Piwakawaka Mini Te Mära Reo ~ The Language Garden
*Futu [Proto-Polynesian, from Proto-Austronesian *butun]

Hutu

  
 

Ascarina lucida (Chloranthaceae)

Other inherited names: Hutukawa, Pöhutukawa (see separate page)

NOTE - THIS PROTO-PAGE IS STILL IN THE EARLY STAGES OF CONSTRUCTION!

Why the early Polynesians called the tree known botanically as Ascarina lucida "hutu" is something of a mystery. Almost everywhere in the Austronesian world direct reflexes of the ancient word *butun refer to the tree Barringtonia asiatica -- which does not seem to have much in common with the tree known as hutu in Aotearoa. The New Zealand tree is much smaller (growing to about 6m, compared with 15m for its namesake), the leaves are serrated rather than smooth, the flowers small and insignificant rather than large and showy, and it is a lowland forest tree rather than a tree of swamps and the shoreline. Perhaps the way the flower-stalks emerge from the branches, or the purple twigs echoing the ends of the stamens of the Barringtonia flowers reminded the early explorers of the Tahitian hutu -- or some other quality quite unconnected with these!

(New Zealand) Kauri
Location in the Language Garden
The kauri in Traditional Maori Poetry and Proverbs

(New Zealand) Hutu

The hutu is an attractive small tree with bright green, serrated leaves and distinctive purple twigs. It grows to about 6 metres high and is found in lowland forests south of about Rotorua and Otorohanga. There is a good, illustrated description of it on the Auckland University Botany Department's website -- see the link at the bottom of this page. The photographs illustrating these notes have been taken from that source.

MORE TO COME LATER! 

 

Back to: (New Zealand) Hutu
Next sections:
Location in the Language Garden
The Hutu in Traditional Maori Life

Location in the Language Garden

[We do not currently (May 2009) have any hutu growing, but intend remedying this deficiency as soon as possible.]


(New Zealand) Hutu
Location in the Language Garden
Next section:
The Hutu in Traditional Maori Life

 

Ascarina-shoot
Hutu (Ascarina lucida) branch with flower shoots.


Hutu flower
Hutu - Inflorescence.


PPN: *Futu Barringtonia asiatica (Lechythidaceae)

Tongan: Futu (B. asiatica)
Niuean: Futu (B. asiatica)
Samoan: Futu (Barringtonia sp.)
Tahitian: Hutu (B. asiatica)
Marquesan: Hutu (Barringtonia sp.)
Tuamotuan: Hutu (Barringtonia sp.)
Rarotongan: 'utu (B. asiatica)

Note: Although the Mäori hutu is quite a different tree from its Polynesian namesakes, there is slightly more visible connection with the pöhutukawa, which also incorporates this inherited word root. (Follow the link at the top of this page.)

 

The Hutu in Traditional Maori Life . 

Although it is a very attractive tree, the hutu does not seem to have received much attention from Maori composers of songs, poems and proverbs. However Murdoch Riley quotes a passage from John White's 1861 Lectures on Maori Customs and Superstitions, in which the hutu is mentioned, along with karamü and ake, as a tree whose branches could be used in a special ceremony after the birth of a child:

The priests ... took a branch of karamü, ake or hutu: one of them parted the branch, and while tying one half around the child's waist, the other priest repeated this incantation, called a tüpana (which is not the baptism, but is intended to take the tapu from the mother and the settlement, as well as to give the child strength)...
[Quoted in M. Riley, Maori Healing and Herbal, p. 156.]

 

Back to:
(New Zealand) Hutu
Location in the Language Garden
The Hutu in Traditional Maori Life

References and further reading

[To come]

Links: -- There is an excellent illustrated account of the hutu on the University of Auckland's website.

Hue flower
Te Mära Reo, c/o Benton Family Trust, "Tumanako", RD 1, Taupiri, Waikato 3791, Aotearoa / New Zealand
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