subs. (Australian).—A Frenchman. [That is, Oui, Oui!]
1845. E. J. WAKEFIELD, Adventures in New Zealand, I. iv. 94. If I had sold the land to the White missionaries, might they not have sold it again to the WIWI (Frenchmen) or Americans?
1857. C. HURSTHOUSE, New Zealand, or Zealandia, the Britain of the South, I. ii. De Surville’s painful mode of revenge, and the severe chastisement which this retaliatory murder of Marion brought on the natives, rendered the WEEWEES (oui oui), or people of the tribe of Marion, hateful to the New Zealanders for the next half-century.
1859. A. S. THOMSON, The Story of New Zealand, II. i. Before the WEWIS, as the French are now called, departed, they violated sacred places, cooked food with tapued wood, and put two chief in irons.
1873. CARLETON, The Life of Henry Williams, 92. The arrival of a French man-of-war was a sensational event to the natives, who had always held the OUI-OUI’S in dislike.
1881. Percy Pomo; or, the Autobiography of a South Sea Islander, xliii. 209. Hentry, Mounseer Pomer! has the WEEWEES puts it, han hi’ll explain the punctoohayshin.
