cemetery is caus-
ing our good missionary at Napoleonville much
hardship and distress, and is preventing the growth
of our congregation there. What our missionary
says concerning the conditions, we know to be true,
for we had people tell us the very same thing when
we were at Napoleonyille two years ago. And what
he says about the crying need of a new chapel in
some other locality is also in strict accordance with
the facts in the case. For these reasons we desire
to add our personal appeal to that of Pastor Thomp-
son and ask those of our readers who can to assist in
giving Napoleonville a new chapel in a different
part of the town and a decent cemetery.

F. J. 1.

~>2-+>

A Few Short Chapters of Maori
History.

Tue Lucenp or NIv-2.

The island of Niu-é is situated south of Samoa
and northeast by north of New Zealand, and was
one of the stepping-stones of the Maoris on their
way to New Zealand. Following is the Maori
version of the birth of this small oceanic island: —

In the beginning Niu-é@ was a coral reef (he
punga), lying at the bottom of the great sea. An
aitu, a god, came sailing from the south, and, look-
ing down, saw far, far below the white punga rock.
He let down his hook and hauled the punga up to
the surface, and, lo! there stood an island. At this
time the heavens were so low that they touched the
land. Then the spirit-god, called Maui, standing on
the solid earth, put his ‘hands against the heavens
and forced them away from the island, which was
first called Motu-tofua. The first mortals who dwelt
there were called Fao and Huanaki, who came from

the direction of Tonga. In those days there was
little food on the island; no cocoanuts, nor yams,
nor bread-fruit, but only wild trees, bearing un-
desired and tasteless foods. Fao and Huanaki put
out to sea in their canoe to find food. Wandering
to and fro over the ocean, they at last reached the
island of Tutuila, of the Samoa group. The people
gave them cocoanuts (niu) to plant, and with these
Fao and Huanaki returned to their island, and that
was how it got its forests of cocoa-palms and came
to be called Niu-é.”

Tur CANOE VOYAGERS.

The vessels in which the Maori explorers made
their daring voyages of discovery were large out-
rigger canoes, built with painstaking care and skill.
They were very different from, the ordinary river
canoe of to-day, and only one, the Arawa, is de-
scribed in Maori tradition. 'T'bis was supposed to
have been the largest that came to New Zealand,
and had three masts. “The keel-part consisted of a
hollowed-out log. Above this the vessel was built
up with hewn planks sewed together with sinnet,
the planks being very carefully smoothed and fitted
together, and supported by wooden stanchions;
and above this were top-sides curved inwards, hewn
out of a solid log.” Some of the canoes seen by
Captain Cook and described in Cook’s Voyages were
very large, one being 51 feet in length. He esti-
mated that “they will sail on », medium with such
breezes as generally blow in their sea, about seven or
eight miles an hour.” “They steer by the sun in
the day, and in the night by the stars, all of which
they distinguish separately by name, and know in
what part of the heavens they will appear in any of
the months in which they are visible in their
horizon.”

Let us picture to ourselves the voyage of such
a fleet of canoes from a tropic island to far-away
Aotea-Roa (The Long Bright World== New Zea-
land). On the shores of the island a crowd of
friends and relatives farewelling the emigrants with
cries and tears, and perhaps also secret revilings and
rejoicings; on board the canoes, men, women, and
children, stowing away their few household treas-
ures. Provisions — cocoanuts ‘or meat and drink,
calabashes of water, bread-fruit, hwe (vegetable
gourd), kumaro (sweet potatoes), and taro (pre-
served birds), and other foods of the plantation
and the forest— have already been stowed away.
The tohunga (priests) recite their invocations for
the safety of the voyagers, after having karakw’d