Aotearoa, “The Land of the Long White Cloud”

Lire l'original en Francais

Haere Mai! Welcome to Aotearoa, New Zealand. The name New Zealand originated with Dutch cartographers, who called the islands Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland, also meaning “Seeland”. So you understand why I prefer the poetry of “The Land of the Long White Cloud”, Aotearoa. Maoris must have arrived during the summer time, because now, in winter time, I would rather call it “The Land of many grey Clouds”! It rained a lot these last days, but last week was marvellously sunny, packed with rainbows adorning the hills of Northland.

What better way to celebrate Sunshine than going fishing with an elder Kiwi on the tail of the fish caught by Maui. But maybe I’m talking in an incomprehensible dialect...

Here, New Zealanders proudly give themselves the title of “Kiwis”. It refers to the magnificently delicious fruit, of course, but mainly to the national symbol of New Zealand: the bird. The Kiwi is endemic to Aotearoa and is one of the rare species in this country having survived deforestation. They only remain in a minimal number, but efforts are made to repopulate the colony. The Kiwi doesn’t fly and is the bird laying the biggest egg in proportion to its size... It is part of a unique family existing since Gondwana, the supercontinent that reunited South America, Africa and Oceania, 600 million years ago. Having lived besides dinosaurs is a reason spectacular enough to make it the national symbol, even if its cry is far from being pleasing to the ear...

So we went on the calm waters of the Bay of Island with an elder Kiwi with eyes of wisdom, filled with blue and green horizons. Picking up the trail of Maui, we casted our fishing rods and waited for our beautiful submarine creatures to unfortunately get entangled in our metal fishhooks (oh yes, the famous whale bone fishhooks are no longer used, they’re prettier around the neck of Maoris or tourists).

Maui, like the isle of Hawai'i, is a demi-god known by everyone in Polynesia. He seems to have reached the status of a star in every island mythology, leaving no doubt on the shared family ties, even when the islands are apart from 7,000 km. Here, Maui is the originator of Aotearoa; he is the one who made it appear...

One day, Maui (like Marc, Barry and I) went fishing, along with his five brothers. He was far away at sea when he dropped his magic fishhook, which was no other than the jaw-bone of his sorceress grand-mother. Even if he was a demi-god and he could choose any lure he wanted to catch his dinner, he decided to coat the jaw-bone with the blood from his own nose. He tied the bloody hook to a huge cord and dropped it into the sea. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Maui felt a fish tugging on his line and he started to pull it up. Just like me, screaming bloody murder, trying to bring a huge 7 lb Grand Daddy Hapuka to the surface, Maui used all his strength to get a gigantic fish out of water. As in every fishing story... the fish was “so big”, “as big as this”, “so immensely big” it became the Northern Island of New Zealand. I wonder what Maui ate for dinner, but thanks to his fishing talent, we now can drive on sinuous roads surrounded by hills; we can also boat on waters surrounded by grottos, cliffs and grazing cows watching magnificent birds, and put the charming coloured fishes back into water (yeah, my favourite part of a fishing trip)...

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