CoLENSO.— On the Colour Sense of the Maoris, 69 



much lighter, and when it was washed it became lighter still in its colour ! 

 Hence soon arose a great number of names among the Maoris for all those 

 different shades and hues of blue. Possibly there might have been a dozen 

 or more of Maori names to indicate these several varieties of blue colour, 

 newly introduced. And while it was a neat sight to see all the children, 

 and all the adult women, sitting together at school, etc., clad alike in decent 

 garments of English blue, which stood washing well and kept its colour, 

 it was strangely different afterwards to note the contrasts in the several 

 colours and hues of blue ; for the American twilled blue cotton after a few 

 washings became of a dull greyish-blue colour, and was then known among 

 the Maoris as the '^ tupapaku" (corpse) from its faded dead appearance. 

 And so, also, the Maoris in the villages, in their visiting the several stores 

 to sell their produce, and seeking blue cloths and garments, could not be 

 deceived as to their shades of colour, neither as to their durability ; just as 

 I have already shown (supra) in the matter of the red handkerchiefs. But 

 all those several colours of blue, each bearing a distinct name among them, 

 were shut up by the European under the one horrid term of puuru — blue ! 

 which, like several other words, mispronunciations of common English 

 terms, inevitably became fixed, and drove the pure Maori equivalents — 

 figurative and comparative — out of the philological field ! It is well known 

 to the oldest residents, that had it not been for the many books published 

 in generally pure Maori by the Mission Press, and extensively circulated 

 among the Maoris at an early period, — and the determination of the mis- 

 sionaries generally (at least of all those who knew Maori well), never to use 

 or to encourage the use of such mis-shapen English, — the language would 

 have completely deteriorated, and that very rapidly, becoming a wretched 

 unmeaning and mixed ^jator's. Above I have merely remarked on the 

 corruption of one word for colour — blue ; but I have also (especially at the 

 north) heard too often such words as paraki — black, rari — red, karini — 

 green, ivaiti — white, etc., used among the Maoris themselves, instead of 

 their own far better and more intelligible words for those well-known and 

 common colours ! 



Another little early incident, — or series of them, — which frequently 

 occurred before New Zealand became a colony, and which also serves 

 further to illustrate what I have already related, as to their correct know- 

 ledge of blue and other gaudy colours, is the following : — Large coloured 

 prints (too often mere daubs) of Scriptural and other subjects, were from 

 time to time kindly sent out from England for the Mission Infant Schools ; 

 in the close examination of those coloured prints the Maori adults were as 

 much interested as the children, or more so. And here, while they were 

 often " at sea " as to many of the foryns drawn in those pictures (the same 



