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Taro was an important staple food plant in Austronesia generally, although the reflexes of the Proto Malayo-Polynesian word reconstructed as *tales have fared better in some Indonesian languages rather than Philippine languages, and Eastern (rather than Western) Oceanic languages, than in the others, where they have been supplanted by local variants. Javanese has tales, for example, but Tagalog has gabi. However its Proto-Oceanic form, *talos, is strongly reflected in all Polynesian languages. There are numerous cultivated varieties of taro, and many of these were carried throughout Polynesia and new ones selected and propagated over the centuries. Each established variety has its own name; the term *talo and its modern reflexes denote the species in general.

The plant was brought to Aotearoa by the Polynesian settlers, and was widely cultivated. It required less care than the kumara, but was not as highly esteemed as that staple. In part that may have been because it simply didn't taste as good, as growing conditions in most districts would have been much less favourable than in the tropics, or perhaps varied in quality for other reasons. One of the scientists at the University of Hawaii's plant research centre in Kaua'i, which was responsible for saving many Hawaiian kalo (taro) varieties from extinction, told me that many years ago they had sampled two traditional Maori varieties which they had been given to add to their collection, and found them quite unpalatable no matter how they cooked them. Certainly, while there were were recommented days for planting (Elsdon Best notes these as the 17th, 18th and 28th (Orongonui) days of the lunar cycle -- The Maori, Vol. 2, p. 392), and recommended methods, neither the planting nor the harvest seems to have been attended by special rituals.

Nonetheless, in the first translations of the Christian scriptures the taro serves as a substitute for "bread", thus Jesus Christ is referred to as Te Taro o te Ora [The Bread of Life], and in the wording of the Lord's Prayer "our [daily] bread" becomes to mätou taro. It seems that, as with the kumara, most of the old varieties of taro were replaced by new, better flavoured or stronger-growing ones in the course of the vigorous international trade in which the Mäori engaged in the 1830s. However, many of the names were recorded, possibly two of which have cognates elsewhere in Polynesia. Only one of these, pongi, denotes a variety of taro in the other languages. The other, takatakapö (or takataka-a-pö), seems very doubtfully linked with the Proto Polynesian *takataka, but may be nonetheless as although the Samoan and Tongan cognates denote grass-like plants, the Fijian cognate denotes a climber with a fleshy root. A close relative of the Fijian plant was given the name uhi "yam" (among others) in Hawaii, probably because its roots were eaten as a famine food (Wagner et al., Handbook, p.1610). It is just possible that a memory of this type of plant and its earlier name was carried to Aotearoa and transferred to a taro variety.

According to Best's account, in Aotearoa the taro roots were planted in gravel four to a hole (some holes -- ipurangi -- were deep and others -- parua koau -- shallow), in rows two feel apart. They were not specially irrigated. In Hawaii, the plants intended for food are usually grown on mounds in special fields which are flooded with water diverted from a nearby stream or river and allowed to flow through them during the growing season. Ornamental varieties are grown as garden plants.

In Aotearoa cultivation of the taro declined markedly after the adoption of the potato, although some plants continued to grow wild in favourable situations.The government re-introduced taro to help avert starvation in Maori communities after World War I -- a Chinese variety was shipped to New Zealand via San Francisco, and widely grown in the North for some years, before once more being replaced by other crops. I was very disappointed to find out, when talking to a taro expert from Japan a few years ago, that the "Maori" taro I had been growing was in fact this Chinese variety.