1831 London Med. Gaz. 12 Nov. 184/2 Podocarpus species... This tree, the Mai or Matai of the natives of New Zealand, is an unpublished species of Podocarpus.

1835 W. Yate Acct. N.Z. (ed. 2) 50 Matai (Taxus Matai), a plant with a small yew-tree leaf, a strong smell, and a rough bark.

1875 Official Handbk. N.Z. 40 Valuable woods..matai (or black pine) [etc.].

1910 L. Cockayne N.Z. Plants 41 The matai..is a fine wood for resisting weather.

1934 Archit. Rev. 76 70/2 Rimu and matai from New Zealand..are..good flooring timbers.

1949 P. H. Buck Coming of Maori (1950) iv. i. 450 She gave birth to twins in the form of the kahika and matai trees.

1984 J. Morton et al. Whirinaki 83 (caption) Matai growth is very slow, annual rings averaging only about 0.7 mm.

1920 Quick March 10 Dec. 11 I dimly remember as a youngster..such a drink as ‘matai beer’ was sometimes spoken of amongst bushmen. Apparently it was made from the sap of the matai tree, extracted by the simple process of boring an auger-hole in the trunk.

1990 A. A. Crowe Native Edible Plants N.Z. 32 Early bushmen drank the sap and called it matai beer... Kirk points out that the young trees rarely contain much of this beer, and that very old trees produce sap of ‘a sour, acrid and unpleasant flavour’.

1911 Jrnl. Polynesian Soc. 20 43 At the head of every branch [of the Samoan family] stands the matai, or head of the family.

1927 S. H. Roberts Population Probl. Pacific vii. vi. 66 As officially outlined, the policy of the New Zealand administration is that ‘every effort is made to maintain the authority of the Pulenu'u and the Matai’.

1934 F. M. Keesing Mod. Samoa i. 30 In general the matais, or titled men,..engage mostly in ceremonial activities while the work as the white man views it is done by the rest of the community.

1956 F. M. Keesing & M. M. Keesing Elite Communication in Samoa ii. 17 The community is made up of a series of households of ‘extended family’ or ‘multiple family’ type, each under the authority of a ‘head’ or ‘matai’.

1974 Sunday Advocate-News (Barbados) 16 Dec. 21/2 The matais usually deal out justice to law breakers in the Samoan spirit of ‘forgive and forget’ before the matter ever reaches the ears of the authorities.

1982 B. Shore Sala'ilua: Samoan Myst. iv. 59 I have already suggested something of the complexity of the matai system, the fact that a chief is simultaneously part of a village system and the leader of a dispersed descent group with a complex network of diffuse alliances.

1994 Amer. Sociol. Rev. 59 902 As head of the family, the matai controls the family's property... While the degree of matai control over property has broken down in recent years.., Samoans are expected to make cash contributions to their matai and aiga.