Hutu

Ascarina lucida (Chloranthaceae)

ETYMOLOGY:
From Proto Austronesian *Butun, Barringtonia asiatica (Lechythidaceae); through
Proto Oceanic: *Putun, Barringtonia asiatica, and
Proto Eastern Oceanic: *Putu(n), Barringtonia asiatica, and Proto Polynesian: *Futu, Barringtonia asiatica.

COGNATE WORDS IN SOME OTHER POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES
Tongan, Niuean, Samoan: Futu (Barringtonia asiatica , Lechythidaceae)
Tahitian, Marquesan, Tuamotu: Hutu (Barringtonia asiatica)
Rarotongan: 'utu (Barringtonia asiatica)

RELATED MĀORI PLANT NAMES
Pohutukawa, Hutukawa (Metrodideros excelsa, Myrtaceae)
Note: See the other linked page (highlighted at the top of this page) for more information about the ancestral names, their modern descendents, and the plants they denote.

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 (leaves and flower illustrated on the left), which does not seem to have much in common with the tree known simply 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. The "other" New Zealand hutu, the pōhutukawa (see the link above), does share some of the tropical tree's qualities, with a love of the seaside and impressive size when fully grown, along with flowers which are a little more like those of the Barringtonia - at least at a distance.)

Ascarina lucida is endemic to New Zealand, with two named varieties: A lucida var. lucida which is an attractive small tree with bright green, serrated leaves and distinctive purple twigs. It grows to about 6 metres high and is found scattered in lowland and montane forests in both islands, particularly in wetter, western locations, and A. lucida var. lanceolata, found in the Kermadec Islands. The Kermadec variety is found wet forest over 250 m. above sea level, and in ravines down to the coastline. It has green branches rather than purple, and its leaves are narrower and more tapered than those of the mainland variety.

The flower-spikes appear at the ends of the branches and have separate male and female fragrant flowers, of a very odd appearance (as can be seen from the photograph on the left). The female flowers are tiny, and are interspersed among the larger male flowers which contain a single male anther. Flowering is from the end of winter into early summer, and is followed by small, white fruits, sometimes blotched with purple, in late spring and summer. These are strikingly different from the flowers of the tropical hutu. Perhaps the way the flower-stalks emerge from the branches, the fragrance of the tree itself being reminiscent of the fragrant flowers of the Barringtonia, 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!

Although it is a very attractive tree, the hutu does not seem to have received much attention from Māori 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 karamū 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 karamū, 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 tūpana (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.]