Raupo Book of Maori Proverbs, The by Reed A.W

Author:Reed, A.W. [A.E. Brougham && A.W. Reed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742532639
Publisher: Penguin New Zealand
Published: 2013-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

Legs

Ka mahi te waewae, i tōia i te ata hāpara!

How beautiful are the legs moistened in the dawn!

Grey’s rendering: ‘Well done, what pretty legs; they are so straight that one would think that when you were a baby, your mother must have amused herself in the morning’s dawn, by sitting and rubbing them with water.’ The limbs of babies were massaged to make them supple and shapely’.

Lies

Tapahia tō arero pēnei me tō te kōkō.

Cut your tongue as the tui’s tongue is cut.

A sharp rebuke made to one who is detected in a lie. Kōkō is another name for the tui, which was sometimes kept captive, its tongue slit, and taught to talk.

Ko kōrua pea ko Tama-arero i haere mai.

Perhaps you and Tama-arero came here together.

Tama-arero is literally tongue’s son, or man tongue, which Grey paraphrases as Mr Lying-tongue, and Colenso as False-tongue. The name Te Arahori or False-road is used in a similar proverb.

Different tribes had variants of these proverbs, another name which might well have come from Pilgrim’s Progress, being:

Tango-kōrero.

Take-up-talk.

Arero rua.

Two-tongued.

One who cannot be relied upon to speak the truth.

A similar expression is:

Ngākau rua.

Two minds.

He arero rua.

A double tongue.

An epithet for a liar.

Te waha hakirara.

A lying mouth.

He paraki waha, he hāwatewate.

A dribbling mouth, a liar.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.