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This word seems to have referred originally to yellow materials, especially turmeric, the powdered root of a cultivated plant of the ginger family, Curcuma longa, which was carried throughout the tropical Pacific by Austronesian explorers. In Samoa and Tonga the plant itself is known as ango, but in Eastern Polynesia reflexes of *renga seems to have included the plant as well. Throughout Polynesia words derived from *renga also generally denote the colour yellow, and also the yolk of an egg.

In Samoa the main use of tumeric is a yellow dye (lega) made from the root. In Hawaii, yellow colouring extracted from young roots was also used for a dye for tapa, but the plant had medicinal uses and religious significance as well. Isabella Abbott (Lä'au Hawai'i) notes that salt water in which the underground stem of the 'olena had been stirred was sprinkled 'on people, places and objects" in purification ceremonies (p. 116). Medicinally, strained juice from mature roots was used to treat earache and some nasal problems (p.101).

If the turmeric plant was carried to Aotearoa, it failed to thrive here, but the name was transferred to a local herb with tuberous roots which also had medicinal properties (see link opposite).