probably used the term in a similar manner. If engaged in planting crops he would refer to the planting of the previous year as that of "last tau," which would be equivalent to "last year."
The Maori Year.
On the east coast the old Maori year began with the appearance of the first new moon after the heliacal rising of Matariki (the Pleiades). The first appearance of this group before sunrise was the signal for a sentimental greeting on the part of the Maori, for the ancient Pleiades year of south-east Asia was about to commence. The new-year festival was a very important one in Maori eyes.
It will be seen that the native New Year's Day was no fixed quantity. It might chance to be in June or in May. A native paper of the Napier district states that this year (1922) the old Maori year commences with the new moon on the 27th May, so that date will be the Whiro of the lunar month Pipiri. The next new moon will be on the 25th June. This year marked by the rising of the Pleiades was an institution of the east coast of the North Island. In the far North, however, also in the South Island and the Chatham Isles, the new year was marked by the cosmic rising of Rigel in Orion. This would not make much difference as to the date of the commencement of the year.
The Pleiades year was also an institution of Polynesia, with this difference—viz., that it commenced with the reappearance of that group above the horizon at sunset. This would place the New Year's Day of the Polynesian in December. The question here arises as to why the ancestors of the Maori changed the commencement of the Pleiades year after they settled in New Zealand.
We have seen that in some districts the cosmic rising of Rigel in Orion marked the beginning of the Maori year. Dr. Thomson, who sojourned in the northern part of the North Island for some years, wrote as follows in his Story of New Zealand: "The New Zealand year was an imperfect mode of reckoning time, as there could never have been always thirteen moons between the appearance of the Puanga star [Rigel] of one year and that of another. It is therefore obvious that the stars and the flowering of plants were the true records, otherwise winter would have soon been summer. All nations who adopt the lunar year put in an additional month every three years, but the New-Zealanders were ignorant of this arrangement."
It would appear that the above writer missed the point in his conclusions. He evidently had collected the names of thirteen lunar months, or had been informed that such existed, and yet states that the insertion of an extra month was not a Maori usage. A few natives have given a list of thirteen month-names, and this fact should be fairly good proof that the thirteenth month was occasionally utilized, otherwise why retain it in the list. Many native authorities, however, gave names of twelve months only; thus it is possible that more than one system of regulating the year was practised, as in different districts. Names of thirteen months were also collected at Tahiti. Nor do all peoples who
