Games.

One of the most universal pastimes among the Maori was kite-flying. It was indulged in by adults as well as by children, and was a favourite game with old men. The ordinary kites were generally made of the dried bulrush (raupo) leaf but they were apt to sag and not fly well. The better sorts were made of the inner bark of the paper-mulberry plant (aute) or of the tussock grass (upoko tangata). Sometimes they were called “bird” (manu), or “hawk” (kahu), or “winged one” (pakaukau), but the aute kite was often formed in the shape of a man, and had shells fastened to it so as to rattle as it moved. Native kites had streamers and tails like our own toys; they were very light and graceful in their movements. The kite had its own charm (karakia) to be recited in order to raise it in the air, and songs were sung to the flying plaything as it soared on high. Many a pleasant hour the old men as well as the children spent watching the floating toys. Sometimes the aute kite was used as a means of sending a message. The owners waited till a fair wind sprung up and then set free a kite that passed in the direction of the tribe it was wished to communicate with, and those receiving it understood perfectly the message it was meant to convey.1

The swing (morere or moari) was of the kind known to our school-children as “the Giant's stride.”2 A pole was planted in the ground and several ropes fastened so as to hang from the top of it; each rope was seized by a pair of hands, and the holders running in a circle leapt from the ground and were carried through the air still clinging to the ropes. When, as was often the case, the pole was erected on the edge of a cliff, the excitement was greatly increased, as some of the party would be swinging out over the precipice. Common swings (tarere) were usually only vines hanging from forest trees.

The skipping-rope (piupiu) was used as by Europeans, either singly or with each end held by one person only while a third jumped over the middle; sometimes several persons jumped at the same time over the swinging cord.

The whipping-top (potaka ta, kaitaka, kaihotaka, kaihora, etc.), was a very common toy and is often mentioned in old legends. They were made of hard wood such as matai or totara, and the lash of the whip was of native flax. Sometimes there was a point on each end of the top, so that its position could be reversed at will; this was called a double-ended-top, (potaka-whero-rua). They were often raced over little hurdles set up on purpose for them to jump over. The humming-top (potaka-takiri) was also in use. It had a projecting piece at the top round which the string (karure) could be wound, and the toy was held in position by a handle (papatakiri) made of a flat piece of wood about six inches long and half an inch wide; this was held against the side of the top. Pieces of paua-shells were often inlaid into the tops to ornament them. Sometimes a small gourd was used as a humming-top; this would have a piece of wood projecting through its longest axis, for the point at one end and for a hold on which to wind the string at the other; a hole was also made in the side of the gourd to make it hum. One very singular custom relating to tops obtained in old days. If a battle had been lost and friends came to condole with the defeated side, a dirge for the dead would be chanted and between each verse humming-tops would be spun. It was supposed that the buzzing sound represented the wail for the victims of war. The tops and other presents were given to the visitors. The teetotum (porotiti) was made of a piece of the rind of a gourd cut into a disc and having a wooden centre on which to spin when set whirling by a twirl from thumb and forefinger.

“Walking on stilts” (pouturu, poutoko, pouraka, or poutoti) was often indulged in, and appears to have been a very ancient amusement; it is probably a relic of life in some other lands, as there is nothing in the circumstances surrounding the Maoris in their broken country to have caused the invention of stilts, while in large flat areas like those of the French Landes their use seems reasonable enough. The story of the stilts of Tama (used to allow him to steal fruit from trees) is unsatisfactory, and the original purpose for which stilts were designed is not now to be traced.

The hoop (pirori) was used by children, but sometimes by adults in a sinister manner, and in the grim spirit consonant with the idea of amusement possessed by a fierce and revengeful race, for the hoop had now and then the dried skin of a dead human foe stretched upon it, as a mark of contempt for and degradation of the tribe to which the flayed warrior belonged. The hoop, the frame of which was of forest vine (akatea), was about two feet in diameter, it was driven backwards and forwards between two parties stationed at either end of a course and was beaten to and fro with sticks, while an appropriate song was chanted.

The small bull-roarer (pirorohu or kororohu) was made of a piece of hard wood (mapara); it was about four inches long by one inch in the centre and tapering to a point at each end. A cord was fastened through two small holes bored crossways in the middle of the piece of wood about a quarter of an inch apart. The instrument was used by twisting the string and letting it unwind itself, this causing a buzzing or whizzing noise. The large bull-roarer (purerehua or mamae) was made of hard wood (matai) eighteen inches long, and, like the other, tapered to points at the ends. Its cord was about four feet in length, and was fastened to a stick about three feet long by which the bull-roarer was whirled round, making a booming or humming noise. It was believed that the spirit (of the operator) caused the noise. In some parts of the country bull-roarers were used when a deceased chief was lying in state, and the sound was supposed to drive off evil spirits.

A curious game (titi-touretua) was played with four carved sticks, about eighteen inches long. A song (ngari) was sung and the sticks tossed backwards and forwards between the players (of whom there were generally six) in time to the song. The sticks were held in a vertical position at the start, and then thrown from one person to another, across or round the circle of players, who sat some little distance apart. The sticks were not to touch each other when thrown, and had to be received in a particular way; the butts every now and then being dropped on the ground.

Another singular game was played with a wooden figure (karetao, keretao, or toko-raurape) used as a “Jumping Jack.” The figure was of human form, tattooed on the face, and about eighteen inches in height. The arms were loose and could be jerked up and down by a piece of string running in holes through the body to the feet, and worked by the player. It was used to accompany the song-dance (haka) and was “quivered” as the hands are made to do in that dance. Particular songs (oriori karetao) were allotted to this amusement.

In the game of “knuckle-bone” (koruru) round pebbles were used in a game played with the hands. The stones were picked up, caught on the back of the hands, etc. There were eight distinct parts of the game to be successively attempted, some of them rather intricate.3

Several varieties of games were played with spears or sticks representing spears. The principal of these (teka) consisted of throwing a dart, to the point of which a bunch of flax strips were fastened. The dart was long and light, heavier at the but than at the point. The game was usually played on the sea-beach, and the player who hurled his dart farthest was hailed a winner. A game resembling this (neti or niti) was also a favorite amusement, but fern-stalks were used instead of spears. A smooth mound of earth was set up, and the player, holding the dart between his thumb and second finger, had to make his dart, when thrown underhand, rebound from the mound on its course, the player reciting a charm the while. In other spear-games darts were thrown by one person at another. Sometimes these darts were merely light reeds to be warded off (para or para toetoe), but at other times they were sharpened rods and their evasion was a game (para-mako) requiring considerable skill if injury was to be escaped. There were two games played by “crooking” the fingers, and these simple pastimes were known as Upoko-titi and Tara-koekoea.

A childish game (kakere) was played by transfixing a sweet-potato (kumara) on a stick and jerking it off to see how far it could be thrown. “Ducks and drakes” (tipi) were made

Wetani Rore Tatangi.

. by throwing flat stones so as to skip along the surface of the water, as English children play a similar game. Boys amused themselves with a pastime (called poro-teteke) by standing in a row, and then on a signal being given stood on their heads, while their legs were kicked out straight, and then doubled back on the buttocks intime to a chorus. It was a ludicrous inverted war-dance. Maori boys were well skilled in the sort of attack called by French soldiers “la savate.” They would approach each other, and one would with a sudden kick land the sole of his foot on the chest or stomach of his opponent with a force and dexterity that were astonishing. Patokotoko was a game played by one person trying to catch the protruded finger of another in a loop of flax. Children of both sexes played a game (topa or koke) by inserting the mid-rib of a certain lea (wharangi) into a stem of reed-grass (karetu) and taking this toy to the top of an eminence. The stem balances the leaf in well-made specimens, and the plaything was sent floating horizontally, while a charm was repeated. Children also played at turning summersaults (turupepeke), leaping (tupeke), the long jump (kai-rerere), “hide and seek” (piripiri or taupunipuni) and see-saw (pioi or tiemi), the latter often played on the elastic branch of a growing tree.

Wrestling (ta or whatoto or nonoke or mamau) was indulged in as a favourite sport of young men, some of whom arrived at great celebrity through their agility and prowess at this exercise. There were many named wrestling grips, (whiu, whiri, taha, etc.). Sometimes a woman or two young women would wrestle with a young man; this was called para-whakawai, but in some tribes the expression is reserved for fencing bouts with spears, etc., among men. At times wrestling became a water-sport, then called “Ducking” (taurumaki), when a competitor would try with an opponent as to which could hold the other under water longest, but this was rather a severe form of amusement, and not highly popular. Diving games were also in fashion, many of the swimmers rushing over the banks of a river at the charge (kokiri) and leaping one after another into a deep pool, some diving feet first, others turning summersaults, etc. At times the jump was made from a pole placed horizontally over the water.

The toboggan (papa-retireti) was used by youngsters and consisted of a small plank about three feet long and four inches wide, with ridges or rests for the feet, one foot being kept behind the other. These boards were used on a slide (retireti) constructed on a slope and kept wet.

Of quieter games there were many. “Cat's Cradle” (whai, huhi, or maui) was known to the Maoris as to almost all the inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago and South Seas. It was played with the two hands and a piece of string, assuming very complicated forms; sometimes a whole drama was played by means of the changing shapes. Two of the favourites were the ascent of Tawhaki the Lightning god, to heaven, and the fishing up of the land by the hero Maui. There were proper songs chanted as accompaniments to the movements of the players' hands. Another game (punipuni) consisted in interlacing the fingers of the two hands with a quick motion while a certain song was sung. A kind of windmill toy (pekapeka) was in use. A game (tutukai) resembled our “hunt the slipper,” and consisted in a circle of persons sitting with closed fists while one of the players went round and tried to find the whereabouts of a small pebble which was rapidly passed round the ring from one to another; the person on whom the stone was found taking the guesser's place. A favourite sport (ti or komikomi) was played with the fingers, these being rapidly open and shut. Drafts or checkers (mu) were well known to the Maoris before the Europeans came and were skilfully handled although the game differed somewhat from our own. Riddles (panga or kai) were propounded by means of questions and the answers demanded some ingenuity, or varied by becoming manual, as in drawing a pebble across the lips while the others guessed if it was in the player's hand or mouth; puzzles were also prepared, as cunning knots on a piece of cord. Little girls played a game of questions and answers, that can hardly be described as riddles. All being seated in a circle one of the players would sing the query “What will your husband be?” Another would answer “a planter of sweet-potatoes.” Then the first would respond “That is very good if he has rich soil. What (turning to the next) will your husband be?” Answer, “A fisherman.” “That is very good in fine weather. What will your husband be?” Answer, “A digger of fern-root.” “That is better, plenty of food always in store,” etc., etc.

“Counting out” (wi) figured among Maori games. The players stood round a circle (called wi) drawn on the ground, and the principal, indicating with his finger, counted out the players saying, “Pika, pika, pere rika,” etc., in one of the nonsense-jingles customary at such games. These rhymes do not appear to have been, like our own, an obsolete form of the numerals. When all were counted out, an effort was made to enter the circle without being touched by its defender, and if touched such person had to help to defend the circle.

Reciting a long piece of verse without drawing breath (tatau-manawa) was sometimes attempted. A variety (kurawiniwini) of “hunt the slipper” was played by a double line of young people sitting facing each other. A string was passed between the two lines, and all the players bending forward placed their hands on the string, hiding it from sight. There was a free end of the string somewhere and an outside player had the job of finding it. Sometimes while the hands remained in position the string would be entirely drawn in and concealed by some cunning adept.

The place of the concert and ball room with us was taken among the Maoris by the House of Amusement (whare-tapere or whare-matoro or whare - karioi). These particular houses were set apart for the young people at night in order that the sports and games, often carried on till dawn, might not disturb the rest of the elders. Here went on the different dances, etc., natural to youth all the world over, and herein also most of the wooing took place that resulted in marriages of affection. Dancing (haka, kanikani, etc.) was not performed in the manner of European dances in which partners of opposite sexes swing or step together. It was altogether posture dancing, generally by a considerable number of persons, sometimes all of one sex, sometimes with both. The principal of these (haka) was in high estimation, and the whole night through relays of dancers might exhibit their skill and elegance in different varieties of the dance. The players usually stood in ranks, swinging their hands and bodies in a marvellous unison.4 The origin of the song-dance (haka) with its quiver of the dancers' fingers was said to have been an attempt to mimic the vibration of the air that heated by the summer sun rises from the soil, and the idea was carried on in the famous haka known as “The Dancing Summer.” Young women played the graceful game of ball (poi). The players stood or were seated in a line, each having her ball fastened to a string about two or three feet long; they would strike the ball right, left, upwards, etc., in time to a chorus (rangi poi), all the movements being performed at the same moment and in the same direction, with admirable precision and harmony of action. The balls were of some light substance, usually of dried bulrush (raupo) and were ornamented with the white hair (awe) from the tail of the native dog.5

Some dances (maimai) were reserved for funeral ceremonies; others (kotaratara) were only performed on triumphal occasions. The war dance (ngarahu taua or tutu ngarahu) was, when well executed, a very exciting and even terrible exhibition. Hundreds of warriors in serried ranks would leap as one man to the right and to the left, letting their weapons rise and fall like the waves of the sea, while a deep chest-note would alternate with a savage blood-curdling scream in the powerful chorus of the impassioned singers. Sometimes a mere ceremony, at other times the war-dance was a prelude of battle, and a means of rousing the fighting men to fury. Few who have seen the war-dance of New Zealand executed in earnest will ever forget the resounding roar, the trembling earth, the muscular frenzy, and the moral effect of that tossing sea of human creatures, transformed by their own action into the semblance of demons. Yet, withal, the exquisite time kept in the dance, the force and power that tamed apparently ungovernable excitement into cadence and rhythmic motion had a charm and entrancement all their own.

Music.

The Maori has naturally a fine ear for music, far better than can be believed by those who are not themselves highly trained and who have not investigated the subject carefully. The natives had no music of the kind Europeans generally understand as such, but they (like all other Polynesians) quickly catch up our tunes and notions of harmony, and their deep mellow voices are well worth training.

In regard to their own music it was apparent to anyone that they had one part of the art in perfection, that is the full sense of rhythm and measured time. To watch the synchronous movement and hear the vocal unison of one of their song-dances (haka) was to be persuaded that the regular beat of motion and sound assured the possession of the very spirit of rhythm. There was, however, something more than this. Musicians have sympathetically enquired into the native perception of the value of tones. It appears probable from their researches,6 that Maoris appreciate modulations of sound unappreciable by the duller ear of the ordinary European. The apparently monotonous notes produced both in their songs and by their musical instruments may contain shades of melody that we miss. Few of our instruments, manufactured to express our own scale of notes, would be able to evoke the sounds which are produced by Maori instruments to Maori ears. I am not a musician, and am unable to deal competently with this subject; I can only remark that on the evidence of experts there appears to be or to have been in Maori music some resemblance to the scale found in the music of the Arabs. “Dr. Russell to Burney says that the Arab scale of twenty four notes was equal to one octave. But Mr Lane adds that ‘the most remarkable peculiarity in the Arab system of music is the division of tones into thirds’ Hence, from the system of thirds of tones I have heard the Egyptian musician urge against the European systems of music that they are deficient in the mumber of sounds.” 7 Mr J. A. Davies, a celebrated musical scholar, has committed to paper some of the airs of New Zealand by the aid of a peculiar notation showing quarter-tones, etc., and says that he was approvingly told by the Maoris that they would soon “make a singer of him.”8 If this be so it is possible that a native boy with a Jew's harp or an old native crooning a song, may be sensitive to melodies which appear to us to be only monotonous repetition of two or three notes. Every Maori song had its air, and if an old native was asked “Do you know the song which commences ‘so and so’”—he would answer “I do not know. What is the air (rangi)? Can you not sing it?”

The great difficulty the Maoris laboured under in the construction of musical instruments was their ignorance of the value or use of metals. Trumpets, flutes, whistles, drums, etc., were their chief producers of pleasant sounds.

The trumpets (putara, putatara, pukaea) were made of wood. They were about four feet to six feet long, and were used for summoning the inhabitants of a village, or for announcing the approach of a chief. They were formed by roughly shaping the outside, then splitting the wood down the centre, hollowing out the interior, and then binding the pieces together again with close lashings. Little projections (tohe) were left on the inner surface close to the mouth; this was to influence the sound.9 Some trumpets were made of several pieces of wood accurately fitted together and jointed; these were neatly and strongly lashed solid with supple-jack creeper (kareao; Rhipogonum scandens). Others were used as speaking trumpets, through which insults or defiance could be hurled at an enemy. Most of the musical trumpets had a large hole in the centre, the note being modulated with the hand; some had artificial diaphragms or vibrators set about a foot within the larger end. A kind of trumpet made of a calabash pierced with two or three holes, was now and then to be seen among the Taranaki tribes. Shell-trumpets (pu-moana or potipoti) were made from the shell of the Triton australis, the apex being cut off, and a carved wooden mouthpiece fixed on.10 The cord by which it was carried was decorated with tufts of the feathers of the owl-parrot (Stringops).

The drum or gong (pahu) was formed from the wood of the kaiwhiria (Hedycarya dentata), or, if very large, was made of matai (Podocarpus spicata). These gongs were either of canoe shape, or were resonant slabs of timber reaching even to 30 feet in length. They were suspended between two trees, but the war-drum was hung between two posts on the watch-tower (puhara) of a fort, a stage for the striker being erected beneath it. The drum was struck at intervals during the night by the watchman (kai-mataara), whose songs and drummings served to let an enemy know that the defenders of the pa were on the alert.

Flutes were of different sizes, and were made of bone or whale's tooth or wood. The largest kind of flute (torino or pu-torino), or more properly flageolet, for it was played from one end, was manipulated with the fingers placed over the central hole or over the small hole at the end. It was generally made of two hollowed pieces of hard wood joined perfectly in the centre and tapering to each end. The smaller flute (koauau) was usually made of bone, an enemy's leg-bone for preference, and was often used as a nose-flute, the end being inserted into one nostril while the other was closed with the thumb. The koauau ranged from six inches to eighteen inches in length. Small fifes (rehu) were made from the wing-bones of the albatross or from the hollow stem of the tutu plant (Coriaria ruscifolia). A flute (nguru) or whistle, mostly of use as a war signal, was another variety of the instrument. Whistles about three and a-half inches long, made of hard polished wood, were inlaid with haliotis (paua) shell, and worn suspended from the neck. Most flutes were elaborately carved.11

There were two kinds of musical toy known as pakuru. One of these (also called pakakau) was played with two sticks. The principal stick was about fifteen inches long by one and a-half inches wide, with one flat and one convex side. Sometimes it was well carved and at others only notched with “parrot nibbles” (whaka-kaka) along its side. One end of this stick was held between the teeth, flat side down, and the other end held in the left hand, while the right hand struck the wood with the other stick in time to an accompanying song. The sticks were generally made of matai or kaiwhiria. The other form of the pakuru was a bar of wood about eighteen inches long held in one hand and struck lightly with a small mallet; both mallet and bar being highly decorated with carving. A slip of supple-jack (pirita) held between the teeth was used as a kind of Jew's harp (roria); the elastic material being sprung with the fingers and the sound governed by the pressure of the lips.

Language.

The Maori speech of New Zealand is a dialect of the Polynesian language; a language spoken with curious unity wherever the fair-skinned inhabitants of the Pacific Islands dwell. The New Zealand dialect is probably the most perfect form of the original speech (although the claims of local patriotism elsewhere may dispute the statement) for it appears to have preserved many of the primary consonants, whilst in the other island groups one or more of these letters have been dropped. In Rarotonga and the Cook Islands generally, the h is wanting and so strongly is the prejudice against the aspirate indulged that wh is also dropped and consequently the f of other groups. Thus not only does the Maori hara a sin, become the Rarotongan ara, but the Maori whare a house is pronounced are; this is Tahitian fare. The Marquesans drop r; the Samoans k; the Tahitians k and ng; the Hawaiians lose k and change t into k. These changes can best be exemplified by showing the likeness and differences of two or three words in different Polynesian dialects. The Maori word hara, a sin, becomes in Samoa sala; in Tahiti hara; in Hawaii hala; in Tonga hala; in Rarotonga ara; in the Marquesas haa, etc. The Maori ngutu, the lip, is written in Samoa gutu; in Tahiti utu; in Tonga gutu; in Hawaii nuku; in Rarotonga ngutu; though where written g it is pronounced nasally ng.

It therefore follows that most Polynesian words should be referred to Maori for their perfect form or rather for the most perfect existent form, for many of the Maori words have suffered immense abrasion from their ancient simplicity and integrity. The word for “rain,” for instance, was probably hurangi or sulangi, and has passed through forms still spoken in the Malay and other islands as urani, ulani, ulan, ula to the modern Maori ua “rain.”

There are considerable differences of pronunciation in the sub-dialects among the New Zealanders themselves. On the East Coast of the North Island the ng becomes n, so that tangata, “a man,” is there pronounced tanata. The natives about Whanganui drop the h sound, as Rarotongans and Cockneys do. In the South Island ng becomes k, so kainga, “a settlement,” becomes kaika, and rangi, “sky,” raki.

The Maori language is musical, direct and strong. In using it there was no difficulty in describing any object or circumstance of the old primitive life before Europeans came. The copious vocabulary and customary picturesque metaphor used allowed full range for any conversational or oratorical flights of speech. Of course, when foreigners appeared there arrived with them numerous objects for which Maoris had no name, and abstract ideas for which they had no adequate mode of expression. The vocabulary was then extended with bastard words written according to the nearest sounds capable of being conveyed by the sixteen letters of the Maori alphabet. “Horse” became hoiho; “soldier,” hoia; “glory,” kororia, etc., and this system disfigures the written or printed pages of Maori literature (alas! how small and starved a literature!) at the present day. It was difficult to avoid, but could have been averted to a great extent, and thus have saved the growth of a hideous wen on what was once a beautiful variety of human speech.

The simplicity of the grammar is to a European more apparent than real, as the peculiar use of particles and alteration of the form of sentences to convey shades of meaning are very difficult to master in perfection. It is easy to learn a sort of Maori lingo, but it is doubtful if any beside a few exceptionally-gifted individuals ever acquire the language sufficiently well to make their speech (reo) grateful to the native ear if that speech has not been a “mother-tongue” or prattled in childhood.

Poetry, Song, Proverbs.

The Maoris were a very poetical people; song and musical utterance were the natural expression of their every emotion. All their religious moods found an outcome in chants and hymns; love songs to their sweethearts and dirges for the dead alternated with lullabies to their children and songs of defiance against their foes, while their more quiet and meditative moments were passed in crooning low ditties full of pathos and poetry. Children sung at their games and men and women at their sports. Even their ghostly fears were filled with music, for could they not hear the voice of fairies and spirits at night uttering their songs of warning and uncanny revelry?

The poetry is of peculiar character, unrhymed, and with only a feeble attempt at rhythm. It is exceedingly difficult to translate (as all old Polynesian poetry is) because full of obsolete words and forgotten allusions. It has never been composed in modern times, only old songs are adapted to the needs of every day life, and they thus are as full of interest to those who can catch the allusions as are apt quotations in the polished oration of a European speaker. Some of the metaphors are common to poets all the world over, for instance that of the moth or butterfly as an emblem of the soul, or the tendrils of a clinging plant as an emblem of tender affection.

The canoe-pulling song was used in dragging heavy timber or canoes out of the forest and took the place which the sailors' “chanty” does with us. There is variety in the measure, long lines or syllables adapted for heavy pulls and another part of the song for sharp quick jerks. The boat-songs were to give time to the paddlers in canoes, and were sung by directors or fuglemen of whom there were two in each large war-canoe, one near the bow and the other near the stern. Each of these directors would brandish his staff or weapon as a baton in exact time to the song. Part-songs (haka) were generally sung by young men and women ranged in rows and dressed in paint and feathers for the evening entertainment. These (haka) usually consisted of solo and refrain, the latter often a monotonous deep-breathed note accompanied with gestures of head and hands and body—the whole company moving in unison as if parts of some machine. Sometimes these songs were sentimental, sometimes humorous, but always a pleasure to listeners and performers.1 War-songs (peruperu) were

Making New (or Sacred) Fire by Friction of Wood.A woman steadied the under-piece of wood with her foot.—[See page 138.]A. Hamilton, Photo.

a solo and chorus accompaniment of the war-dance and were very inspiriting compositions, the words sometimes hardly to be understood, but the vigour and volume of sound enormous, hands, legs, and heads all agreeing in consentaneous motion. The ordinary songs (waiata) could be sung by one or several persons, but were not dance-songs, that is they were not usually accompanied by motions of the body. Wonderful were the memories of the Maori for songs. One old man recited or sung 380 to Mr. E. Best, each with its proper air or rangi.

A few, a very few, examples of different kinds of poetry may suffice to show the nature and genius of Maori song. In an incantation addressed to the sea god by Hina occur the words:— “The tide of life glides swiftly pastAnd mingles all in one great eddying foam.O Heaven, now sleeping! rouse thee, rise to power.And O thou Earth; awake, exert thy might for me,And open wide the door to my last home,Where calm and quiet rest awaits me in the sky.”

It may be thought that these ideas militate against the notions of the future life elsewhere described in this volume, but Hina was a goddess, not a mortal, and was not subject to the ordinary laws of the natural world. The incantation by help of which Heaven and Earth were separated reads as follows:— “Rough be their skin—so altered by dread—As bramble and nettle, repugnant to feel.So change, for each other, their love into hate.With direst enchantments O sever them, gods!And fill with disgust to each other their days.Engulf them in floods, in ocean and sea;Let love and regret for each other be hate,Nor affection nor love of the past live again.”

The magical charm to drive away wood-goblins was:— “Whispering ghosts of the West,Who brought you here to our land?Stand up, stand up and depart,Whispering ghosts of the West!”

The following may be offered as a specimen of a love-song (Waiata-aroha):— “Look where the mistHangs over Pukehina,There is the pathBy which went my love.Turn back again hitherThat tears may be pouredOut from my eyes.It was not I at firstWho spoke of love,But you who made advancesWhen I was but a little thing.Therefore was my heart made wild,This is my farewell of love to thee.”

Another love-song runs as follows, but it is that of a widow for her dead husband:— “After the evening hoursI recline upon my bed.Thy own spirit-like formComes towards me,Creeping stealthily along.Alas! I mistake,Thinking thou art here with me,Enjoying the light of day.Then the affectionate remembrancesOf the many days of oldKeep on rising within my heart.This, however, loved one—This thou must do,Recite the potent call to Rakahua,And the strong cry to RikirikiThat thou mayest return.For thou wert ever more than an ordinary husband;Thou wert my best beloved, my chosen,My treasured possession. Alas!”

The natives sung lullabies (oriori) to their children. Part of one of these songs runs:— “Here is little Rangi-tumua, reclining with meUnder the lofty pine-tree of Hine-rahi.And here am I, my little fellow!Seeking, searching sadly through the thoughts that rise.In these days, my child,For us two no lofty chiefs are left.Passed are the times of thy far-famed uncles,Who from the storms of war and witchcraftGave shelter to the multitudes, the thousands.”

Sometimes, when death interfered, the lullaby became a lament:— “I silent sit as throbs my heartFor my children;And those who look on meAs now I bow my headMay deem me but a forest treeFrom distant land.I bow my headAs droops the tree-fern (mamaku), And weep for my children.O my child! so often called,“Come O my child!”Gone! Yes with the mighty flood,I lonely sit midst noise and crowd,My life ebbs fast.”

Of quite a different character are the songs of revenge and lust for blood, fierce and implacable. They were called whaka-tea tumoto, or kai-oraora:— “O the saltness of my mouthIn drinking the liquid brains of NukuWhence welled up his wrath!His ears which heard the deliberations!Tutepakihirangi shall go headlong(Into the stomach) of Hinewai!My teeth shall devour Kaukau!The three hundred and forty of Te Kiri-kowhatuShall be huddled in a heap in my trough!Te Hika and his multitudes shall boil in my pot!Ngaitahu (the whole tribe) shall beMy sweet morsel to finish with! E!

Combined with the poetry the proverbs of the people must be considered, for they are often interwoven in the old songs, and a line from some ancient poem or a few words recalling some legendary action may have a pungency impossible to explain to those who do not recognise the allusion. The Maori mind was a treasury of pithy proverbs; hundreds have been collected, but even at the present day unregistered but pregnant sayings are on the lips of the people. Some of these proverbial utterances carry their meanings on the surface. Of such are the proverbs:— “Though the grub may be a little thing it can cause the big tree to fall.”“A spear shaft may be parried but not a shaft of speech.”“The weaving of a garment may be traced but the thoughts of man cannot.”“Son up and doing, prosperous son; son sitting, hungry son.”“Did you come from the village of the Liar?”“The offspring of Rashness died easily.”“The women shall be as a cliff for the men to flee over.”“Great is the majority of the dead.”“The home is permanent, the man flits.”“Outwardly eating together, inwardly tearing to pieces.”“Man is passing away like the moa.”“Will the escaped wood-hen return to the snare?”“Perhaps you and False-tongue travelled here together.”“Well done the hand that roots up weeds!”“A chief dies, another takes his place.”“Passing clouds can be seen, but passing thoughts cannot be seen.”“The digger of fern-root has abundance of food, but the parrot-snarer will go hungry.”

Other proverbs require explanation, some being only slightly, and others extremely, obscure. “Those who escape the sea-god will be killed by those on shore” is an allusion to the legendary custom in the ancestral home (Hawaiki), of killing shipwrecked strangers. It is used as applying to a very perilous position, as we say “Between the devil and the deep sea.” The proverb “The attendants of Papaka who were slain in forgetfulness” means that it is convenient to forget at times, for Papaka killed his mother's brothers ignoring that they were his own relatives. “The road to Hawaiki is cut off” is equivalent to our “The Rubicon is passed.” “The house of the orphan” is a phrase applied to one who has no family or friends. “A woman on shore, a kahawai in the sea.” The kahawai (Arripis salar) is a fish difficult to hook.

When a Maori said “It was not one man alone who was awake in the dark ages” it meant that the wise men of other tribes had their own versions of the ancestral legends.

“A tail drawn down beneath” is a taunting expression used of a coward, likening him to a cur with its tail drawn between the hind legs. A lazy fellow was mocked with the saying “An often-singed tail” pointing out that he resembled a dog that was always lying close up to the warm fire. “The flounder will not return to the place where it was disturbed” means that the chance not availed of will never return. “The white heron eats daintily, the duck gobbles up the mud” is equivalent to saying that a man is known by his tastes. “Eat underdone, you get it; fully cooked, somebody else may” is the rendering of our “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” “If a fisherman yawns he will catch no fish” is a saying founded on the belief that it is unlucky for a fisherman to yawn, but it is applied to anyone doing work in a lazy perfunctory manner.

“You cannot hew a bird-spear by the way” is a proverb enjoining careful preparation before action. It was easy to spear a bird for food but to make the spear took months of careful work. “The big basket of Stay-at-home” is said in praise of one who minds his own business and attends to his duties, as we say “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” “Deep throat, shallow sinews” is applied to a lazy glutton. “A rain-drop above, a human lip below,” means that as “Dropping water wears away a stone” so does slander a good name. “Well done, children! smashing your calabashes” was spoken of one defaming his family and “Fouling his own nest.” “Is the entrance to the Under-world closed?” was said to one advocating war. “The head of Rangitihi bound up with the vine” was a proverb equal to “Never despair,” for the hero Rangitihi when his head was split by an enemy's club bound up his skull with a forest-vine and went on fighting.

The proverb “Food will not follow at the back of Hekemaru” implies that the hospitality offered has only been prompted by an after-thought. A great chief named Hekemaru refused to accept food on a journey except when he was seen and welcomed on approaching a strange village. If his party had passed without being seen, and messengers were sent after him asking him and his followers to return and partake of food, he would answer that food would not follow his back, meaning that such food being offered to the sacred back of his head would be dangerous to others.

“The little basket of Whaka-oti-rangi” was often quoted as an excuse to a guest when only a scanty store of provisions could be set before him. Whaka-oti-rangi was one of the few women who accompanied the voyaging Maori to New Zealand in the “Arawa” canoe. Most of the provisions were lost from the canoe when it entered the great mid-ocean whirlpool, but the lady in question saved some of her sweet-potatoes in a little basket. The potatoes being planted on arrival here were the origin of this root in New Zealand, according to a tribal story.

Some proverbs are mere local boasts, such as “Wind is everywhere, but (the best) food at Orariki.” “A greenstone of two colours” implies a changeable person. “The men are of Waitaha (tribe) but not their hearts” is used against diversity of council. “Descendants of Kapu, with minds undeciphered” was spoken of a reserved party of visitors. “It would scarcely stir the beard of Haumatangi” means as though one said “It would hardly be a mouthful,” for Haumatangi had a valiant appetite. “The children of Ninihi” was used to those who professed to scorn dainties but were gourmands nevertheless—probably this affectation was one of the weaknesses of Ninihi. A person usually neglectful of personal appearance but who was highly ornamented on some special occasion was rebuked by the adage “Buried in the ground, a chrysalis; appearing in the air a butterfly.” “The many of Rangiwhakangi” is equivalent to our “Many hands make light work.” If a greedy person secured a dainty portion of food and secreted it, he was told “You have a fat kahawai fish, so turn your face away.” “Haste with the harvest, the Pleiades are setting” was a hint that the season was advanced.

These examples may suffice to show what a treasury of quaint wisdom the Maori's memory held in keeping.

Fables.

Tribal Mottoes.

Many of the important tribes had “Mottoes” or proverbial adages, often quoted, and supposed to convey in a terse and emphatic manner some characteristic of the people to which the name or expression was applied. Sometimes these were scornful epithets used by others almost as nicknames and applied contemptuously. I refrain from giving examples of these, as they would only confer more publicity on annoying phrases, and wound some of my native friends without cause.

Another kind, that of the true “Motto” was a proud descriptive sentence or word, well remembered by the members of the tribe alluded to and by those who wished to flatter or approve. Of these the following may be taken as examples: Ngaiterangi tribe “Truthful” (Ki-tahi; literally “single-speech”).Ngati-paoa tribe “Easily offended” (Taringa-rahirahi; literally “thin-ears”).Waikato tribe “The hundred chiefs” (Taniwha rau). Ngapuhi tribe “Eaters of men” (Kaitangata). Ngati-awa tribe “Of a hundred holes” (Kowhao rau; meaning “Of a hundred hiding places,” fertile of resource).Rangitihi tribe “The arrogant head” (Upoko whakahirahira).

Food, Cultivation, Etc.

The European is so accustomed to draw on his flocks and herds for large supplies of animal food and on his crops of grain for bread-stuffs that it is difficult for him to understand how any people not in the hunting or pastoral stage can subsist without large stores of meat, or how a race that has no cereals can continue to support life if largely dependent on roots and on the products of shore and forest. Yet the Maoris did this, and kept their bodily frames up to the highest efficiency, not, however, without industry and risk, those blessings in disguise to human nature. There was plenty and more than plenty at times, but it was purchased with brain and muscle, with digging-stick and fishing-net, at the point of the bird-spear and canoe-paddle.

Nothing can be more ridiculous than to assert that cannibalism originated in New Zealand through scarcity of food. If that had been so the women would have been in poor case, for human flesh was a tapu food for them. The women were as well nourished as the men, and the Maori would have been a poor race if it had depended on half-starved mothers. Nature was not prodigal to her dusky children as in the sunny islands of the South Seas; although food was on every side, it had to be won; won with an ingenuity, a resolution, and an industry that awake admiration the more it is contemplated. Birds of all kinds, eggs, sea-fish, river-fish, shell-fish, cray-fish, eels, rats, dogs, bread of hinau and raupo-pollen, berries, edible seaweed, sweet roots of cabbage-tree, heads of palms and tree-ferns, sweet potatoes, yams, taro, fernroot, etc., etc., were eaten fresh, were dried, stored, and kept for winter provision. Cliff and beach, forest and lake, sea and river, all had supplies of food waiting for those wise enough and laborious enough to gather them in, and also generous enough to feel that it was the portion of the strong and well equipped to share not only equally but bountifully with the weaker members of their tribe.

As the great bulk of their food was vegetable we had better turn first to their staple root-crop, viz, the sweet-potato (kumara) and to save reiteration speak of it henceforth under its native name. The kumara (Ipomœa chrysorrhiza) is a very handsome plant of tender growth and very prolific in good seasons; it is an annual and needs considerable skill in cultivation. The little hillocks on which it was planted had to be manured every year with fine gravel obtained from pits or river-beds, and carried in closely-woven baskets, with much labour, on the bearer's back to the place where it was to be used. The ground was kept entirely free from weeds, and the young plants sheltered from the wind by small screens of tea-tree (manuka); careful watch was also kept upon the growing plants to guard them from the ravages of a certain caterpillar; the larva of a large moth (anuhe, awhato, hotete; Cordiceps robertsii) which preyed on the kumara leaves sometimes in almost incredible numbers. This pest is better known as the “vegetable caterpillar” from a fungus that grows from it after death. It caused great havoc, eating from the edges of the leaves inwards, leaving the rib-veins. Hence the proverb against a glutton “Caterpillar always slowly eating” (awhato ngongenga roa). The larvæ were carefully picked off into baskets, carried away and burnt; it was a job always greatly disliked. This part of the work, fetching the gravel, weeding, watching for the caterpillars, etc., was faithfully and carefully performed by the women. Sometimes, however, old men past other work would be set, as the crop grew towards ripeness, to scare away thievish rats by working rattles at night, these rattles being composed of lines on which mussel shells were strung in bunches, that jingled and made a sound sufficient to scare away the rodents. There were at least forty or fifty named varieties of kumara, 1 all of which came true to their kinds when planted, but none of the species flowered nor was there any legend to the effect that they had ever done so. By some tribes the tuber was allowed to throw out a sprout before being put into the ground, but this necessitated even greater care and watchfulness than usual. Before the roots were ripe the old women would visit the plants and remove a few of the tubers by scraping away the soil at the side of a mound, then the earth round the plant was carefully loosened with a dibble and hilled up again, every withered leaf and weak sprout being removed. The roots taken out were scraped and half-dried on mats spread in the sun, each being carefully turned every day and shielded from dew at night. When properly dried they were (if not eaten at once) packed in baskets and kept as sweet-meats, or sometimes mashed up with warm water. These dried roots were called kao. Great care was shown in taking up (hauhake) the crop; this was always done in autumn before the frosts came. They were sorted out as to size, variety, etc.; all broken or damaged roots were eaten as soon as possible, but the better specimens were put into newly-made flax baskets and on some bright sunny day bestowed in the kumara store. Any moisture on them when put away would soon have spoiled them and they would have become mouldy.

The kumara was considered an exceedingly sacred crop and both the planting and harvesting of the roots were attended with much ceremonial. The plant itself was regarded as a god under the name of Rongo-marae-roa, and it was considered as eminently “The food of Peace” never to be contaminated by being cooked in the same oven nor stored in the same place as fern-root which was “The food of War.” The kumara had to be steamed in the oven, the fern-root roasted in the fire. The kumara was mystically supposed to be under the guardianship of a goddess named Pani, hence a kumara plantation was called “The belly of Pani.” If when harvesting any unusually large or peculiarly shaped sweet potato was found, it was called “Pani's medium” and was made sacred. If this was not done the whole kumara crop would rot away in the store-house, beside other evils. It was therefore taken by the priests and used at offerings of first-fruits cooked on a sacred fire. To find such a root was a cause of much gratulation as ensuring Pani's blessing, and as such kumara were only found when the crop was unusually prolific it was taken as a proof of Pani's favour. An incantation to this goddess always preceded the planting of the crop.2 The tubers of the ordinary kumara that were to be offered as first-fruits to the gods at the digging-up were planted in a separate plot (mara-tautane) of the cultivation. Rotorua was a famous place for kumara, probably on account of the warmth of the volcanic soil, and on the island of Mokoia (in Rotorua lake), a very sacred place, the ceremonies necessary were observed with great strictness. The first incantation used was “The Song of Maui” (Tetewha o Maui.) The priests went out to the forest and gathered boughs of the mapou tree, while the people fasted; both that day and the next were held very sacred, even the lake being tapu, no fishing was allowed nor did canoes put forth. The priests carried the mapou boughs and laid them with recited charms before the stone-god known as Te Matua Tonga. All day the branches rested there imbibing the essence of the god, and then they were removed to the kumara plantation and stuck into the soil to ensure a fruitful crop. The next morning the priests repeated their spells while the people were putting the tubers into the ground. When a great chief's kumara fields were being planted, the skull of his father or some other ancestor was brought out and placed beside the mapou boughs, remaining there during the season to give fecundity to the crop. The Arawa tribe used for this purpose the skull and bones of the old giant Tuhourangi, but in some places the skulls of vanquished foemen were set up along the sides of the kumara fields to promote a large yield of roots. It is said in legend that two persons, named respectively Taukata and Hoake, brought the kumara from Hawaiki to New Zealand, and Hoake returned as a guide in the canoes which started to get more, but Taukata was sacrificed and his blood sprinkled upon the door-posts of the store-house in which the first crop of kumara was placed, lest the spirit (mauri) of the roots should vanish and return home. Hoake did not return from Hawaiki, but six generations afterwards his descendants came to New Zealand with their vessels loaded with the sweet-potato. On landing they took the skull of Taukata from its burial cave (whara) and placing a seed-kumara in either eye-socket of the skull, the skull was set up on the edge of the plantation. Thereafter at the gathering and storing of the kumara a descendant of Taukata was sacrificed as an offering to the gods, and his blood sprinkled on the door-posts of the kumara store-house.

The ceremonial of planting differed according to locality. Some tribes set up three stakes on posts, each representing a god, viz, Kahukura (the rainbow—chief god of the kumara crop), Maui-i-rangi and Marihaka; to these incantations were chanted and offerings made. The priests then went to consult the holy image of Kahukura that stood in the sacred place of Mua. (See Wharekura). If the god was propitious his image would shake or tremble as a sign that protection would be given by the celestial powers to guard the crop both from natural enemies and tribal foes. Great trouble was sometimes taken to ensure the presence of a celebrated priest (who was sometimes brought from a place far away), for, if a mistake was made in the prayers or any ceremonies omitted, the presiding priest would be smitten with death by the gods, and the crop ruined. The principal chief would probably see to the death punishment. At different stages in the work of planting loud shouts would be given by the workers, a shout when the ground was first broken by digging, again when taking the young shoots from the tubers, again when the bulbs were set in the little mounds. All the men, chief and followers, who worked at the planting did so perfectly naked. The kumara sets were addressed as persons, reminded how good effects were to be obtained if they meant to grow, viz, from sun, wind and rain, and from holding on to the soil; nor were reminders of the ancient heavenly origin of the plant forgotten.

The kumara crop was dug when the star Vega (Whanui) was above the horizon in the direction (?) of Hawaiki. Should the star rise slowly there would be a fruitful year, not only for kumara but for all crops and all kinds of food, such as birds, rats, etc. If the star rose quickly there would be a lean year. If the kumara crop was not dug when Whanui was seen the crop might be good to eat at the time, but would not keep for winter use. The priest-chief (ariki) was always presented with the first-fruits of the kumara crop, some of it cooked and some of it raw. At the same time other offerings, of birds, fish, etc., were made to him, accompanied with hymns and chants reserved for the occasion. The men engaged in planting and harvesting kumara were very tapu and needed special forms of spells and purification before they could resume ordinary avocations.3 The kumara was so sacred that when a pa was in danger of attack tubers of this plant were buried in all paths leading to the fort, in order that should a foeman chance to step on one of these he would provoke the anger of the gods against his party. For this reason a war-party would always make its own path if possible, and not use a beaten track. If the spell named Whatu mahunu was recited over the buried kumara the legs of a foeman would feel as if burnt and he would turn and flee. The most beautifully adorned house in a settlement was generally the red-painted kumara store, which was always erected so that the door was turned away from the cold south wind and also that the spirits of the dead might not fly athwart them as they journeyed to Te Reinga. The stores were usually set up on carved posts, their internal walls were often made of neatly-placed yellow reeds renewed every year, and they had squared plinths of fern-tree stems placed at base to keep out rats. The roof was well fastened down with ropes of the climbing fern (mangemange: Lygodium volubile) and the carved work of the gables was inlaid with haliotis (paua) shell. All kumara stores were rigidly tapu and persons entering them were tapu also, so that only necessary and exceedingly formal visits were made to these sacred stores. In Waiwiri lake (generally known as Papaitonga, but this is properly the name of an island in the lake) at Horowhenua, posts were erected in the water and food-stores erected thereon.

Although mention has been above made as to the introduction of kumara by Taukata, Maoris of different tribes dispute fiercely as to the honour of first bringing the tubers to New Zealand, and as to which of the ancestral canoes conveyed them hither—probably they all had a share. It seems likely, however, that the migration from Hawaiki did introduce the root to these islands, as there is a consensus of legendary evidence to the effect that the previous inhabitants of the land were unacquainted with the sweet-potato and had subsisted on fern-root, on the sugary root of the cabbage-palm, etc. Many of the traditions are well away into the realm of myth, for Kahuhura (the god of that name) is said to have been the introducer, while the canoes passed backwards and forwards to Hawaiki in a miraculously short space of time. There is absolutely no trustworthy evidence in the matter, and it is simplified by one legendary statement that the kumara grew “on the cliffs of Hawaiki in the Under-world.”4 Unless some new and important material of enquiry is discovered, any attempt to ascertain the original country from which the kumara was brought is waste of time. The Maori saying that “Hawaiki is the land where the kumara grows spontaneously among the fern,” has only darkened counsel.5

The next food-staple in importance to the kumara was the root of the common fern (rarauhe: Pteris aquilina or esculenta), the root itself being denoted roi or aruhe. There were many varieties known to the natives and the flavours were said to be distinct, for instance that found on sandy soil differed in taste from that growing on the edge of the forest or on a steep slope. The best grew on rich, loose, alluvial soil, the root there having more fecula and less fibre. A good root would measure about three inches round by about one foot long. If it did not break crisply it was rejected. The supply had in some cases to be brought for miles, and the labour in procuring and preparing it was no light matter. It was dug in spring and early summer, then put into loose stacks shaded from the sun and built so that the wind could blow through among the roots freely so as to dry them. In about a fortnight it was picked over and sorted into varieties, some for chiefs, some for visitors, some for warriors, some for common use, and some for slaves. Then it was put away and stored; if well prepared it would last for years. After being slightly soaked it was scraped with a shell to remove the black skin, then roasted and pounded with a pestle or beater.6 The long wiry fibres were drawn out and the pounding made the mass acquire the consistency of thick dough. It was made into cakes (komeke) and was considered very nourishing and sustaining food, especially for sick people, or to a party of men on a forced march. It satisfied the craving of hunger for a longer period than most other kinds of native food. Hence the proverb “The sustaining food of Whete”—(Te manawa nui o Whete). Good fern-root when roasted tasted like biscuit, being mealy but rather tasteless. It was generally eaten with some relish such as fish, and sometimes soaked in the juice of tutu berries. The Maoris would not burn off fern from plantations except at the proper time of year, else the roots of the fern were injured, but if burnt at the right time it improved them. The fern had to be fired ceremonially, only two sorts of wood being used, viz the supple-jack (Rareao or pirita: Rhipogonum parviflorum) and the White-wood (mahoe: Melicytus ramiflorus) to kindle the fire. It was always dug up with the digging-stick (ko) and not with any other tool; care was taken not to bruise or break the root. Some districts particularly in the north, were very poor in fern-root, and it became very valuable; for the occupancy of a certain hill rich in this kind of food several battles were fought. When used on a voyage or war-expedition it was carried as a pounded mass. It was always pounded during daylight for it was believed that if beaten at night the head of the person so misusing the root would be pounded by the enemy.

The deity or lord of the fern-root and of all vegetable food growing wild was Haumia-tiki-tiki, a son of Heaven and Earth. When his parents were driven asunder he assented to the rending apart, and for this he was exposed to the wrath of the Lord of Tempests, Tawhiri matea, who pursued Haumia and would have slain him had he not been hidden in the breast of Earth, the mother. There is a curious ancient song relating that the fern-roots were growing on “The back of Heaven” and that when Heaven was uplifted the fern-roots came rattling down upon the earth. “At last the succulent crosier-like shoots appeared uprising among the habitations of men, and they were named ‘The Young-lady-who-showed-how-to-dig-up-her-lord.’” This young lady, the nascent fern-shoot, succulent and tender, was also eaten by the Maori.

The taro (Arum esculentum or Caladium esculentum) was probably introduced from the South-Sea Islands, for like the sweet-potato it was a tropical plant, and never throve in the colder climate of New Zealand without great care and trouble. The taro was beautiful in appearance, the large leaves handsomely veined would excite admiration if used only as a foliage plant, but the succulent root was the edible portion. It required a damp situation and rich soil of a light loamy or alluvial character, and was often planted on the banks of streams or lakes or at the foot of cliffs. Sand or gravel had to be brought and spread over the soil in which the roots were planted, in order that the heat of the sun should be drawn to the plants to nurture them, and they also had to be sheltered by means of rows of tea-tree boughs stuck in the ground. It was propagated by planting tubers or rather offsets from which shoots were carefully picked off. Three years' planting exhausted the soil, which was then left to grow bushes that when cut down and burnt manured the land ready for another crop. It was a perennial, and always in season, so did not need to be stored up when wanted for food; it was very prolific, increasing its offsets fast. At least twenty varieties were known and named. Taro is still to be found growing, but not the old valued kinds, these were superseded by a coarser variety of a poorer flavour but more easily cultivated, called American Taro. If the root was not fully cooked it was very unpleasant to the taste, causing burning of the lips and throat. It was much used in ceremonial observances.

The Yam (Uhi or uwhi-kaho: Dioscorea sp.) was little cultivated, as it would only grow in sunny places in the northern parts of the North Island, and that only in clearings recently made, where the fresh ashes had fertilised the soil. The Gourd or Calabash plant (hue) was an important vegetable, delicious in flavour and easily grown. It was a running or trailing plant, with large white flowers, and pumpkin-like fruit of all sizes from that of the fist up to the dimensions of a bushel measure. The gourd required a damp rich soil to bring it to perfection; it was often sown near taro plantations and on the edge of the forest. It was only used for food when young, and steamed in the earth-oven; it was devoured either hot or cold. An immense number were eaten in the hot season. It was raised from seed that was yielded in great plenty, but there was only one variety truly indigenous, the other (putahue) was introduced in the Hawaiki immigration. Before sowing the seeds were wrapped in the fronds of the common fern and steeped in water for some days. They were planted when the warmth of summer began to be felt and on the 15th and 16th days of the moon; indeed all vegetable seeds had to be planted about the full of the moon to ensure abundance. If gourds were broken up to be cooked in the oven, a charm had to be repeated by the woman preparing them. The great value of the hue was in the use of its fruit for calabashes; the natives, in the absence of pottery, would have been put to great straits to find a substitute for the gourd, not only in the manufacture of water-vessels, but for containers of potted-birds, etc. To use as calabashes the fruit was prepared by drying when mature by the aid of sun or fire, the contents being scooped out through a small hole in the stem-end. Small gourds were used as vessels for holding oils and paints for the body, the medium size were made into dishes and water-vessels, while the very large specimens were reserved for potting birds. For this purpose the stalk-end was cut off and a carved wooden mouthpiece inserted; this was cut out of one piece of wood large enough to allow of a man's hand being inserted into the vessel. At the bottom of the large gourd three or four legs were fitted so that it would stand upright; such containers were highly prized, and became heirlooms.

The tap-root (kauru or mauku) of the cabbage-tree (ti: Cordyline sp.) was dug up at particular seasons, split and cooked. The root of a finer quality from the species known as ti-koraha was carrot-shaped and about two or three feet in length, requiring a deep rich soil for its proper growth. The seedlings were carefully planted out, and the following year the root was fit for use. The plants were dug up, stacked in piles, and dried in the sun. The fibrous roots were burned off while drying. When dry the roots were scraped and slowly baked for from 12 to 18 hours. They were either chewed at once, or pounded, washed and squeezed to extract the sugar which was contained in great quantity, partially crystalised among the fibres of the root. The sugar was eaten as a relish with fern-root. There was another variety of cabbage-tree (ti para: C. edulis) a flowerless variety, growing to a height of four or five feet and propagated only by suckers and side-shoots; when it had thrown out its suckers it died. The stem of this plant, which was considerably thicker than that of a cabbage, was cooked and eaten. Sometimes the heart-shoots of the cabbage-tree (ti) were eaten raw or after being roasted on the embers; this was usually done by men on a journey when food was scarce. The frond-stems and heart of the great tree-fern (mamaku: Cyathea medullaris) were also baked and eaten, a very nourishing food resembling sago. The heart of the nikau palm (Areca sapida) was eaten raw; it was succulent and wholesome but it destroyed the tree for a very small quantity of nourishment to the eater. The roots (koreirei) of the bulrush (raupo: Typha angustifolia) were found to be mild, cool and refreshing if eaten raw, but the roots of the New Zealand lily (rengarenga: Arthropodium cirrhatum) had to be cooked in the oven before becoming fit for food. A plant resembling a long red radish (perei: Gastrodia cunninghamii) was valued for its root, but it was scarce, and only found in dense forests. The roots of the common convolvulus (pohue: Convolvulus sepium) were carefully dug up and cooked, but were not much thought of as an article of diet, for they were to be found in small quantity and it took much trouble to dig up the long whip-like roots. The bulbs or large scaly bracts of roots at the base of the leaves of that most beautiful of objects, the horse-shoe fern (para-reka: Marattia salicina), whose leaves sometimes reach 14 feet in graceful length, formed a delicious article of food, but the locality in which it grew was limited, and confined almost wholly to dark shady forests. The kernel-like inner part of the root of the sedge (ririwaka: Scirpus maritimus) was eaten.

Bread (pua) was made from the yellow pollen of the bulrush (raupo). It was collected in summer, and when raw was like mustard in appearance. It was gently beaten out from the flowering spikes, and mixed up with water into thin large round cakes and then baked. The taste was like gingerbread, and it was both sweet and light. Bread was also made from the berries of the hinau tree (Elæocarpus dentatus). The berries had to be steeped for a long time, sometimes for months, in running water. Then they were placed in troughs with water and rubbed with the hands, the nuts, stalks and bits of broken skin were drained off, and the residue was a kind of coarse meal which was made into a huge cake and steamed in the oven. It took two days to make a cake weighing from 25 to 30 pounds. It was troublesome to prepare but was greatly relished, as, though darker than our brown bread, it was pleasant to the taste. It was often set before visitors as superior food. Some tribes did not steep the fruit but only pounded it in a rude mortar and sifted it through a sieve made of the mid-ribs of the leaf of cabbage-tree (ti).

The pulp of the berries of the karaka tree (Corynocarpus lœvigata) was sometimes eaten raw and the poisonous woody kernel thrown away. But as an article of food it was the kernel that was valued, and held in higher estimation than fern-root, but it was not so common, as the tree only grows near the sea. The fruit was soaked in water for months, a dam being formed in a small stream for that purpose. When ready they were washed by being trampled with the feet, the outer pulp and skin passing away. Then the kernels were cooked in the ovens. Another mode was to gather the fruits in the autumn and steam them in large ovens for a long time; then they were put into loosely woven baskets which were shaken and knocked about to remove the pulp and outer skin, the large seed being left; this removed the poisonous qualities. Afterwards they were spread out on mats and stages to dry and then stowed away. When used the kernels still in the husk were steamed again in the oven. Sometimes the hard seeds of the fruit of the tawa (Nesodaphne tawa) were steamed and eaten; the fruit, which is like a long plum, is not very palatable. Maoris after the arrival of the Europeans acquired a liking for a filthy kind of food, viz, maize steeped in water till rotten and then cooked, but it need not be considered as an article of Maori food proper, as maize was an introduced plant. The berries (konini) of the native fuchsia (kotukutuku: Fuchsia excorticata); of two species of solanum shrubs (poroporo, poporo: Solanum aviculare and S. nigrum) and of some other trees and shrubs were eaten raw. Fungi of various sorts, especially those growing on dead timber, were eaten and relished as we enjoy mushrooms. If fungi were found in abundance it was believed that a year of scarcity of all kinds of food was at hand. The sow-thistle (puwha: Sonchus oleraceus) was used fresh as a vegetable, gathered once or twice a day and steamed in the oven. Only the tender young leaves and tops were used, and the stems were sometimes bruised and washed in running water to get rid of the bitter milky juice. It was considered a great relish when used in spring and summer, and cooked with fish. The leaves of certain other plants (raupeti, toi, and tohetake) were also used as vegetables. The so-called “Maori cabbage” was introduced by Cook, and was not an indigenous plant. The fleshy flower (tawhara) of the climbing plant kiekie (Freycinetia banksii) was eaten greedily and its fruit (ureure) was also eaten when it was ripe, in the winter. A few varieties of seaweed were also cooked and devoured; the principal of these was a species of Laminaria (karengo). It was an extremely slippery and flat growth, like paper, found on tidal rocks. It was collected and dried in the sun and closely packed away in baskets. Karengo was generally eaten after being steamed in the oven and mixed with tutu juice, when it became like jelly and was allowed to cool. It was considered a great treat, and was carried to inland tribes as a valued present.

The Maoris drank little excepting water, or water made sweet with the honey of the flax flower (Phormium). The sugary roots of the cabbage-tree (ti) were sometimes bruised in water as a sweet drink, but there was nothing to be called an artificial beverage except the juice of the tutu (Coriaria ruscifolia) berry. This juice had to be carefully strained to extract the seeds, which were highly poisonous, but if there were no seeds the drink was pleasant and wholesome. The juice was expressed from the berries and placed in cala-bashes which were set in a cool place for immediate use. A sister variety (kawa: Piper excelsum) of the plant (kawa: Piper methysticum) from which the South-sea Kava is made, grows in New Zealand, but although the Maoris had kept the name they apparently forgot how to make the beverage; neither the chewing or pounding the root for its juices was practised, or alluded to in legend. The gum of the kauri pine and of the tarata (Pittosporum eugenioides) was chewed as a masticatory; the latter being mixed with a gummy exudation from the sow-thistle. Bitumen was also chewed and passed freely from one to another.

The above covers pretty fully the subject of the vegetable food of the Maori, but before leaving the subject altogether a few words may be devoted to general remarks. Their plantations were not fenced; it was not until after the pig was introduced that fences became necessary. The only fences used were screens of reeds or tea-tree put up to shelter kumara and taro from high winds. The plantations were far apart, for fear that either an enemy's war party or a friendly plundering (muru) party might ruin the results of much patient labour, for at such times crops were wantonly and ruthlessly destroyed. In preparing a cultivation the big trees were felled with the aid of fire as described in canoe making. The smaller trees were cut down by means of heavy stone-axes (toki) lashed to the ends of poles and impelled against the tree to be felled. This was done until two deeply cut (or bruised) rings about a foot apart were made round the tree, and then the intermediate portions of wood were removed by applying wedges of smaller axes. This went on till the centre of the tree was reached. It was a slow process, for often a stage on which many men could work had to be set up round the trunk. The ramming at the tree with the great axe-shaft was done by parties of men timing their work with chants, as they would do in hauling out a log or paddling a canoe. The plantations were very pleasing to the eye, being kept in good order and set with mathematical accuracy. Kumara fields had their plants set about two feet apart each in its little round mound like a small mole-hill, while the beautiful taro plants with their dark rich green leaves rose from a levelled surface often white with sand patted smooth with the hand. The hue were set in little depressions like bowls or hemispherical pits. All lines of kumara and taro were set absolutely straight whether viewed lengthwise or across, a cord being used in laying these lines out with uniform precision. Except dry gravel and ashes of burnt timber no manure was used. The Maoris consider the use of animal manure as a revolting and

An Old Warrior Holding a Kokoti or Patu.[See page 311.]

filthy practice. They would have rejected as tapu any food grown in what they looked upon as so disgusting a manner, and regarded European cultivation with horror when they saw dung applied to agricultural purposes. It is, however, a most extraordinary thing for so observant and industrious a people not to have furnished clean water to their plants. They never watered their gardens even in times of drought and when water was close by, and crops sometimes perished for want of this simple aid in the struggle for existence. Agriculture was properly taught to the chiefs in the University.

The animal food of the Maoris was limited in variety but was fairly plentiful. Birds, fish, dogs and rats constituted the principal items. The fine New Zealand pigeon (kukupa or kereru: Carpophaga novæ-zealandiæ) was snared or speared in great quantity, as were the parrots (kaka: Nestor meridionalis). The paradise duck (putangi-tangi: Casarca variegata) a bird of beautiful plumage, but not of such flavour as the grey duck or teal, was considered a prize. The swamp hen (pukeko: Porphyrio melanotus), wood-hen (weka: Ocydromus sp.), the apteryx (kiwi: Apteryx sp.), the parson bird (tui: Prosthemadera N.Z.), the ground-parrot (kakapo: Stringops habroptilus), the quail (koreke: Coturnix N.Z.), the rail (mohopereru and moeriki: Rallus sp.) and many other land-birds were cooked or potted down. Many kinds of sea-birds, curlew, tern, mutton-birds, etc., etc., were caught and preserved in calabashes. The air-bladder of a kind of kelp was utilised as a vessel in which cooked mutton-birds were potted; the oil that escaped in cooking being poured over them in the container. Bark of the totara tree was fastened round the outside and kept in place by stout sticks, the kelp bags and the bark covering being pressed into the shape of a sugar loaf standing five or six feet high and ornamented with feathers. Gross feeding on these very fat birds would produce eczema or some kindred form of skin disease. The small frugivorous rat (kiore) was an article of food highly esteemed. If being prepared for the dinner of a visitor or of a well-born chief the fur was singed off and the bones crushed within the tiny carcase. Care was taken not to break the skin, so the broken pieces of bone were extracted through the posterior orifice, but the intestines and their contents were left undisturbed, the vegetable substance in the stomach serving for ready-made stuffing. When cooked they were like large juicy sausages. Seals were sometimes taken and were highly relished as food. At one time the large edible lizard was caught by being smoked out of its burrow at the foot of a tree; an inland tribe, the Rangitane, were said to eat them only about eighty years ago.

The Maoris had good fishing grounds all round their coasts as well as in lakes and rivers. They sometimes used large seine nets and hand-nets but also were adepts at using hook and line. The cod (hapuku) is a fine sea-fish, sometimes attaining a weight of 50 pounds. It is related that on one occasion a shoal of Black-fish came ashore at low water and the natives tethered the huge creatures by the tails with long ropes of flax, killing them as they were wanted. The mackerel, the kingfish, barracouta, and some other kinds were caught with the running line and a hook made from the bent shell of the haliotis (paua). Snapper, warehou, butterfish, trumpeter, moki, flat-fish (patiki), and other fine sea fish were plentiful. Sharks caught and dried on stages in the sun were much relished. Mackerel were prepared by being cleaned inside and washed with salt water, then half-cooked in the oven, afterwards placed on a high stage 10 feet above a fire which burnt during the night but was allowed to die down in the daytime when the sun's heat helped to dry the fish. This was a favourite winter food. A very tasty dish was made by cooking fish in an oven, then, taking out the bones, the flesh was pressed into a solid mass. This was then wrapped in young raurekau leaves and baked (or steamed) in the oven a second time. It was called koki. Large quantities of eels were sometimes caught, generally by building (often with great labour) winged weirs in rivers or streams leading out of lakes. Strong palisades of long posts were driven in, the walls inclining together so that eel baskets (hinaki) could intercept the fish passing. Eels are a gross and oily diet, and were preferred dried. This was done by tying them in rows between sticks, sometimes between two long sticks fastened together, from which the dried eels stuck out stiffly and regularly on each side like a large palm-branch. They were prepared by being placed over smoky fires which dried up the fat and cured the fish, allowing none of the flavour to escape. When being eaten only the skin was removed and no further cooking was required. Lampreys (piharau) were caught in loose mats of fern laid in the small streams and now and then examined, the fish being found entangled in their interlaced fronds. The natives sometimes died (as a certain English king did) from a surfeit of this luscious food. A small fish (inanga), resembling the minnow, swarmed in tidal streams, and made up for its size by its numbers; it was caught in a long conical net fastened to a frame and thrust down with a pole. They were eaten pressed into a solid mass, and are now called whitebait by the settlers. A kind of grayling (upokororo) was found abundantly in some rivers but its habitat was limited. Fresh water mussels (kakahi) were gathered with a large rake used in the lakes. Oysters, limpets, haliotis (paua), cockles, and mussels, were abundant along the coast. Shellfish were collected in tons during the summer, dried and carried off for winter stores. Crayfish were caught by diving, or in wicker traps, and were preserved as follows. They were taken alive and placed overlapping each other in the bed of a running stream, stones being placed on them to keep them down. After a day or two in the water they were taken out, shelled and the flesh hung on frames in the wind to dry. When quite hard they were put up in bundles and packed away in baskets, these being placed in the store-houses. They were often used as presents when thus preserved for the men of the inland tribes, the coast natives receiving presents of potted forest birds in return. The cuttle-fish was in ancient times especially reserved for the high chiefs. A certain larva (huhu) found in rotten timber was much relished by the Maoris; and they also esteemed as food the small green beetle (kekerewai) found on the tea-tree (manuka) shrub. It was called as a compliment Te Manu a Rehua, “the bird of Rehua”—Rehua was a god.

Oil was obtained by hanging up the internal organs of the shark until they were decomposed and the liver-oil ran down into a calabash placed beneath. A vegetable oil was obtained from the berries of the titoki tree (Alectryon excelsum). These berries were bruised and placed in a wooden vessel with water into which hot stones were put, and the oil ran out from one end of the vessel. Bruised leaves of aromatic plants were then steeped in the oil to scent it. It was used for dressing the hair of people of rank.

In times of plenty the natives had two meals a day; one in the forenoon about ten o'clock and one about four in the afternoon, but in days of scarcity one meal only was partaken of. The primitive knife used in preparing the food was a flake of obsidian or more commonly a sharp cockle shell, a clumsy tool in European hands, but marvellously useful in the deft fingers of a native woman. Food was generally cooked in the earth-oven. This consisted of a hole in the ground in which a fierce fire of dry wood was kindled, and upon the wood was set a number of large stones not liable to crack with the heart. When the stones had become red-hot they fell through the fire as it burnt down and were then taken out with rough sticks used as tongs and set aside. The ashes were taken from the hole and the hot stones replaced, upon these were set green leaves and the food laid on them. Edible roots and tubers were laid at the bottom and meat or fish on the top. The meat to be cooked was bound up in large leaves to keep the gravy in. More green leaves were placed over the top and then water poured over, the whole being quickly covered in with old mats soaked in water and with soil hastily heaped on so that the steam could not escape. After some time, generally about one and a half hours, the oven was carefully opened, the coverings lifted off and the well-steamed food taken out. The result was extremely good, and although this was almost the only practical mode of cooking known to the Maoris there was no complaint as to efficiency. Of course they knew how to cook birds or fish by broiling or toasting before the fire on a stick, but this was seldom attempted on a large scale. Not having utensils of metal, frying, boiling or baking was not attempted.

When boiling water was required the water was put into a vessel of bark or a trough of wood and hot stones thrown in. There were proper and improper modes of cooking particular fish, and it was supposed that if attention was not given to this matter that living fish would leave the locality. Natives were sometimes afraid to make presents of fish lest they should be improperly cooked. Food was not eaten on a fishing expedition until all the fish had been caught that were required, or else the fish would not bite. Orthodox persons would not even take food in the fishing-canoe for fear the rule should be broken. Similarly no cooked food was allowed to be carried by bird-hunters; it would pollute the sanctity of the forest and drive all the birds away from it. If fern root had not been cooked it was permissable to carry it, and a small portion might be cooked on the spot, but only just enough for the meal, and if any remained over it had to be left behind, not carried on. If, when the ovens were opened, the contents were found to be only half-cooked, they had to be eaten in that state and not on any account to be cooked again. The cooking in this case had to be done at night, not in the day time. If a settlement was visited by bird-hunters and they were offered cooked food they might partake of it, but not take any as provisions for their further journey.

The food was generally served in small baskets of green flax, one for each guest of consequence, and these baskets were thrown away into a tapu place or else destroyed lest the personal tapu of the eater be desecrated. A food basket might be set between three or four common persons; this basket would probably contain sweet potatoes or taro with a piece of fish or bird and some sow-thistle or wild cabbage. A chief would not allow anyone else to eat from his basket or after him. Sometimes a high chief would give a portion of his cuttle-fish (tapairu) as a mark of honour to another person, but this was very exceptional. Any fragments left by the chief were carefully placed in the basket and deposited in the sacred place (wahitapu). In some villages, however, the chiefs had boxes formed like little houses set on posts, and in these extremely sacred receptacles the remnants of food were placed. Women generally ate by themselves, after cooking (assisted by the slaves) for and waiting on the men, but properly each person of any rank ate alone, so this was no hardship for the women. If it was the idiosyncracy of any one not to be able to eat certain kinds of food, such person was said to be wainamu. “So and so is a wainamu for eels,” etc.

It was not considered polite for guests when eating to be watched or intruded on by their hosts. A procession was formed and each person of the host's party bearing a basket would carry it for a visitor, set the food before the guest and withdraw. It was also considered very rude when carrying cooked food to pass in front of a chief or a guest. There is said once to have existed a small lake near Waikare-moana that was famous for the abundance of birds haunting the trees around it and thus a favourite place of bird-catchers. Unfortunately this lake has now disappeared, and no one can find it, because a chief who was snaring birds was disobeyed by his wife. He had warned her never to pass in front of him when she was carrying food, but she did so—and lo, the lake vanished for ever. Chiefs were very careful that the steam of cooking food should not drift over them or come into the house in which they sat; they considered their “sacredness” offended by such circumstance. On one occasion when murder had been done and war threatened thereupon, the offending persons were inveigled into a house whereto the steam of the uncovered ovens penetrated, and this degradation was considered a full revenge.

In addition to other ordinary feasts the great festival of the Maoris was the Hakari. This name was sometimes applied to the building erected for the food as well as to the feast itself. A huge pole 80 or 90 feet in height was dragged from the forest, dubbed or squared, and set up. Stages were built from about seven to nine feet apart all the way up the pole; the bottom stage being about 20 feet square, and the others diminishing in size to the top so that the whole took the form of a pyramid. The frame was braced by long poles set in the ground and slanting upwards along the outside of the stages to the central pole. Upon the stages were piled baskets of kumara, taro, hue, dried fish, dried birds, dogs, rats, etc., till the whole was almost a solid mass of food. At one feast there has been seen 2,000 one-bushel baskets of kumara, at another 20,000 dried eels, tons of sea fish, calabashes of oil, etc., etc. The food allotted for each tribe of visitors was particularly pointed out and set apart for them. The erection when finished with was allowed to go to ruin, or was broken up for firewood, it was never used again for a similar purpose, nor was another feast of the kind held in the same place.6 At ordinary feasts, and when the pyramid was not erected the feast was set out with long walls of food; walls about four feet high of roots such as sweet potatoes, etc., crowned with the cooked birds, etc. When the guests arrived they were welcomed with songs and then the presiding chief would strike different heaps or portions of food walls with his staff, naming the division of visitors to which it was allotted. The chief of the party receiving it divided it among his people. At such feasts many speeches were made, the orator walking one way and speaking, and then turning in silence to his starting point, when he began speaking and walking again.7

Canoes.

Many ot the canoes (waka) of the Maoris are still in evidence to bear witness to the industry, patience, and skill, of the men who designed them. They appear, notwithstanding their beauty both of line and ornament, to be degenerate specimens of the craftsmanship of the hardy navigators whose vessels dared the unknown dangers of the Pacific and brought the voyagers from Hawaiki to New Zealand. If tradition can be at all relied on, these exploring vessels were double canoes (huhuru, unua, unuku or taurua) of great size and carrying power. The famous “Arawa” canoe had above her double hull a deck or platform (pora) on which houses or cabins (pako kori) had been constructed; there were also shrines or sacred places thereon for the better worship of the ancient gods. The service of a priest or chaplain appears to have been, if not a necessity, a very considerable advantage if it could be procured. The names of some of the ancestral canoes have become very famous. Modern steamers of magnificent build and heavy tonnage are now trading across the ocean bearing the names of certain of the old Maori vessels, such as the Arawa, Tainui, Mamari, Tokomaru, etc. Legend speaks of still older canoes such as that of the hero Rata, canoes well known in the South Seas as well as in New Zealand as the vessels of ancient and brave explorers and warriors.8

The outrigger canoe (amatiatia or waka-ama) so well known in most of the South Sea Islands, was also a possession of the Maori. The famous Aotea canoe was said to have been a waka-ama. It was beneath the outrigger of such a canoe that the famous Maui crushed his wife's brother Irawaru before turning him into a dog. Both the double canoe and that with the outrigger have entirely disappeared from among the Maoris, and it is doubtful if any native now alive has seen either of them in New Zealand. Double canoes were plentiful two hundred years ago when Tasman touched at these islands, and a few were seen a century ago by Cook, but the memory of this roomy and seaworthy form of vessel has become legendary and shadowy. Their use was probably abandoned on the relinquishment of long sea voyages, and because they were not suited for navigation of narrow rivers and intricate coast lines.

Of the form generally preserved, that of the canoe hewn from a single log, or the main hull of which was so hewn, we have many beautiful specimens. The work of building one of the larger and more important variety was a task requiring much forethought and preparation. First, a tree suitable through its great size and solidity had to be selected, and this tree must be growing in a place whence haulage to the water was possible. Cultivations were then made as near to the tree as convenient, in order that the workmen employed should have plenty of food during the construction of the vessel. Some men skilled in the shaping of large canoes had to be engaged (perhaps from a distance), because a craft so expensive in the amount of thought and labour to be expended upon it could not be left to the superintendence of an inferior artist. A good deal of time was thus spent on preliminaries, patience being one of the most necessary qualities for success with primitive materials, and also because the food had to be grown. Then began the religious ceremonies. Priests had to be consulted as to an auspicious day for beginning the work, incantations were chanted and rites practised to propitiate the Lord of Forests and his attendant wood-elves. These spirits were supposed to be greatly annoyed by the destruction of one of the “forest children,” the trees, by man, and unless they were mollified by charms they would either interfere mischievously with the construction of the canoe or bring ill luck upon it at its completion, so that a war-party in such a canoe would be defeated, or, if it was a fishing canoe its crew would catch no fish. Incantations and charms were always recited over the axes used in felling and shaping the timber. If a canoe was to be particularly sacred, a victim, often a chief's son, was sacrificed, and the body buried at the foot of the tree. The work of felling a very large tree with no tool but a blunt stone axe (such tree perhaps from four feet to ten feet in diameter) would have been almost an impossibility, but it was greatly aided by the use of fire. The process was to light a circle of small fires round the tree; when the wood was somewhat charred, the fire was drawn on one side at that place and the blackened portion chipped out with the axe, the fire was then replaced and the next little fire removed. When at last the tree fell, it was a great misfortune if it should be split or shaken by the heavy shock, as then all the labour previously expended would have been thrown away. (Felling smaller trees without the use of fire is described under “Food.”) Little fires were then made along the upper portion of the prostrate trunk, and the rough shape of the canoe worked out by means of the charred part being chipped away with the axe. While the chiefs were doing this part of the work the slaves and men of lesser rank were busy making a path to the sea or river, by breaking down undergrowth, removing all obstacles, and preparing the rollers. Sometimes this path would be miles in length and great care was needed to prevent the partially-hollowed trunk from being split or injured on its way to the shore, so the road was carefully laid with skids on which the embryo canoe could slide. These rollers were generally “charmed” so as to give an easy journey.

Then came the “towing out,” the hauling along of the heavy mass to the chanting of priests and the sound of animating songs only used on such occasions. In hauling, the ropes were fastened on each side of the bow; a separate sub-tribe at each rope if possible. On arrival at the beach the work of shaping commenced anew. The hewing and dubbing of the hull (hiwi) had now to proceed with the greatest carefulness, and only a few skilled hands were allowed to touch the work. The chips from a new canoe were burnt in a sacred fire with much ceremony, lest they should be used in connection with the evil spells or other witchcraft. The top-streaks (rauawa) were two planks, one for each side to heighten it, and each plank was hewn from a single tree by the method of cutting away all the wood except the central portion; as these planks were often 60 feet or more in length and from 15 to 20 inches deep, their preparation was no light task. Corresponding holes were made along hull and side planks, pierced by means of a drill armed with a quartz point: then the top-streak was lashed to the edge (henga) of the hull by means of prepared flax passed through the holes, and these caulked with the down or pappus (hune) of the bulrush (raupo). A batten (taká) was fastened over the lashing holes; the carved bow-piece (tauihu) and stern-piece (korapa, taurapa, or rapa) fitted, and a deck or platform (kaiwae), consisting of gratings made of small sticks, was provided on which the paddlers could kneel. Carved braces (taumanu) were lashed athwart to stiffen the top sides. The preparation of the exquisitely carved sternand bow-pieces was sometimes the work of years, as only a small portion could be done at a time lest the timber should crack. Under the double spirals (pitau or wini wini) of the bow-piece in every large canoe the carved figure of Maui lies prostrate. In old days every Polynesian canoe carried a god as its figure-head. In the bottom (kaunaroa) of the hull a hole was bored for the escape of bilge-water, and fitted with a plug (karemu). When the canoe had been caulked, painted, provided with masts, sails, and paddles, it was at last ready for sea. Finally, it having been hauled to the side of the water, the priest baled water with his hand on to the bow of the canoe and sprinkled it with water thrown on with a branch of a certain shrub (kawakawa) while he chanted an invocation.9

The largest sized and most elaborately ornamented canoes were those used for war (wakataua). These had, when fully decorated, long antennæ of feather-decked rods (hihi or puhi) protruding from the carved work of the bow, and ropes (puhi-rere) of feathers bound about the high wooden lace-work of the stern, or trailing behind like a floating plume. They ranged from 60 to 100 feet or more in length; a celebrated example, the “Aratawhao,” is said to have been 18 fathoms or 108 feet in length of hull, and its lengthened portion (haumi) was 14 fathoms or 84 feet, but this great length of 192 feet must have been exceptional. “Okunui” and “Okuiti,” canoes of the Ngati-Maru tribe, would hold five men abreast in rows, two outside paddling, three inside resting as reliefs. Such canoes could travel at 10 miles an hour. The next size (waka tete) was generally employed for fishing or travelling purposes; these were of plainer build, with a carving resembling a human head with protruding tongue for a figure-head. (See also “Fishing.”) The third-class canoes (waka tiwai or tararo), on which little or no labour in the way of ornament was expended, were used for ordinary rough work. They were not necessarily small vessels; some would hold 20 or 30 people, but others only three or four. The smallest kind of canoe (kopapa) was paddled by a single occupant or perhaps by two or three if not particular about space or risk.

The larger canoes were usually painted red with ochre, or red and black. The sails (ra or mamaru) were light mats of bulrush (raupo) leaves; these sails were of triangular shape, the apex of the triangle being downward, and were kept distended by one side being fastened to the mast (tira or rewa) and the other to a sprit (takotokoto). Balers (tata or tiheru), often with carved handles, were provided with which to free the canoe from water. An anchor (punga) also was part of the equipment; this being usually either a heavy stone with a hole through which a cable (taura) of plaited flax was passed, or a stone contained in net-work. Fishing canoes formerly had platform-decks like war-canoes, and also fireplaces (pakaiahi) with stones that could be heated for cooking food, and especially fish.

Distinguished persons usually occupied a seat (tungauru) at the stern of the canoe, that being the post of honour. Here too was erected the tiny temple of the sea-god under whose protection voyagers by sea placed themselves, a miniature copy of the larger shrine that in former days was built on the deck of the great double or outrigged canoes. Food was not allowed to be eaten on this sacred part of the vessel or anywhere aft of the centre; this, the “quarter-deck,” was tapu, while the central part of the ship was common (noa). This rule did not apply to a war-canoe made sacred for a fighting expedition and when the warriors were themselves tapu for war; any cooked food on such a sacred vessel would desecrate. Even the canoes of the great Migration are said to have had other canoes as tenders in order to carry food for the sacred ships.

The Maoris possessed a ruder craft than any of these in the raft (moki or mokihi) made of bulrush (raupo) and formed somewhat into the shape of a canoe. The leaf of the bulrush (Typha angustifolia) is full of little air-filled compartments that give great buoyancy until the leaf has undergone prolonged immersion. These rafts were sometimes 50 or 60 feet long and could sustain a large load without sinking; they were very safe.10 In some cases these bundles were strengthened by a framework of the dry flower-stem (korari) of the flax plant (Phormium tenax) and this to some extent resembled the curious canoes (pahì) of the Morioris of the Chatham Islands. On the bulrush-rafts long distances of broken water were sometimes traversed. It is recorded that one of the chiefs of the Ngapuhi tribe, viz, Te Mauparaoa, who was born of Ngatikahungunu, was with his war-party, overcome at the Great Barrier Island, near Auckland, and the tiny remnant of the expedition escaped into the forest. Only fifteen men survived, and these men without canoes or provisions. They managed, however, in the night to make a raft (mokihi) of flax-sticks and raupo-leaves, and on this rickety structure crossed the twenty miles of open sea that separated them from the precipitous shores of Little Barrier Island. At the East Cape a raft made of buoyant timber was used, and in this natives would frequently go out to sea a great distance from land.

The Maoris always faced the bow in paddling, looking in the direction in which they were going. Of course this was because the paddle (hoe, hirau or hiwa) was short and thus did not need to have a fixed fulcrum, as the oar has in the rowlock, and with the oar the greatest power can be obtained when the back is turned to the direction in which the boat moves. When the Maoris first saw a boat manned by Europeans they said “These fellows are goblins, their eyes are at the back of their heads; they pull on shore with their backs to the land to which they are going.” The chiefs sometimes used the powerful steering paddle (urunga).

Rank, Rights of Property.

There was no trace of regal institutions in New Zealand. There were great chiefs who ordinarily wielded almost unlimited power in their own districts, but their actions were regulated in important matters by references to councils and with some deference to public opinion. Government was really a “democracy tempered with awe” for there was too much influence of birth and priestcraft to permit a true democracy in a system where both the aristocratic descent and the magic power were supposed to be derived from the gods. It may, however, be called a democracy if we use the term as the reverse of autocracy, and there were conditions in its constitution which allowed of success and honour being won by men of humble descent possessing brains and courage.

In alluding to some mighty noble the people might now and then apply a name of honour (Au, Pu, Take, Tumu, etc.) more befitting a king than a noble, but the highest title in practical use was that of “Lord” (Ariki), if we allow a spiritual as well as a temporal potency to the rank. He was the Priest-Chief, “the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son,” etc., down from the gods of heaven and earth, but his position was of so interesting a character that it demands separate notice. Next below the Lord was the chief of each sub-tribe (hapu), that nearest in descent to the main line of ancestry being accounted highest. Then came the near relatives, such as brother and sister, of the chief of the sub-tribe; then his cousins and more distant relatives. After these ranked the ordinary “professional” (tohunga) who though generally a priest or wizard needed not always to be a priest, but must be a “skilled person” either in witchcraft, canoe-making, house-building, tattooing, etc. Next came the free-men of the tribe, gentlemen by birth, but of little weight and few possessions. Probably the bulk of these would be either descendants of far-off relatives or sons of chiefs by slave wives. Lastly, the slaves.

The grades of precedence needed much study, for the “crossings” and family relations were endless. The child of a man not closely related to the Ariki by his father might be more nearly allied through his mother, and thus it arose (as in other Polynesian islands) that the child might be greater than either of its parents because uniting the honours of both lines. To such an extent was this accumulation of ancestral dignities carried that it would end at last in the production of a child of such an imposing social position that no possible spouse could be found to mate on equal terms with such magnificence. Again as a further study in social intricacies we may notice that all a chief's children were not of the same rank; in a system where a man might have several wives the birth and position of the wife affected the status of the child. This, with a few generations of intermarriage and the custom of adoption (especially of adopting a deceased brother's wives and children), gave a complexity to social observance among a people jealous of their rights that would puzzle a Herald's College to control so as to avoid vexation.

The position held, however, by men of noble birth was one of power, evoked partly from the awe arising from the hereditary possession of spiritual gifts as “god-begotten” and partly from the respect with which custom surrounded them from childhood. The greatest were set apart, guarded by endless ceremonial and tapu rights which wrought an unseen bulwark about them against intrusion and offence. Little by little as the kinship became more distant and as the relationship to the great personages “watered out” so the respect shown grew less till at last one reached the stage of the ordinary free man who had little else than his personal courage or skill to sustain his dignity. But through all ran the line of primogeniture; in every family the eldest child ruled the others, and they seldom failed to obey. There were separate terms for every relationship, but a man never said “my brother,” he either said “my elder brother” (tuakana), or “my younger brother” (teina). So also, a woman did not say “my sister,” but “my elder sister” (tuakana), or “my younger sister” (teina), using the same words for her sisters as the man for his brothers. But the leading chief considered himself (though he would hold council with them) as the equal of all the rest of the tribe and would say of them “we two” will do this and that, implying that he was one and the rest were the other. This pride of position by birth belonged to women as well as to men; one whom we should style a princess was sometimes set apart with her own servants in a carved house surrounded with three rows of palisading like a fort. Her servant who cooked the food would give it to a higher servant, and that one to another still superior, till a “maid of honour” handed it to the noble lady. One instance is known in which a tribe almost worshipped a woman (Hine Matioro) as their chieftainess. Even after her death men's lives were spared if they asked for mercy in her name. Until a few years ago the obedience shown to a chief's command was very great, even if he was not a priest-chief (Ariki) but a war-leader. When Te Rauparaha on one occasion was hard beset by foes who drew near the hiding-place where he and his small band lay concealed, a wailing cry broke from the baby of a young married couple who were with him. The chief said to the parents “Strangle that child.” He was obeyed at once.

Property apart from land was scanty, and the richest had little to bequeath to his heirs and successors. Apart from the communal right to tribal possessions, a man owned his own house if he had built it, and if it was on his own land. His clothes, his weapons, his tools, and his ornaments were his, and but little else. Often a man's house was not on land acknowledged by the tribe to be his, but if he had been allowed to erect it on land allocated to him by a promise publicly made, if was his property. If he obtained acknowledged permission from a landowner to fell bush and make a cultivation in any locality he could use it as long as he chose, and the crop was his. He could keep anything he obtained by hunting or fishing, always with the understanding that if a man of higher rank expressed a liking for the product of the chase, etc., it would have to be given up to him. This was invariably done, but, as it was sure to be rewarded by a return present of greater value, it was done willingly. Near a settlement land was understood to more particularly belong to certain persons; one man looking upon a particular portion as belonging to him or his family, and he would hold to this even if the place had been deserted for years. The chiefs of course held most land, but everyone had some private estate to treat as he pleased. The larger portions were tribal lands to be cultivated in common, but a man might want to consult his own taste as to some favourite spot.

A man or family might hold a right to do certain things in a certain place, thus, to gather shell-fish from a particular sand-bank, to hunt rats or small birds in specified localities, to gather berries in a prescribed part of the forest, or to put down his eel-baskets at a certain weir in a river or lake outlet. Sometimes two families might each have a right over a certain place, thus, one might dig fern-root there and the other hunt rats, and so on. A right might exist for a limited time, perhaps for a year only. The right was advertised by a pole (rahui) set up, having a bunch of grass or leaves fastened thereto. There were not only individual rights but collective rights apart from the communal right. Thus, a party of persons might agree to make a large seine net, or to go together to snare birds, etc. It was difficult to understand where the communal right, the collective right, and the individual right separated, but they were regulated by old custom, and the general spirit of toleration and hospitality tempered all. Over the large area of common land individual interests were allowed to be exercised by a general courtesy, and if one marked a tree, for instance, out of which he intended to make a canoe, another would be considered a boor instead of a gentleman if he interfered without having a prior claim, or affirming some principle such as ownership of that particular place.

If there was trouble between members of the same tribe as to the ownership of particular lands or property the tribe would discuss the question at an arranged meeting. There the genealogies would be quoted showing how some ancestor in ancient times had such a cultivation, eel-weir, etc., at such a place, and the case would be decided by the law of custom in similar matters.

Of all property land was the most valued asset a Maori could bequeath, or that could descend by inheritance. From his early youth the son of a chief accompanied his father if possible on his hunting and fishing expeditions that he might learn the name and history of every boundary and portion of the tribal lands. The head of a family had a perfect right to bequeath his property to his son or nephews and a death-bed bequest had the force of law, but customarily the property did not pass to his grandsons till all his sons were exhausted. Thus, if a father had sons named A, B, C, D, on the death of the father the property passed to A, but not on the death of A to A's son. It went to B, and on B's death to C, and so on to D, but at D's death it reverted to the son of A. For this reason a man preferred counting succession through his grandfather instead of through his father. Sons inherited the land and it was only parted with when the men of the tribe were destroyed. Girls did not receive land to hold in permanent occupation lest they should marry strangers and the land should be claimed by enemies. This custom of leaving the lands to males was universal, and accounts for the brothers' consent being necessary to their sister's marriage. If they consented they could give her a piece of land, but if she married into a strange tribe they would say “You can go with your waist-girdle only (as our forefathers would have said “Be married in your shift”), you will only be a slave to blow your husband's fire.” In some tribes male children inherited their father's land and girls their mother's, but if a girl married a stranger from another tribe she forfeited, and her children had no claim to the land of their mother's tribe, but could be reinstated if adopted by one of their mother's brothers. If after a girl had married and received land she had no children, the land again reverted to her family. If a father had girl-children only, his land became theirs, but if the girls' husbands belonged to the same tribe as the girls they had to be people of considerable consequence to resist encroachments of their wives' relations, while if the women married strangers they would have to hold the land by force of arms. A chief's granddaughter had an equal claim with her male cousins on her grandfather's lands, and her claim held good as far as her own grandchild, but then reverted to the male line of the second generation from the male ancestor from whom they claimed. If this had not taken place there would have been tumultuous wrangling over lands and property arising from chiefs' daughters' marriages, and family wars would have been incessant. In some tribes an eldest son would grab all he could at his father's death unless a younger brother was plucky enough to oppose him.

The titles by which lands were held were (1) Lands held by hereditary descent and lands held by undoubted conquest. (2) Lands over which many members of a tribe had a joint right, but which contained other portions, the property of individuals or of families non-resident, or of other tribes. (3) Debatable lands, claimed by adjoining tribes. These were the frequent causes of war and drained one side or other of its fighting men. (4) Lands once owned by natives conquered but allowed to remain on sufferance. (5) Lands once held by a tribe, conquered, and driven away, but considered to hold a right of redemption some day when strong enough. These titles were again made complex by the different claims which could be made to hold them. Some of these were as follows: (1) Descent, i.e. by universal consent as to the lands having been owned by direct ancestors. (2) Because the bones of the claimant's parents or forefathers have been buried (or were at one time buried) there. (3) Because his umbilical cord at birth was cut there, or the after-birth of his mother when he was born was buried there. (4) By having acquired it through his wife; this was only during his wife's lifetime or (if she died) during the youth of the children. (5) By having been one of the warriors who conquered it. (6) By having been wounded on it. (7) By having acted as an ally by supplying food, weapons, etc., to the victorious war-party. (8) By being cursed on it. (9) By having received it for some service as a gift publicly declared by the ruling chief of the tribe and acknowledged in open assembly. (10) By being allowed through a public permission from its owner to occupy it either by building a house there or cultivating the soil. (11) By his ancestors having been allowed to catch rats or eels, etc., there. (12) By his tree (kawa, the branch used in baptism, sometimes planted) having grown there. (13) By some ancestor having been (by permission) buried there. (14) By his ancestor having set up an altar (tuāhu) there or a fort (pa), etc., etc. Sometimes grim but grotesque claims were set up, such as that made by a chief who asserted that his ancestor had killed an ancestor of the other side, had made a bird-cage out of his enemy's ribs and backbone, and had kept therein a tame parrot. This cage was set up on the land and was a plain proof in Maori eyes that he was the owner of the land in question. One man claimed on the ground that his ancestor was a lizard that used to live on the land; another that his ancestor once saw a ghost there. This latter claim was allowed by the Colonial Government and a Crown Grant made. Even the acceptance of a valuable present from one chief to another might be made the subject of a claim by the giver to the land on which the event occurred. Should any act be performed which passed without comment by the owners, their silent acquiescence was taken as recognition of a claim. Thus, a chief named Raukataura, passing through a forest owned by a friendly tribe, had one of the feathers of his head-dress torn out by a shrub. Sitting down, the chief made a little fence of broken sticks round his sacred feather. He was accompanied on this occasion by some of the men of the tribe owning the place, but they said and did nothing. Their silence and inaction were construed as an assent to ownership, and the sons of Raukataura held possession by this title until the present day. Had the little fence been broken down and obliterated no claim would be sustained. Sometimes if a chief should wash or comb his sacred head when journeying across a piece of land his people would claim the land, or if he slept in a temporary hut for a night, title would be asserted. These claims were not, however, made lightly, there were to be other circumstances, such as the death of a near relative at the time; something to mark the event as of importance before such claim was established, and it always had to be upheld by the law of the strongest.

If a chief discovered or took up unappropriated land, he acquired the mana of that land and divided the territory among the tribe as he saw fit, according to native custom, regarding himself as a trustee for the whole. Having made this allotment the lands so held would pass on from generation to generation and were under good title.

It sometimes happened that a chief after traversing the lands along the shore would on turning inland reach a mountain range, where he would meet another chief on land-acquiring business also. Each would halt and sticking his spear in the ground agree that this range should be the common boundary. If the boundary was along a valley instead of a ridge piles of stones were set up as termini, or holes were dug in the ground to show the demarcation. When a chief was murdered on a piece of land by men not the owners of such land his relatives would claim it by right of the bloodshed, and when a chief was drowned a demand was made by his friends that a prohibition (rahui) should extend over a portion of the sea and shore where his body was found, that is, that no shell-fish should be taken from that place or its neighbourhood for a time, generally a year. To remove the prohibition a number of fish, sharks especially, were captured by the tribe in occupation, and the relations of the drowned person invited to a feast where the dried fish was offered as a present. If the occupant tribes broke the prohibition the land was claimed by the drowned man's friends.

If when war had driven away a tribe from their villages and ordinary settlements its members were still allowed to occupy a portion of their old lands, they retained a claim to the whole on the ground that “their fires had never been extinguished.” The victorious party had not only to win, but to occupy every part of the conquered ground before their after claim became indisputable. In speaking of lands held by conquest (as distinguished from the incontestable hereditary lands) a chief would base his claim on them as payment (utu) for his relatives killed in obtaining them. In settling land recently acquired by conquest, the rule sometimes adopted was that whoever first claimed a place could have it by immediately performing some act of ownership; and that he could own as much as he could travel round before encountering another selector. One would start off in his canoe and, landing, dig some fern-root and cook it. Another would start inland, and meeting some fugitive make the place sacred by killing him and offering him as a victim. Another would go to the top of a hill, and set up his spear as a mark of occupation. When one tribe had given military support to another, the assisting forces were generally allotted a portion of the conquered territory (or rights thereon) by gift to their chief. Any of the allies, however, who had a relative killed in the service of the victors had a particular claim beyond that of the general tribal right, but these claims were subject to occupation being made permanent. As a rule allies were only granted sub-rights in recognition of service. If they had the right of fishing, bird-snaring, etc., the produce of the first day's sport was sent at once to the Ariki of the dominant tribe; certain men of that tribe were deputed to be present, and to stop all further fishing, snaring, etc., till word was brought that the first-fruit offering had been accepted. Such sub-owners were not allowed to bury their dead on lands held on this tenure; if they buried their dead there it showed a disregard or even open defiance of their landlords. There existed a night on the part of dispossessed persons to recover lands once theirs if they could, and by “nursing men” recover sufficient warlike strength to resume possession. Though conquest always was a good title so long as occupation lasted, the “resumptive right” always remained with the broken tribe that had been driven away. If divisions of a tribe had been fighting among themselves, when peace was concluded land changed hands. By some peculiar sense of justice it was the sub-tribe that had suffered most losses that received the larger portion of land. Land would also change hands as damages in a case of adultery,; “land for woman” was a rule. Sometimes cheating took place over this, as the injured party on going to take the land might find other claimants in possession. Men who were without lands or important family connections were called in the South Island “men of an odd number” (tangata hara), or “men not to be counted.” It was not unknown that such a landless man and one with no powerful relatives could by great courage and skill gather to himself in a kind of “Cave of Adullam” the bolder spirits and unsettled characters from several tribes and make himself a power. In such a case he would almost certainly endeavour to strengthen his position by marriage, and would woo the daughter of some powerful neighbour. Lest this should contradict the principle above mentioned, that the wife could not take her land away to a stranger, it should be remarked that in this case it would be the man who would go to the woman and so swell the strength of her tribe. It would have been different if the man had been a chief of a powerful territorial tribe, who would expect to take the woman away, and any right to her land with her.

Habits, Etc.

The modes of thought and action are best described when considering war, religion, traditions, dress, etc., but some matters may easily

Kumete—A Large Carved Wooden Bowl for Holding Food.The round portion above the bowl is its lid, fixed on a spike (for photography) to show the carving.

escape notice in a general account, and peculiarities may be therefore dwelt upon in a separate description.

When a person of very noble birth arrived in a strange place and desired to make a formal declaration of rank, it was necessary that he or she should on no account use the ordinary means of ingress or egress. The visitor could not enter by the common gateway of a village fort but had to climb over the palisade or have the palisading removed. So, when the great chief Maru-tuahu came to see his father he climbed over the palisade of the pa at Whakatiwai.1 This sacredness of course only belonged to very high rank, and in one case when a celebrated ancient priestess was welcomed to a strange village, the chief of the settlement came outside and said—“Come! Welcome! If you come by the authority of Tu, the god of war, dare and make a path for yourself, but if you come by the authority of Tahu, the god of peace and plenty, I will make a path for you and open a road for you over my stockade.”

This idea of the un-sacred nature of the common or general entrance-way also pertained to child-birth, so when a child of very noble parents was born in a house the side of the building had to be broken out to allow the babe to be removed for the baptismal ceremony. When the semi-divine offspring of Tawhaki and Hapai, “the Heavenly Maid,” was born the side of the house was opened that the holy infant might be brought into the open air.2

Women were supposed to veil their faces, however high their rank, when approaching sacred places. If they ventured to disregard this they would be reminded of the fate of a lady of old time who saw with open eyes the Sacred Dog, and was in consequence changed into a rock in the sea. The story runs thus—A magician named Wheketoro had made an island “prohibited” (tapu) to secure the safety of some very uncanny pets, but some time after a chief named Kaiawa determined to remove the prohibition. He took his daughter Ponui with him, as her presence was necessary before he could light the sacred fire kindled by friction, near which his incantations and spells had to be recited. (She had to put her foot on the wood and hold it steady while the priest rubbed on the wood with another stick—an infinitely ancient rite in the pre-historic world.) When they had reached the island they omitted to veil the face of the girl and the Stone Dog, the Moho-rangi, looked upon her uncovered face. It gazed fixedly upon her and she looked fearfully upon the monster. The father collected some seaweed, made it sacred, and presented it as an offering to the Dog. Fire was produced by friction whilst Ponui stood with her foot upon the lower piece of wood. Then the girl was put to sleep and fires were lighted, one for the gods and one for men. Then fires were kindled in many places, and the smoke rose in dense clouds, filling the nostrils of the wild creatures till they sneezed and this made them tame. When the old man returned to the place where his daughter had slept he could not find her, and he went about crying “O Ponui, where art thou?” He saw a grass-hopper jumping in front of him; that was all. Then he lifted his eyes and looking out to sea, saw his daughter changed into stone and become a rock standing in the sea. He wept for her, but in vain. Women now never go near that island, lest the fate of Ponui, be theirs, and strangers veil their faces as they pass lest they should see the Moho-rangi.

A crouching attitude was considered a mark of respect from an inferior to a superior. To nod the head was a sign of dissent; silence also implied dissent, but acquiesence was signified by raising the eyebrows. If a Maori raised his arm showing the fingers of his hand closed on the palm, the sign was understood to mean “Enough. That will do!” It was considered extremely rude to step over a person who was sleeping or lying down. Even if only the legs or feet were stepped over it was an offence, particularly if it was a woman who committed the action. If a woman stepped over a male child, the boy would never grow up to full stature, but would be stunted.

A remarkable custom was that of “plunder” (muru). It was a difficult matter for a European to understand, but was a method by which an offence was expiated. It consisted of a band of persons (taua) visiting the offender and stripping him of all his movable property, or at all events of as much as was supposed to pay for the damage done. If a man allowed one of his boy children to get hurt, the tribe would muru the father for the loss or possible loss of the child, since the boy probably would have been a future warrior. If a man's wife eloped with a stranger her relations would muru the deserted husband, since he should have taken better care of her, and not have lost to the tribe a mother of possible fighters. If a man accidentally destroyed common property, such as a forest or plantation by fire, or if he caused a canoe to upset and so endanger the lives of his clansmen, or if through carelessness he did something which made an eel-weir or fishing ground tapu and so deprived the tribe of expected food, for all such matters a taua would set out and plunder the offender's property. Sometimes to the robbery would be added personal attack, and the recipient of these delicate attentions might be severely beaten as well as stript of property. Strange to say the practice was not resented, for this would have precluded the touchy or irritable person from robbing (judicially) any one else in turn. Piles of food were prepared, dogs killed and cooked, and all made ready for a feast, so as to receive these irregular officers of justice; indeed, if anything of value was kept back it would have been of little use, for it would be sure to be taken by the taua. A chief would have been quite indignant if not “plundered,” for it would have been a sign that he was a man of no consequence, unworthy of tribal resentment.

The only exception to and guard against the muru was the tapu which made the clothes, weapons, ornaments, etc., of a great chief sacred to himself alone and not to be touched by others. Muru was the punishment for unintentional offences only, as a general rule. If a Maori killed another wilfully, it would probably be a man of another tribe and the act would not be considered blameworthy; at any cost he would be upheld by the whole power of his own people, but if he killed a fellow tribesman or endangered his life accidentally, that was a sin within the clan itself and had to be expiated by the seizure of his property as damages. Perhaps “damages” rather than “plunder” is the best translation of muru.

The Maoris generally have fine regular teeth and these are left as Nature made them. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, for some of the natives in the Kawhia district had pointed or triangular teeth, “shark-teeth,” as they have been called. The custom of filling the teeth to a point is almost unknown in Polynesia and must be a family or tribal usage.

Similarly, circumcision was confined to a very limited number of persons, the descendants of Tamatea Urehaea, living near Cape Palliser. Generally, even the appearance of circumcision (tehe) was regarded with contempt or dislike.

The Maoris did not yield to the unclean habit of spitting about. Saliva was one of the media by which anyone owing a grudge to the person who had spat could bewitch and bring the anger of the gods upon him. Therefore great care was taken that expectoration did not occur.

The track of a native differed from that of a European in that the feet were kept either straight or with the toes slightly turned in, one foot being set closely before the other with the sole flat on the ground. The Maori salutation (hongi) was to press the nose against the nose of the person greeted; sometimes with a low crooning song of welcome or lament. Natives disliked to hear a person whistling. It was supposed to resemble too much the voice of a spirit, as in a peculiar whistling voice supernatural beings communicated with men. The wizard (tohunga) always when “possessed” or when acting as a medium delivered his oracles in a hissing voice.

Maoris counted well up to a hundred, after that not so certainly, the word mano, now used for “thousand,” not originally being definitely that number, but “very many.” They counted by pairs for men, baskets of sweet potatoes, fish, etc. Time was reckoned by nights, not by days, so “to-morrow” was “the night's night” (apopo). The day was divided as follows:— Daybreak—“The shadows of morning appear.”Sunrise—“The sun mounts.”Daylight—“Daylight.”Forenoon—“The sun is on its way upwards.”Mid-day—The sun is upright as a post.”Afternoon—“The sun is tilted over.”Evening—“The time of fires.”Sunset—“The sun sets.”Midnight—“Night and day are divided.”

The year was divided into moons, and the periods were distinguished by the names of stars or by the flowering of plants, thus the month answering to our January had its nights sacred to the star Rangawhenua and its days to Uruao, in this month the karaka tree flowers. March was Ngahuru, the harvest month for the sweet-potato crop, etc. The year commenced with the rising of the Pleiades (Matariki). There is a curious legend to the effect that the ancient year was of ten months only, till a certain teacher, full of the wisdom of the gods, came to men and instructed them to make the year twelve months long, and his precepts have been followed to the present day. The months, denoted by the appearance of the heavenly bodies, were checked by other natural means, viz, by signs such as the mating, moulting and changing notes of birds, the flowering of trees, the singing of insects and the arrival of the migrating cuckoo. Days were generally known by nights of the moon, as Whiro, Tirea, Hoata, etc.; some days were lucky and some unlucky, and on the latter journeys were not commenced or other important actions begun. The year was divided into two great seasons, Summer and Winter.

The powers of the inclined plane and the wedge were known to the natives, who also understood how to raise heavy weights by moving them up inclined slopes. Rollers or skids and the lever with a shifting fulcrum were used as helps to toil. The measures of length were the hand-span, the cubit (from end of fingers to bend of arm), the stride, the arm-span or fathom, and the yard or half-fathom, calculated from the tip of outstretched fingers and straight arm to the middle of breast. There were no measures of capacity or weight.

As looking-glasses, still pools of water were used. If a great chief fancied some particular pool that water was sacred to him and “prohibited” to others. So it is said that when Hina swam to Holy Island to find her future husband Tinirau, the fish-god, “she found his looking-glass wells, where Tinirau used to go to dress and to look at his handsome image in the water.”3

If certain places such as plantations, fruit, trees, etc., had to be kept clear of intruders, there was a rahui set up. It was done by putting in a post; sometimes a human victim was slain and his body buried at the foot of the post. Generally a girdle (maro) was put round the post, this girdle being made of petako or some other sacred plant, but sometimes it was buried at the base of the pillar. This girdle received a particular name, that of kapu, and was before using for this purpose subjected to powerful incantations which would kill any person interfering with the prohibition (rahui). When the girdle was concealed this was done lest it should be stolen and the “prohibition” made useless, if the girdle were lost it would not “bite,” as the phrase ran.

Just as among English people it is (or was) the custom to say “God bless you!” to a person who sneezed, so the Maoris also had their charm-saying to avert evil under similar circumstances. The full spell is: “Sneeze, living Soul!In the light of day,Those inland are blest with plenty,Those on the sea are blest with plenty,There is plenty for the mighty lord.Sneeze thou!Baptised into life!”4

Often, however, only the first few words— “Sneeze, living Soul!” (Tihe, mauri ora!) were used.

Litters (Kauamo matika) carried on the shoulders, after the manner of palanquins, were often used for the transportation of nobles, especially for ladies of high rank.5

Chiefs and Priests.

At first sight it would appear that the highest offices of government among the Maori were carried out by men whose power descended to them in an hereditary and simple manner. Stated generally it was hereditary monarchy, for, although there was no king over the whole nation, it should be remembered that the greatest chiefs wielded power little short of regal, indeed sometimes passing the temporal sway of kings, for they united the office of monarch (under local limitations) with that of high priest. Eldest son of eldest son, down from the gods of Heaven and Earth, their ancestors; that was how the proud lineage of the mighty was counted. Yet not without interruption, perhaps, for few were the pedigrees into which some little flaw, some inferior marriage, or disputed succession did not obtrude itself, and the men of absolutely spotless descent in the land of the Maori could be counted on the fingers. On the territorial or temporal side great war-prowess or immense possessions might reinforce the pretensions of some mighty lord, but spiritually (one might almost say ecclesiastically) such a leader might be held as of less account than one to whom fate had denied the heritage of temporal power but whose authority (mana) as “god-descended” was enormous.

If a great chief's first-born son was by a slave wife, the boy had many privileges of primogeniture, but he could not be an ariki, unless his mother was a woman of rank. The different tribes and sub-tribes had ariki, but the greatest of them all, the “head of the Clan,” was the Upoko-ariki, the Pu, or Tumu-whakarae, the different names being bestowed in diverse localities. The Tumu-whakarae is stated to have been the title of one so sacred that, like the Japanese “Spiritual Emperor,” he was too exalted a personage to do anything at all. He therefore allowed his next younger brother to take the office of ariki and perform all the priestly part of his work. Hence the proverb, “The cockle may beget progeny where it likes, the High Chief sits quietly.” (Ka haere te Pipi-ai-he, ka noho te Tumu-whakarae.) It is probable that to this peerless sacerdotal rank belonged the great priest Taewa-a-Rangi of the Takitumu canoe, for although he was of far higher position than was the celebrated Ngatoro-i-rangi of the Arawa canoe, yet no record of an action or precept of his has been preserved in the traditions of his countrymen.

To descend, however, to the ordinary prince or ariki, we find that he was set apart from birth to his high office of priest-chief. He had great privileges, and being of higher birth than his parents (through uniting their two lines in him) considered himself almost a divine person, a Divus Cæsar. Taught all the knowledge of his ancestors in the University of the Whare-kura (shortly to be commented on), he emerged as a peculiar being, with rights and attributes all his own. He only might eat the meat of certain sacred offerings, and one variety of food, viz, the octopus (called for this purpose tapairu), was never eaten except by him. Almost the highest honour he could pay to any distinguished visitor was to send him some octopus, and the very highest honour was to ask him to eat some octopus from the same basket. He acted as judge in all tribal matters regarding land or property, he settled all ecclesiastical affairs such as those relating to tapu, he regulated the operations of agriculture, fishing, and burial ceremonies. He was the medium between the gods and his people, to him were brought the first fruits of the cultivation of the soil, of fishing expeditions, etc. If a certain part of the tribal lands was allowed to be cultivated by people of another tribe (probably a defeated or broken tribe) the first-fruits of the crops were taken to the Ariki by the chiefs of the cultivating tribe, and not till that Ariki had eaten and the chiefs returned to their own people did any of them dare to remove the rest of the crop from the ground.

To the care of the Ariki the sacred kura or charm-stones of the tribe were committed; with them went the power of making common objects into gods or of bestowing on them spiritual attributes. He also had the reverse faculty, viz, that of depriving things of their supernatural character (tapu) and making them common (noa). Generally this latter function was exercised by touching the sacred thing with cooked food or by putting it into the fire whereon food had been cooked. Then each member of the tribe who partook of that food would be outside the power of the god who had formerly made his abode in the now desecrated object, but such action was seldom undertaken unless it was found that the object in question was working evil instead of good to its clients.

To the Ariki belonged any wrecked canoe or “flotsam” generally, even if it were the property of some of his own relatives or friends. His also was any treasure-trove if it was ancient; things recently hidden could be claimed by the owner. He possessed royal rights in certain large fish, such as a whale (always a fish to the Maori, indeed “the” fish), dolphin or porpoise. If a white heron was seen fishing in a stream it was not disturbed, but the news had to be borne to the Ariki, who would take proper steps for its capture, that its feathers might adorn his regalia.

Strange to say, although the system was built on primogeniture, this was by no means universally adhered to. There are legendary instances where even the mana or spiritual power of the priest-chief did not descend to the eldest son. The great-great-grandson of the hero Tama-te-kapua of the Arawa canoe was named Rangitihi, and possessed all his ancestor's sacred power. When he died his youngest boy alone dared to rise up and bind his father's corpse with vines, the elder brothers who, each in turn should have done so, lacked the moral courage or confidence to utter the necessary incantations, any mistake in which would have been fatal to themselves. So, though the youngest brother, Apa-moana, considered that one of his elders should perform the rites, yet, since they dared not do so, he took upon himself the holy office, and the mana of his father passed to him, to the exclusion of his brothers. Sometimes the mana of a father was ceremonially transmitted before his death to his successor. The process was quaintly described by a native thus: “The father tells his son to bite the great toe of his (the father's) left foot, and then to fast. Neither father nor son touch food. Eight days do they fast, sleeping at night, while the father teaches his son what he has learnt in the spirit-world, until all the invocations have passed into the memory of the son. Then is the work finished.”1

If there was danger to a first-born prince that under extremely rare circumstances his priestly power might be lost, there was far greater probability that his temporal authority might be questioned and taken away. As a rule he was supposed to receive his spiritual appointment from heaven at birth, but his leadership and direction of the people in peace or war (especially in war) had to be confirmed by the popular opinion of his people. There was thus in the system a curious blending of theocratic and democratic ideas. The Ariki had to possess certain moral and mental attributes in addition to his “divine right;” he had to be brave, intelligent and generous. No coward, no fool, no niggard could lead the splendid, open-handed, clear-eyed warriors of the Maori. If in consequence of any glaring physical or intellectual defect he was incapable of being “dux et auctor,” he would be set aside by the unanimous consent of his tribe for another, generally an uncle or brother. This election or appointment was brought about by a kind of silent sympathy among the notables that a certain person was “their man.” It was considered a breach of etiquette to discuss among themselves the position or acquirements of the chief, but in some curious way (a barbaric “telepathy”) they seemed able to make each other feel that another leader was necessary, and who that person was to be. Then the chosen one became the war-chief, the director in council, and to him pertained the royal privilege of veto. There was quite enough energy among so warlike and turbulent a people to make sure that the leader had no sinecure and was no “roi faineant.” Cases have been known where the Ariki has lost his leadership through the dying words, “the last will and testament,” of his father, who, being hostile to him, passed him over for another.

If, however, the Ariki lost his temporal power, of his priestly position no one could deprive him, except under such rare circumstances as above mentioned in regard to the successors of Tama-te-kapua. He was essentially the holy one, necessary to his tribe as the medium of the gods. His was the task of preparing the war-parties before battle and freeing them from the tapu of blood thereafter, of blessing the crops, of serving at the altar, and his were the offerings at the altar. “Opener of the womb” was he, and through his children the line of the “god-born” was carried on. He was the greater if he united the spiritual and temporal powers, as he usually did, but no popular judgment affected his supernatural position; it was only in mundane affairs that the world could take away what the world had given.

If, by evil chance, a girl appeared as the first-born in the sacred line, she too had many of the powers that a son would have inherited. She was called the Tapairu (a word now translated “Queen,” anciently the mystic name of the octopus) and became the High-Priestess of the tribe. She could eat the octopus and the sacred offerings; no person might eat with her or after her. She alone of all women might taste human flesh, which she did when a war-party returned with portions of the bodies of the slain. As not even her sacredness allowed her to break the law which prevented a woman entering the Wharekura (unless she was its presiding priestess, and then only for the opening ceremony), she could not learn all the incantations which a male could have done in her place, but there was, still, much of ancestral lore for her to acquire, and this was imparted to her by a priest specially told off to teach her outside the precincts of the Holy House. There she learnt her lessons and the spells necessary to counteract witchcraft and evil influences. It was her task to “make common” (whaka-noa) and to “cause to live” (whaka-ora). Before a grand house could be open to the crowd she must take away the tapu of its newness by stepping across its threshold (paepaepoto). If a man or woman was afflicted by the gods for having infringed some ceremonial rite, by her stepping over or passing between the legs of the afflicted one, that person could be healed and made safe once more.

There is yet another case in which the king-priest line might suffer, viz, by the heir who should be Ariki dying young. The next brother could not succeed to the position because he was not “the Opener of the Gate” of birth. The succession generally reverted to the grandfather (mother's father) so far as his being the medium of the gods and the eater of the sacred food of the offerings. As the grandfather was probably old and unable to carry on the active work of leadership a solemn meeting was held in Wharekura. In deep silence the brothers of the dead man or youth stood up one after another in their places, and when the right man arose a low cough ran across the assembly. This was the sign of approval. All was done with great solemnity and decorum; there was no canvassing or persuasion allowed, not even to the extent of mentioning the matter to each other.

Slaves and Servitude.

The position of a slave among the Maoris was a peculiar one and depended somewhat on the manner in which a man or woman entered into captivity. If only a member of an enslaved tribe such a person might continue to dwell among his or her people, and the condition of servitude was more that of a tributory than of personal service. A tribe was considered enslaved if by a crushing defeat it had lost all military prestige. Probably the majority of both men and women would be spared, only a few of the finest women being carried off to the homes of the victors. The rest of the tribe would be ordered to bring presents now and then of food to their conquerors as a token of inferiority, but saving this they would live much as they did before. The subject-tribes cultivated their lands as usual but sent their choicest products to the victors—even then these tributes often received acknowledgment by presents being made in return. The only fear was least the conquered might increase in numbers so much as to again become dangerous, but this danger was minimised by the masters carrying off every handsome girl as she grew up, so that the dominant tribe should keep its numbers increasing. Sometimes if two famous tribes had a war the vassals of the losing side would be killed and their wives and children carried off, thus leaving the aristocrats of the enemy without servants to do the rough work, a condition of great hardship. The fear of such action would make a dependent tribe throw in their lot with those who had enslaved them and forget former injuries in dread of a greater catastrophe. The vassal-tribes supplied the victims when slaves had to be sacrificed, as at the launching of a large war-canoe or at the opening of a great house. When one of these vassal-tribes thought that it was strong enough to rebel, its members showed their fierce and defiant temper by bringing their tribute of food, etc., carried on the points of their spears and laid it before their masters, who took the hint and said that they need not return.

The other class of slaves was obtained by taking prisoners of war individually, or in small groups or perhaps by reserving some persons from the ovens when the cannibal feast after a battle was in progress. Hence one of the most contemptuous of Maori insults was to call anyone “Remnant of the feast!” (toenga kainga) meaning “you are not even worth cooking.” In taking war-prisoners a curious custom was sometimes observed in cases where a chief was nearly related to both sides and when if likely to be taken he would assuredly become a slave. To obviate this, when a battle had taken place and one of the contending armies was evidently about to give way and be routed, it was permitted to the chief of the winning party to call out the name or names of certain warriors among the enemy. If one of those named immediately accepted the invitation and joined the number of his foemen he was then treated as a visitor and not as a prisoner, indeed being often kept as a highly-honoured guest.

When a prisoner became a slave his lot was not one of intense misery; he was often well treated, had plenty of food and much liberty of speech and action. It was useless for him to try to escape to his own people, for they would not have received him; he was an unlucky man whose gods had forsaken him, the proof being that they had allowed him to be captured. He was to his own tribe as one dead, or worse, his presence would be a living insult to them. They wanted neither him nor his bad luck again in their fort or war-party; it was misfortune enough that one of their number should be “a morsel spared from the oven” but the offence could not be wiped out by the return of the captive; only the blood of his captors could avenge the degradation. Slaves had one great consolation for the misfortune that had taken away their rank or position as freemen; it had delivered them from the discomforts of the tapu. A slave was nobody spiritually; his gods had forsaken and forgotten him; therefore he was essentially non-existent. Of course he had to refrain from breaking the personal tapu of a chief; death was probably his portion in such a case, but what he had to dread was the vengeance of the offended person, not the wrath of deities. The celestial penalty of the breach would fall upon the chief whose tapu had been broken, not on the slave, who was below divine notice. Such pleasant absolution from individual holiness allowed the slave to execute many tasks which it was impossible for more exalted persons to perform, such as cooking food, carrying burdens and other menial duties which it was to the advantage of the community should be executed, and which he was therefore valued for being able to do. The warrior whose person was so holy that it would be contaminated by going near a cooking-oven and whose back was too sacred to bear a burden had a good friend in “the outcast of the gods.” So, often he bore his lot with equanimity; he forgot his old condition, put up with violent language if it was applied to him (it was considered “bad form” to abuse an inferior) and consoled himself with thinking that his lot to-day might be that of his master on the morrow. Sometimes a slave would be allowed to work for a person other than his master and would be paid for his labour by a present, part of which he would usually offer to his own master, who, however, seldom demanded it as a right. Slaves were at times transferred from one owner to another in return for an equivalent, and the first master had then no further claim. In most cases a strong bond of friendship or family loyalty sprung up between master and slave. It is related of Paoa, a great chief in old days, that he made love to a slave-girl of bewitching beauty and, making her his slave-wife, deserted his high-born wife and children for her sake. A male slave of Paoa resented this conduct and returned to the service of his mistress, continuing to live with her as her slave. He and his mistress worked the kumara plantations together; Paoa and his slave-wife worked theirs together.

Of course there were very considerable drawbacks to life in slavery, the least, perhaps, the contempt of the free men of the tribe, the greatest the uncertainty of life. It was humiliating for a slave not to be able to approach a kumara store for fear that he should defile it, nor to be able to enter a burial ground (wahitapu) or other prohibited place without leaving all his clothes outside. When he died there was no ceremony of wailing, nor rites connected with the scraping of his bones: he was buried in a hole, without fuss or lament. But these were trifles compared with the “sword always hanging by a hair” above him, of instant death should the anger or pique of his master prompt such a deed, or religious objects require a sacrifice, such as at a chief's funeral or other great event. There are countless instances of the light regard paid to humanity when a slave man or woman was in question. As example we may note that on one occasion a chief had suffered the insult of having his dog-skin mat worn by the saucy wife of one of his friends, his anger was only to be assuaged by the murder of one of the offender's slave-girls.2 Another chief who had been away on a long journey asked his sister on his return why he found her cooking food. She replied that her maids had deserted, whereupon her indignant brother went to the houses of the runaways and killed them both.3 A robber chieftain in the South Island made it his work to lay in wait for parties of travellers on a trade route and kill the wayfarers. For a very long time no notice was taken of the bandit's action because he had only killed slaves; when at last a free-man was slain the tribes instantly set about the robber's capture.4

Slaves sometimes married slaves and so perpetuated slave offspring, but as a general rule they would become by inter-marriage incorporated into the tribe. There were generally several female slaves or concubines about a great chief's house, and these did the menial work as well as enjoyed the patronage of their master. The poorer free-men of a tribe, those constituting “the common herd,” the “poor relations” of the more powerful families, were not very particular if they took a slave-woman or a free-woman to wife, and the children soon merged into the free section, but always with the possibility of having their ignoble origin thrown up in their teeth. So too even a well-born woman might sometimes choose a handsome slave youth for a husband, generally when she had a strong desire to be the dominant partner in the establishment, for it was a rule of Maori life that when a husband went and lived with the wife's family the wife was master, and vice-versa. It was possible that men having slave-blood in their veins might by daring courage and military genius rise to the position of leaders and war-chiefs, but the instances were few indeed, and such a leader could never obtain the reverential respect paid to men of noble birth. There would be still with this conservative people such an impression of the successful upstart as there was in the ordinary European mind when comparing some rude victorious General of Napoleon with a Prince of the Blood Royal. It is true that the lineage of such a war-chief's slave parent might itself be of the noblest, and the blood of both parents of the purest, but captivity had tainted the name of the slave and made its possessor a mere chattel without human personality—therefore as an ancestor he was not to be counted.

Nomenclature.

One of the most common troubles of a person supposed to be acquainted with the Maori language is that of being asked the meaning of Maori names. Very often an attempt is made to supply the meaning, and in most cases only by guess work. Of course there are certain names whose meanings are plain and unmistakable, such as Wairarapa “flashing water,” Awaroa “the long river,” etc., but in most cases it is safer to decline to answer. There is one rule of comparative security. It is that if there is a well established legend containing an account of the name being bestowed, that meaning may be fairly taken as legitimate.

Places were named sometimes from actions of celebrated persons, even from very unimportant actions. The traditional occount of the wanderings of a celebrated lady of ancient times thus recites how certain localities were named. “Where she hung up her apron (maro) to dry was called Te Horohanga-maro (“the apron hung up to dry”). Where she rubbed her neck ornament (hei) they called it Te Miringa-a-hei (“the rubbing of the neck ornament”); where she had built a temporary hut or screen they called it Hokahoka (“stick bushes up”). Where the impression of her foot was seen on the path they called it Tapuwae-roa (“Long-foot”) etc.5

Sometimes places were named from some observation on the animals found there, as a place frequented by the cormorant or shag (Kawau phalacrocorax, N.Z.) was called “the flock of shags” (kahui-kawau). At other times the appearance of the land or sea would cause a name to be applied, such as “Big Mountain” (Maunga-nui) or “red earth” (Whenua-kura). At yet others a circumstance would decide what designation should be applied. Thus, a war-party was passing through a plantation, and, coming by chance upon a man at work, killed him, as was the custom of such war-parties. An oven was prepared, and the body placed therein, but the slaying had been seen by a boy who hastened to tell the news to the victim's friends. They turned out and attacked the war-party before the food in the oven was half ready, but the visitors gallantly held their own till the meal was ready, and then carried it off with them. The place was always called thenceforward Tunu-haere, “Cook as you go.” The longest place-name I have yet encountered is that of a locality near Whanganui. It is called Putiki-whara-nui-a-Tamatea-pokai-whenua.6

Maori names are hideously travestied by the colonists in many cases, not only in speaking but in writing. Te Umuakaha became Temuka; Wairarapa, Wydrop, Ngaru-a-wahia, Naggery-Waggery; Eketahuna, Jacky-town; Te Urukapana, The Woolly Carpenters. Even names of persons suffered terribly, the great chief Te Rauparaha being designated “The Robuller.”7

Names of tribes (iwi) were generally denoted by the prefix Ngati, meaning “descendants of, “as Ngati-Raukawa the descendants of Raukawa. Sometimes sub-tribes (hapu) or small remnants of tribes used Ngati before their names. The prefix varied into Ati and Ngai as Te Ati-awa, Ngai-tahu. All tribal names did not bear the prefix, the Arawa, Muaupoko, Rangitane, and others are in this class, but variations of the prefix with a similar meaning are to be found; Nga Whanau-a-Mahu “the children of Mahu,” Te Uri o Hau, “the posterity of Hau,” Te Aitanga a Whare “The Begotten of Whare,” are instances in point.

Turning to the subject of personal names, some prefixes appear often repeated on particular lines of descent. Rakei and Ngai are thus used in the Urewera pedigrees of “the people of the land.” Pare, as a prefix to female names, is common in Ngaiwi genealogies, while Hine is similarly frequent among the descendants of the Great Migration from Hawaiki. Names commencing Tu or Tama were generally male. “The” (Te) before a name was an aristocratic symbol, as Te Morehu, Te Hapuku, etc., and held position as among the Irish Celts a chief was called “The O'Donoghue,” “The O'Connor Don.” The sign of the vocative case, E, was used before a name in addressing a person as we should use O, the Maoris saying E hoa, as we would “O friend.” This word e was often mistaken by Europeans as part of the name and so spoken or written, causing the name of Te Puni, for instance, to be written Epuni, because the chief was addressed “E Puni.”

The names of chiefs are generally selected from those of ancestors, bestowed at the “baptism” of the child. If the baby sneezed or moved peculiarly while the names of its forefathers were being recited at the ceremony, the name being uttered at the time was given to the infant. A child was generally known by some pet-name or nick-name given by its mother, but as it grew up its proper baptismal name was used. Afterwards other names were assumed. Such a name might be “in memoriam” of some loved relative, or it might take its rise in some incident of the life-history. As an example we may take that of a man who, on account of his father being murdered in his own house, assumed the name of “The House of Murder” (Te Whare Kohuru). A warrior who was renowned for stealthily approaching an enemy's fort was called Mawhai, the name of a creeping plant. Some names were very fine and resonant “The Sounding Sea” (Tai-haruru), “The Great Ocean” (Te Moana-nui), “The Shady Heavens” (Rangi-maru), etc., but others commonplace or even ridiculous in our notions: “Eight-warts” (Ira-waru), “Stiff-beard” (Kumikumi-maro), “Long-sob” (Hoturoa), etc. Some names, especially girls' names, were pretty and poetical, “Plume of the precious bird” (Puhi-huia), “White heron” (kotuku), “The young lady in love” (Hinemoa). The last name has a rather round-about explanation. The moa (dinornis) was supposed to stand on a mountain with its beak wide open “eating the wind” (te moa kai-hau). The idea of “eating the wind” or “feeding on air” became a metaphor applied to lovers who lost their appetite through excess of sentiment, so that to say one was a moa feeding on air implied that the person spoken of was in love. Hence Hine-moa, “Lady Moa,” meant a girl lover.

Maoris disliked (especially if chiefs) being asked their names straight out. To do so implied that the person asked was personally not known, and therefore undistinguished. A story is told that a stranger went to a village at Ohinemuri to visit the chief Taipari. On entering the settlement he asked for Taipari, but unfortunately addressed his enquiry to that person himself. “That is he” answered Taipari, pointing to his slave Netana. The visitor went up to the slave, saluted him and then began a confidential chat; all to the intense delight of the crafty chief, who, when he thought the game had lasted long enough, said “Netana, let food be cooked for my guest.” The visitor was naturally disconcerted, but had sufficient command of himself not to express his annoyance, knowing that he had put himself in the wrong by his own breach of etiquette.

Allusion has been made (under “Tapu”) to the custom of the use of a word being reliquished if it was the name, or part of the name of a chief. If a chief was named Te Mango, “the shark,” for example, the word mango would drop out of common use, and some word such as waha-nui, “Big Mouth,” be given to the fish instead. On account of the name of the chief Tai, “the tide,” the word “tai” was changed to ngaehe, “Ripple.” Sometimes a chief would alter his name as a memorial that some curse or insult was still unavenged; indeed the whole of a tribe, or sub-tribe, would adopt a new name for such a reason, and until revenge had been obtained.

Words were altered or dropped altogether for certain reasons, just as names were. Thus, when out bird-snaring, it was wrong to say “I am going to look (titiro) at my snares.” The birds not being dead might escape if this word were used, so the word examine (matai) was spoken instead. So also in discussing the taking or unfastening (wetewete) the birds from the snares, wetewete had to be avoided and the rare word wherawhera used instead.8 When on a rat-hunt it was indiscreet to speak of a rat by its proper name (kiore), it became koroke, “the fellow.”

The Dog and Other Animals.

The dog occupies no unimportant part in Maori legend, and it doubtless had a considerable part to play in the economy of domestic life. It is evident that in the course of time its nature and breed altered under differing circumstances and under diverse influences. The dog that was in existence shortly before the advent of the Europeans was certainly of quite another breed to that of which we get shadowy glimpses in folk-lore and myth.

The Maori dog (Kuri ruarangi) has now entirely disappeared and it is highly improbable that even the very earliest of the white settlers ever saw the real animal, although doubtless some of its blood was running in the veins of the mongrels that roamed around the native villages. Those seen by Cook, Forster, and others, about the time New Zealand was discovered, were small dogs, something like degenerate sheep-dogs, with large heads, sharply-pricked ears, and a short flowing tail. It was considered a valuable article of food, being bred for its edible qualities rather than for any other purpose, and as such even appreciated as ekeing out the slender resources of the explorers with Captain Cook. Crozet described native dogs as looking like domesticated foxes, indeed they would destroy poultry just as foxes do, and he relates that they were fed on fish, and would not be domesticated among white men, whom they would bite on occasion. The skin was highly valued as an article of attire, and a mat of dogskins was a precious possession. The white hair (awe) of the dog's tail was also used as an ornament for the weapons of a chief; the tail of the living animal being kept regularly shaved, and the hair put away for this purpose. The flesh of the dog was not allowed to be eaten by women, and not by men except under certain restrictions.

The account given by old natives many years ago as to the real Maori dog is as follows. It was a small animal and did not bark like our dogs, their dogs cried au, au, while ours cry haru haru and pahu pahu; they howled a good deal. It would not bite men; the owner prized and petted them, giving each its proper name. They were sometimes castrated. Birds and rats were given to the dogs to eat; the animals were often trained to catch ground game such as the ground-parrot (kakapo), rails (weka), and apteryx (kiwi). This was done by the master squatting down, and holding his dog, at the same time giving a cry in imitation of that of the bird, who hearing the cry would come towards the hunter. The little dog was then let go and would catch the bird and hold it or bring it to his master. The dog might get lost through its stupidity, but never ran wild. Dogs with white hair were greatly prized, not only on account of the skins being valuable as mats, but because the long hair of the tail was so esteemed that a house with clean mats was provided for the owner of such a tail lest it should lose its whiteness and lustre. The skins were prepared by being stretched on a frame to dry where sun and rain could not get at them; only men attended to this duty and only men were allowed to make the mats by sewing the hides together and then to the lining of woven flax which always underlaid the furs, although the flax-cloth lining was made by women. Dogs played no inferior part among the incentives to war; the theft or killing of a favourite dog often leading to bloodshed involving many human lives. An anecdote which at once exhibits the intelligence of the ancient dog (as compared with the stupidity of the later breed) and an example of the animal becoming a cause of quarrel may be quoted in the case of the dog Marukukere. This chief had, or considered he had an “over-lordship” on another chief named Kahu and his people, so at the time of the harvesting of the sweet-potato (kumara) every year Maru would send his dog, with a wooden spade in its mouth, to Kahu, as a hint for the latter to organise a company to come and gather in the crop of the dog's master. For many years this was done

A Little Kumara God.A. Hamilton, Photo

and the mute order obeyed, but at last Kahu began to think that this conduct was rather insulting and was intended to degrade him. So he said to one of his men, “if that dog comes again kill it.” When the time of harvest arrived and the intelligent animal put in its usual appearance it was caught and killed. Maru waited some time and finding that neither his dog nor Kahu's workmen appeared he went to see what was the cause that his summons was neglected. But he himself was attacked and killed. Out of this war arose, in which the nephew of the murdered man led his forces to victory, killed Kahu, and extirpated Kahu's people.

The spirits of dogs were supposed, like those of men, to pass to the World of Shadows (Te Reinga) but they travelled by a different path than that taken by the souls of human beings. If a dog barked in a certain way at a man it was supposed to denote the death of the person barked at; the god of evil and death (Te Nganahau) inspired the dog to give the warning. Dogs frequently became goblins (taniwha) and sometimes the guardian spirits of certain places. The sacred dog of Maahu lived under the waters of a lake named Te Rotonuiaha, and was a kind of banshee, its bark proceeding from under the water being a warning of the approaching death of a chief. Moe-kahu, a goddess, the daughter of Houmea the ogress, and a sister of the three Haere the rainbow-gods, was incarnate in the form of a dog, and her appearance to any of the Urewera tribe (their land was her habitat) was looked upon as an awful omen of evil and death. A chief of high descent and great powers had a dog that was killed by a falling tree, and thereon the chief commanded the spirit of the dog to pass into a large tree growing near, and in that tree the spirit dwelt for ages and spoke (in the dog language) to travellers who dared to address it. The tutelary deity of dogs was Irawaru or Owa, the husband of the sister of Maui the hero, but Irawaru offended Maui who changed him into a dog and then insulted his sister by telling her to call aloud for her husband with the cry “Moi moi!” the usual call to a dog, and which is even to-day an insult if used to a man. A certain chief of old times had a dog that innocently broke the laws of tapu, and for this it was killed and eaten. The chief's sons went about calling their dog at village after village, and coming at last at the right place they heard their dog answer them, “Au! Au! Au!” from the belly of the eater. A parallel has been drawn between this Maori story and the Irish legend of the stolen sheep bleating in the belly of a rogue, by whom it had been eaten, when St. Patrick called on the sheep to answer.1

In the accounts of the voyages of the ancestral canoes to New Zealand dogs are mentioned as part of the freight, but it is certain from the researches of geologists that the bones of the dog are to be found in old ovens and other places of a date far anterior to that of the Hawaiki immigration. Probably, however, if the new-comers brought their dogs with them they were of a species closely allied to that of the indigenous stock, and it was more of a replenishment than an innovation. Kupe, one of the legendary discoverers of these islands brought his dogs with him, and not only do the Hokianga natives show some curious markings in stone as being footprints of one of these dogs, but in another place they exhibit a stone into which another of the animals was transformed.

A tradition that tells of matters which occurred prior to the Hawaiki Maoris leaving their own country relates a description of a fight in which dogs took part. “Then Uenuku caused the fog (by his charms) to clear away, but, seeing many of Whena's people still alive, he made it settle down again and sent his dogs on shore to attack them. After some time he caused the fog to lift again and waited in the canoe to witness the battle of the dogs and the people of Whena.” This was called “The battle of the Food of the Dogs.” Such dogs must have been of a very different breed from the tame little Maori dog of more recent times. We are told of fierce hunting dogs used by the Kahui Tipua, the ogre-aborigines of the South Island, but these were two-headed dogs and belonged to the land of pure myth. A curious legend existed as to certain mysterious dogs named Mohorangi which had the power fabled in Greece as belonging to the head of Medusa, for they turned into stone any person (unstrengthened by magic charms) who dared to meet their petrifying glance. Two stone dogs are said to haunt the western bank of lake Taupo and their barking was listened for with fear, for if a stranger should hear them and make the usual call to a dog (moi! moi!) a terrible storm would arise in which the unwary traveller would be drowned.

The flesh of the dog was held to be a tapu food, only to be indulged in by certain persons and under certain restrictions. A dog was always killed at the great ceremonies connected with the children of chiefs and on other important and formal occasions, but the priest ate its flesh. A dog was also killed for the tattooer, when he was operating on a chief; but anciently they were kept for sacrifice. A legend relates that when the Aotea canoe and its consort were on their way to New Zealand the weary storm-beaten voyagers rested at a small island named Rangitahua, and there offered up a dog in sacrifice. “They cut it up raw as an offering to the gods, and laid it cut open in every part before them, and set up pillars for the spirits that they might entirely consume the sacrifice. … Then they rose up from prayer and roasted with fire the dog they were offering as a sacrifice, and holding the sacrifice aloft called over the names of the spirits to whom the offering was made, etc., etc.”2 It is said in another legend that when these canoes reached the well-forested island of Kotiwha the captain of the Ririno (the consort of the Aotea) ate a portion of a dog that was being sacrificed to the god Maru, and as a consequence the Ririno was shortly afterwards wrecked and all her people drowned.

There is a story told concerning a war-party that chased a dog and having caught it offered it as a propitiation to the spirit of a dead comrade, the heart being roasted and offered by the priest to the gods and afterwards devoured by the most aged member of the party.

There was much woodcraft to be learnt by an educated Maori before he became proficient in obtaining from forest and stream the food-producing creatures which formed a large and savoury part of his fare. He had not only to study the habits of the inhabitants of wood and river, but learn how to spear and net and hook and snare, and how to prepare the various tools he required. When these things had been fully learnt, however, he was well equipped to survive in desolate places where one less instructed and observant could easily have starved.

The large and handsome wood-pigeon (kukupa or kereru: Carpophaga novæ - zealandiæ) was through its abundance and its large size considered a prize worth obtaining. There were three methods employed in catching them. In the first (tūtū) a platform was erected in the branches of a growing tree with inwardly inclined branches, and on this platform the hunter was seated, at a time of year when the forest was full of fruit and berries in which the pigeon delighted. Artificial perches (tumu) were placed on the ends of short poles (pouaka) which were lashed into position among the branches. A noose was carefully spread on the perch, and the cord of the noose passed through the perch and alongside the pole to the hand of the snarer, who, as soon as the pigeon alighted, pulled the noose and caught the bird. Pigeons were very plentiful, and gathered in favourite trees like swarms of bees. A snarer has captured as many as two hundred a day in like manner. The second method (ahere or mahanga) was by setting snares. Wooden troughs (waka) were made, and being filled with water, were set among the branches of the miro (Podocarpus ferruginea) trees when the berries were ripe. The birds became accustomed to seeing them and to drinking the water. Then, snares were arranged all along the edges of the troughs. The snares consisted of running nooses placed so closely side by side that the pigeons could not drink without putting their heads through the snares, and in drawing back their heads the ruffling of the feathers drew the cord tight. Sometimes the snares were set around natural drinking-pools of the pigeon. It was the custom never to take the dead birds away the first day of snaring: they had to be left till the next morning, for some unknown reason. The third way of taking the pigeons was by spearing (tahere or here). The bird-spear was a long flexible shaft of over thirty feet in length, having a bone head barbed on one side. The spear was used in the customary way, working it up through the branches so as not to startle the quarry. It was not (except in very plentiful years) so efficient a method as the snare.3

The parrot (kaka; Nestor meridionalis) was taken in one way just as the pigeon was snared, viz, by the noosed perch (tūtū) but with the assistance of a decoy bird (timori) a tame kaka. The parrots swarmed on the rata trees (Metrosideros robusta) when the flowers were in bloom and full of honey, so in the rata the platforms were built. Here the man sat with his decoy parrot on its perch, and a little basket (kori) of parrot's food hanging from the perch (turuturu). The bird was made to cry out, and soon its wild brethren would alight on the noosed perch and the cord was pulled. Parrots were also caught in the honeysuckle (Rewarewa: Knightia excelsa) tree in its flowering time by the same method. Another mode of catching parrots was by the pole (taki). This pole was a rod about two inches in diameter and about twenty-five feet long. A small hut of tree-fern leaves was built in a likely place, and the pole was set firmly in the ground with its foot in the hut but protruding through the fern-leaves upwards in a slanting direction. In the hut sat the man, with his decoy-parrot outside, fastened to a cord by a bone ring (poria) fixed on one of its legs. The decoy was made to cry out and to bite things on the ground till the wild parrots gathered, thinking from the biting and excitement of the other bird that there must be good food down there. They would begin walking down the sloping pole to join the other at its feast, as they thought. The birds turned from side to side as they descended, and the man watching his opportunity when a bird was near the ground slipped his hands through the fern-leaves and, placing one hand over one wing and the other hand over the other wing, drew it into the hut and trod on its head. A procession of birds passed down the pole to the decoy. Sometimes a man had no decoy and had to delude the birds by imitating their cry, but it was very difficult to do, and as soon as he caught one he would keep it alive and train it as a decoy. This took much patience and skill, as a well-trained bird had to be able to stamp about and scratch and break sticks as well as cry, so that the birds would think that it was having a very good time down there.

The Parson-Bird (tui or koko: Prosthemadera N.Z.) was taken in many ways, by nooses (when the kowhai—Sophora tetraptera—was in flower), by spearing, and by two or three other methods only used for this bird. One of these was the mode of capture by striking. A perch (pae) about seven feet long and one inch thick was set up in the branches between two adjacent trees, one end of the perch being higher than the other. At the lower end of the perch was built a fern-tree hut, to hide the striker who imitated the birds' call to each other by means of the leaf of a tree (patete: Schefflera digitata) held between his lips. When a bird settled on the perch it was knocked off with a long flexible stick. Another mode of capture was by means of a movable baited perch (wheke) with noose held in the hand and the cord tightened. The whole of this apparatus—noose, pole, bait (kohukohu), perch, etc.—was called pewa. The tui was also taken in frosty weather by men marking its roosting place at evening and then climbing the trees just before dawn by the light of burning torches. The birds' feet at that hour were numbed (uhu) and contracted with cold so that they could not open their claws to let go the branches they sat on.

The paroquet (kakariki: Platycercus sp.) was snared by means of a pole six feet long having a snare (mahanga or tari) on the end. The fowler made his hut of tree-fern leaves and sat therein. As soon as he could noose one of these rather tame birds, it was used as a decoy for the others, being fastened to a perch by the leg, then when the others came to its cry they were knocked over with the pole. Wild ducks of different kinds were caught in snares, a line (kaha) of which was stretched right across a river or narrow lake and fastened to a stake at each side. The loops of the snares were suspended just above the water. When a flock of ducks passed under the line perhaps every loop would take a duck. Sometimes the combined strength of so many struggling birds would pull up the stakes unless they were very firmly fastened, and the ducks would fly away till they became entangled in some tree. Sometimes when the birds were moulting they were hunted with dogs. Ducks are fat when moulting (turuki maunu) and they cannot fly well at that time. The dogs were taken to the place in canoes which quietly approached the ducks as near as possible without frightening them, and then the dogs were sent overboard. The ducks were preserved (huahua) in their own fat rendered into calabashes.

The mutton-bird called titi, includes Buona-parte's Shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris) and Cook's Petrel (Œstrelata cookii). It was taken on foggy nights by means of a large net set a little way back from the edge of a cliff, the ends being fixed by poles arranged in the shape of an X, and a fire being lighted on the extreme edge of the cliff. Behind the fire and in front of the net the natives sat, each armed with a stout stick, one man standing at each end near the outer pole. When the dazzled birds flew at the fire they struck the net and were killed by the hunters. If the first bird struck the supporting poles it was a bad omen; no birds would be taken, but if it struck the net the hunt would be successful.

Advantage was taken of the sense of hearing in the kiwi (Apertyx sp.) to capture it with the aid of dogs. The kiwi goes along looking for worms or rather listening for the rustle of the earth-worm under ground. When the bird hears the worm creeping below the soil the long beak is prodded down and finds its prey. The kiwi hunter fastened little pieces (patete) of wood to his dogs' neck, so that they would rattle or rustle, and the kiwi would stop to listen, thinking that it heard the worms creeping. Then the dogs would rush in, and the men came forward with torches which they had hitherto concealed. The bird was astounded at the sudden dazzling light, it being a nocturnal bird and not used to the light, so that it was easily killed. The kiwi sometimes goes about in a stupid way by daylight, but was only hunted at night. Sometimes kiwi were caught by lighting a fire and breaking small sticks when the birds would be attracted by the glare and snapping of the twigs. The Woodhen (weka: Ocydromus sp.) was easily caught, as being a very pugnacious bird, one had only to hold out a piece of red rag on a stick and it would attack the stick till the latter knocked it over. The Ground Parrot (kakapo: Stringops habroptilus) is fond of the roots of the fern. Sentinel birds are posted while the others feed but, if after wasting some time no danger approaches, the sentries come in and feed with the others. The Maoris would carefully watch these feeding places of the birds, and would hold their dogs in hand until the kakapo sentinels no longer called their “All's Well”; then the dogs were loosed. Efforts were always made, if possible, to catch the sentinel-birds, then the others were easily caught as they seemed confused by their loss.

The frugivorous native rat (kiore: Musrattus) has now been almost entirely exterminated or succeeded by the grey Norway rat. The small black native rat was considered a choice article of food, and its hunt was accompanied with ceremonial and much preparation. Long narrow tracks were cut through the forest for miles; generally two parallel tracks near together. Along these lines traps (tawhiti) were set with snares or springs, these being baited (poa) with berries beloved of the little quadrupeds. If a rat was taken in the first (tamatane) trap baited then it was an omen of success for the others; the animals running along the straight prepared lines. Rat-hunting parties were often out for days at a time, and would capture several hundreds of the little creatures. Incantations were chanted before the hunt commenced, and ceremonial ovens had to be prepared and the contents eaten by priests before the hunters were allowed to touch the cooked bodies of the animals.

Maoris often tamed the wild denizens of the bush and made pets of them. The tui was perhaps the favourite bird to keep as a caged companion. They learnt to talk well and were a great source of amusement and pride. If a tui could say “Lo, here is the welcome visitor,” or “Come hither, come hither”; guests would be delighted. A great fight took place at Tahoraite (Hawke's Bay) over the theft of a tame tui, and it resulted in the loss of their land by a whole tribe. The white crane or heron (kotuku: Ardea egretta) was kept for the sake of its feathers, which were plucked every five or six months. The bird was kept in a miserable way, in a rude low cage, too small for its size. It was fed with small freshwater fish, but it seldom lived long. Another bird kept for the sake of its feathers was the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris); this for its tail feathers, the ornament reserved for the head-dress of a chief. The parrot (kaka) was tamed not only as a pet but as a decoy-bird for catching others; it was tethered by a bone ring (poria) round its leg fastened to a cord which was attached to a perch or spear of wood too hard to be nibbled. The large sea-gull (karoro: Larus dominicanus) and another gull, the Oyster-catcher (torea: Hæmatopus sp.), were domesticated, but merely as pets or companions; they served no useful purpose. They were caught young and fed by hand. The Paradise Duck (putangitangi: Casarca variegata) was also kept as a domesticated fowl. Names of dead relatives were often given to pets so as to make them sacred and to insure their safety.

Pet lizards were sometimes carried about, being fed on berries of the tawa (Beilschmiedia tawa).4 This is a traditional statement, and it is said that lizards were often tamed and kept as pets by chiefs in olden days. The legends, however, generally relate to very celebrated persons, and the assertion may be a pure invention, so as to add to the mysterious grandeur of the individual described as possessing a reptile pet. The ordinary Maori certainly regarded the whole of the lizard tribe with dread and repugnance.

Legends declare that many of the living creatures found in New Zealand were brought in the canoes from Hawaiki. Thus Turi brought the Swamp-hen (pukeko: Porphyrio melanotus), the green paroquets, and the Maori rat in the Aotea canoe. Whiro-nui landed insects and lizards from the Nukutere canoe. The native rat is also said to have come with Nukutawhiti in the Mamari canoe. The centipede (were), the caterpillar (whe), the Maori-bug (kekerengu), the birds torea (above mentioned) and the ground lark (hioi: Anthus N.Z.), a sacred bird, were all supposed to have been brought in the canoes. The birds and lizards, however, are in almost all cases of species indigenous to these islands and (so far as at present known) to no other part of the world; so such traditions are little more than inventions, and are unworthy of credence. The Samoan Great Pigeon or “Red Bird” (manumea) is known in old Maori story, and the turtle was probably also once known by its Polynesian name (honu).

A mottled and speckled lizard (moko tapiri) was supposed to bring forth the New Zealand cuckoo (koekoea), or else it is believed the bird loses its feathers at the approach of winter, retires to a hole in the ground, and becomes a lizard (ngaha). As spring returns its tail drops off, feathers grow, and it becomes a bird again. The cuckoo is, of course, a migrating bird. When the eggs of the paroquet (kakariki) were hatched, the shells were supposed to turn into green lizards (moko kakariki).

A small bird, the Pied Tit (miromiro: Myiomoira toitoi) was the “little bird” that, as in our nurseries, was supposed to carry messages, especially love messages. It also acted as messenger between a separated husband and wife. If a man went to a sorcerer and asked for his wife to be sent back to him, the miromiro was despatched, however far away she might be. The tiny messenger would settle on her head and then, whether she wished it or not, an overmastering desire came to her to return to her husband. She would rush back, a wind blowing behind her and lifting her feet, the sacred breeze (Hau-o-Pua-nui) that only a magician could raise. Hence the proverb “The wind of Puanui will bring her.”

Birds often had miraculous or supernatural powers attributed to them. In some Polynesian dialects (as in that of Rarotonga) the word for bird (manu) is sometimes used for “soul.” Although in New Zealand particular birds were not regarded as incarnations of deities, as at Samoa, nevertheless gods at times assumed bird-shapes and others were tutelary protectors of certain species. Maui assumed the form of a dove or pigeon when visiting Spirit-land, and that of a hawk when procuring fire for men.5 The Saddleback (tieke: Creadion sp.) was supposed to guard the mythical treasures of the Maori. As tutelary deities, Pahiko was the protector of the kaka parrot, Haere-awa-awa of the wood-hen (weka) and the kiwi, Parauri of the tui bird, etc.

The Moriori used figures of birds neatly carved from hard wood as part of the ceremonial when their priests were paying honour to Tiki, the first-created man. Twenty or more of these wooden birds were placed in parallel rows on the altar, a carved figure of the god Rongomai being set at the end. This ceremony took place every year when possible, but sometimes one or two years would lapse.

The Moa.

Controversy had raged for some years among experts as to the time when the moa disappeared as a living creature. It seems almost impossible to reconcile the statements of the students of natural history and anthropology in this matter. Bones of the birds have been found on the surface of the ground, and in positions in which it seems certain that their owners perished within a few years of the present day. Parts of the bodily frame of the dinornis, such as a thigh and the neck vertebræ, have been recovered, with the skin, tendons and ligaments still attached. Bones of the bird, apparently cooked and gnawed, have been exhumed from kitchen-middens and alongside old native ovens. The skeleton of a man was found in an old burial cave, with the skull resting on the egg of a dinornis; of course this egg may itself have been a comparatively recent “find.” Most of the dinornis bones discovered have been brought to light from excavations in swamps wherein by hundreds together the birds have perished in flood time.

None of the remains of the large species of moa, such as Dinornis giganteus and Dinornis maximus, have been found with traces of human interference or proximity; there are only the smaller and later of the twenty nine species of the bird which appear to have existed as contemporaries with man. They evidently found food plentiful, were without enemies of consequence, and increased to immense numbers. Whether they became exhausted generically through too great prosperity, or not, only the smaller species survived. As to these, marks of disease have been found on the breast bone and other osseous remains, sufficient to show that they were strongly decadent, and would probably have died out without help from the spear or snare of the hunter.

The students of Maori legend and customs number many in their ranks who assert that the dinornis has been extinct for centuries, and that the Maori (i.e. the Maori from Hawaiki) did not know the moa as a living bird, although perhaps some knowledge of its once existence was conveyed to the immigrant tribes by a race of men already in possession. Such students point out that every person who is said in tradition to have killed or seen a moa is a myth-being. No feathers of moa were transmitted as heir-looms on weapons or mats; no mention is made of the great bird in even the oldest legends containing lists of food materials, although less important animals, such as the pigeon, parrot, tui, rat, eel, and other wild creatures, are enumerated as parts of the possession passing with tribal lands. They state that although the word moa is now widely applied to the dinornis (so that even Europeans use it), the Maoris did not know that the remains were those of a huge bird, nor understand the mention in their own songs, until they were made acquainted by colonists with the fact after the skeleton had been “re-constructed” from a single bone by Professor Owen. Many of the Maoris thought the remains of the moa to be bones of giant ancestors or rather predecessors in the country. One of the old natives having visited a museum was describing a moa skeleton to his friends, but complained that “the arm-bones were missing.” He was corrected—“but the moa was a bird!” The old man replied, “O son, I thought the moa was a man.”

Here and there a feather supposed to be that of a moa was handed down through several generations, but not one of these is procurable or in evidence. The legendary description of such feather is, from the account of its brilliant hues and “eyes,” more like that of a peacock than of the dull grey dinornis—nor would the plume have been so highly valued had the living bird been common. However, such a tribe must have believed that the moa was a bird. In the North Island, the East Coast Maoris believed the moa to be a huge bird and that the last one was to be found standing on Mount Hikurangi, between two great lizards or dragons. But, mythologically, Hikurangi is the mountain to which the remnant of mankind escaped from the Deluge. Old chiefs of authority in tradition asserted seventy years ago that all the moa had been destroyed at the time of the (Maori) Deluge.6 A proverbial saying of the Maori was to the effect that the moa was “the bird hidden by Tane” (te manu huna a Tane), that is, by the Lord of Forests.

Lastly, that the few allusions preserved in song and proverb showed that the moa had been lost in very ancient times, and that a song composed at least twelve generations (300 years) ago in the South Island speaks of “lost, as the moa is last,” a remark which would have been absurd had the bird been then as abundant as the supporters of the “late extinction” theory assert.

The subject is still obscure; the bibliography is large and consists mostly in papers scattered through the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute.”

Of other extinct birds, the swan does not appear, even in the faintest echo of legend, to be remembered. The great eagle (Harpagornis moorei) has been perhaps embalmed as a memory in accounts of great rapacious birds, Hokioi and Pouakai, mentioned in old traditions and alluded to elsewhere in this volume.

Fishing.

The fishing-net (kupenga) was, when of a large size, a most valuable possession of the Maori. It was made of flax; the mesh (takekenga) being formed over bunched fingers, and the knot was identical with that used by European net-makers. The meshes were closer and the material stouter towards the centre or belly of the net, where the strain was greatest. The upper (kaharunga) and lower (kahararo) ropes of the net were of undressed flax; to the upper were fastened the floats (pouto) of buoyant wood placed at about eighteen inch intervals, the lower rope being weighted with stones. The centre float was often highly ornamented. Great care was taken of the nets, and, after they had been used, they were dried, folded, and put away on a stage or in a regular store-house (whata) raised on piles (see, also, nets, under Textiles). The seine net has been known to have been cast for human fish on several occasions of which tradition has recorded tragical adventures. A funnel-shaped net (riritai) was also used. Sometimes nets of this kind were very large. One measured 75 feet in length with a diameter of 25 feet at the mouth and this particular net was the work of one man who was over 90 years of age at the time.

Small nets (rohe, kori, etc.) were used by hand, some of these over hoops and fastened to poles, some (toemi) were made to draw together like the mouth of a bag. A hand-net (tapora) with very fine meshes was used for catching white-bait (inanga). An eel-net (pukoro), in shape like a long bag, was to be seen at times, but generally the eel-basket (hinaki) or the many-pointed spear (heru or matarau) were the more favoured methods of catching eels (tuna). The eel-basket (hinaki) was nearly of the same shape as that used in England for the same purpose, the form being that of a pear, and the length from five to eight feet. It (the hinaki) was woven of the wiry stems of the Climbing Fern (Mangemange: Lygodium volubile) and was utilised in the narrow openings of eel-weirs whereof the wings were strong palisading.

Fish-hooks (matau) were of all sizes and were generally made of wood or bone. The large hooks such as those for catching sharks were of wood with bone tips. A hook used with the line running behind a canoe was decorated with the iridescent shell of the haliotis (paua). Hooks were generally barbed, but not always. Flounders were transfixed with a barbed spear. The sea-mullet (kanae: Mugil perusii) often ascends tidal rivers in great numbers. They were caught in canoes into which they jumped when alarmed suddenly. These fish are thus called proverbially “The leaping sons of (Tangaroa) the Sea-god.” Crayfish were caught in baskets (taruke). Shellfish were sometimes collected with a rake (rou kakahi) which had a net (rori) attached to it, and into this net the molluscs would fall when scraped up or off with the rake.

Many superstitions were connected with fishing. On large fishing expeditions, the men engaged in making or mending nets were tapu. If cooked food was carried in a fishing canoe no fish would be caught. To cut up fish, freshly taken, to serve as bait at the same time or place was absolutely forbidden; if such action had been performed the fishing ground would be ruined. Before a new net could be used an invocation (whaka-inu) had to be uttered over it. Men carrying the net to the canoe had to be naked for fear that a morsel of cooked food might have touched their garments and so defiled them, and Tangaroa the Sea-god would be angry. If fish were caught in tapu water, any such fish had, when cooked, to be taken a considerable distance from the oven before they could be eaten. If a party was about to set out on a fishing (hi-ika) expedition with hook and line, the evening before the day of departure the hooks to be used were carefully collected and made efficient by charms. The next morning the hooks were taken to the canoe and stuck into the covering of the joints of the side-planks (rauawa), the priest meanwhile invoking the aid of a god; on the West Coast this was usually the god Maru. The first fish hooked was put back into the water after being charmed so as to induce plenty of its fellows to come and bite. The next fish taken was reserved as an offering to the gods and a priest took charge of it. When the party returned to land, three ovens were prepared, one being for the gods, and in this latter the first fish kept was cooked. Another oven was for the chiefs and the third for the common people who were allowed to eat as soon as the priest held up one of the fish (by a string through its gills) before a sacred place and uttered an accompanying invocation.

If when fish were caught, snapper (tamure: Pagrus unicolor), or a variety of fishes were taken, women as well as men could share the food, but if only the fish named kahawai (Arripis salar) was obtained women were not allowed to partake.

Not only were human bones used as fishhooks, or as barbs for fish-hooks, on purpose to insult the family or tribe of an enemy whose bodily remains were thus treated with contempt, but sometimes a chief would fix the dried head of an old foe on the gunnel of his fishing canoe. Then the fishing line would be fastened to the ear of the trophy in such a way as to cause the head to nod freely when the fish on being hooked hauled on the line.

When human bones were made into fishhooks, it was not always done in scorn by an enemy of a dead person. There were curious and quaint notions concerning the powers of such fish-hooks. It is related that when a certain chief who had been cursed was dying, he ordered his sons to make fish-hooks from his bones. Having, in due time, exhumed the bones of their father, they made the required hooks and went fishing with them. Having caught some fish, they sent them all to their father's enemies, who, having partaken of the fish, died in great numbers “by the power of the god who was in the bones.” Again, a Taranaki tribe wished to make war on another tribe in the same locality, so they killed a boy of the people with whom they desired to quarrel, and made fish-hooks of his bones. The fish caught with these hooks were sent to the boy's relatives who ate the food and then, having heard of the way the fish had been caught, instantly formed their war-party to revenge the deadly insult.

Tapu.

Tapu is the word which has been adopted into the English language as “taboo,” when we say that such and such subjects are tabooed. Its proper sense seems to be neither “sacred” nor “defiled” although it may take either meaning, and that medial expression “prohibited” perhaps translates it best—“prohibited” for sacred reasons, “prohibited” for objectionable reasons. The true inwardness of the word tapu is that it infers the setting apart of certain persons or things on account of their having become possessed or infected by the presence of super-natural beings, particularly of the ancestral spirits who were guardian deities of the tribe. Great chiefs were by nature tapu on account of their divine birth, they being able to trace their genealogies up to the gods of heaven and earth. If such chiefs performed certain actions, such as entering a common house, leaning against a post, eating a portion of food, etc., the house, the post, or the remaining scraps of victuals were tapu to others. If the chief in question devoured the body of an enemy, in doing so he not only insulted the tribe of the fallen man, but, secure in the protection of his victorious gods, he was challenging in a daring way the guardian spirits of his foeman's tribe. If a common man partook of scraps left by his noble master he was then “eating the god” of his own tribe, and thus not only committing a terrible sacrilege against his protecting deity, but probably bringing down upon his leader the wrath of heavenly beings whose essential sacredness had been conveyed to the food by the touch of the chief. That is the reason why the chief himself would feel violent personal anger at his tapu being broken by the act of an inferior. If a chief made a thing tapu, a canoe, for instance, by touching it and saying “This is my head” such prohibition was only held binding on lesser men; if some more powerful noble came and wished for the canoe he would take it, disregarding the tapu of the other, very much as if he had said “This fellow's position in regard to he gods is nothing compared with mine,” but of course he might have to maintain such superiority at the point of the spear. It must not be inferred in all cases that this “Eating the god” was sacrilege. The act of partaking of the flesh and blood of the tribal deity is the soul of most savage religions, but such a communion must be a “Communion of saints,” that is, of people prepared by proper ceremonies and at a certain time to undertake the solemn office. It must not be done accidentally or carelessly, if so, such an act is sacrilege, that is, it is tapu.

Sometimes when travelling at night a Maori would carry in his hand either some cooked food or a firebrand from a cooking-fire as a protection, because spirits disliked cooked food very much. If a spirit was to touch such food and it was afterwards eaten it would be as though the spirit himself had been eaten. The priests, especially the priest-chiefs (Ariki) had the power of releasing from tapu and making things common (noa) again; if this could not have been done the laws of tapu would have been too heavy to be borne, and all social life must have ceased. As it was, it was almost impossible not to infringe this dreaded custom, even if scrupulous and pious care was taken. The annoyance was almost as great for the sacred person as for the sinner although not so unpleasant or perhaps fatal in its consequences. Thus, the chief must eat in the open air, whatever the weather, so as not to tapu a house; must not eat from a plate (really a little woven basket) that another shared or that another might afterwards use; must gather up all scraps and take them away to some tapu spot least another consume them. He could not drink from a vessel if it was probable that the lips of another would approach that vessel, so he had to hold his hand curved upwards below his lower lip whilst water was poured from a calabash into his mouth. The head and back of a chief were peculiarly sacred and he had to be careful not to leave his comb or hair-fillet or shoulder-mat in any place where a common person could touch them. If anyone touched the sacred head it was a dire offence (the god Rauru dwelt in the hair; rauru or laulu is a Polynesian word for “hair” or “head”) and even if another relative equally sacred was to do so (to comb or cut the hair of an aristocratic infant, for instance) he would be tapu till the next day when the purifying ceremony (horohoronga) would proceed. This ceremony was not complicated. A new sacred-fire was kindled by friction and fern-root cooked thereon by some “unprohibited” person. The food was then rubbed over the disqualified hands and afterwards eaten by the female head of the family. The children of well-born people often suffered much from vermin because the head of a chief's son could not be touched except by a person of rank. A tapu child might on no account be washed.

Mention has been made concerning the head of a chief being sacred and not to be touched, but, more than this, it could not even be mentioned or alluded to casually, nor could it pass under food. Touching the sacred head constituted one of the causes of the offences or sins called morimori, and would demand a taua or hostile demonstration (muru) in which goods would be plundered or land taken. A tapu could be broken by one's own son because he was of higher rank than his father.1 If the son of a chief went upon the roof of a house and was unrecognised his father would ask in horror and indignation “Who dares to get above my sacred head?” but if he found it was his son, it did not matter. A chief if invited to stay and have food at a village would probably do so if he was invited on his approach. If, however, the inhabitants had not seen him till he had passed the place and then sent a message asking him to return and eat he would feel insulted, saying that “they had invited the back of his head.” He fancied that such food would kill his people because it had been given to the sacred back of a chief's head and such food was fit for the gods or highly tapu people only.

If the shadow of a great ariki fell across a food-store (whata) or a food-pit (rua) the contents became tapu and had to be destroyed, therefore his presence in a village was watched with great anxiety. If a chief blew on a fire with his breath the fire became tapu, if he went into a cooking-shed the action would make it useless and it would have to be destroyed. Of course such an action as that last spoken of would have its counter effect on the chief, and have to be atoned for. Sometimes this power of tapu would be used benignantly as in the case of a chief throwing his mat over a prisoner, who would thereupon become tapu and his life spared. Priests were especially sacred, and should a priest in drinking let fall some of the water from his hand (he never used a cup, always being tapu) that place was tapu and the length of time it so remained depended on the quantity of water spilt. Anything given to him had to be laid before him, not handed to him, lest the proferring hand might have held cooked food. He would not eat food cooked in a large oven, nor light his fire from a large fire—these were common (noa). If people travelling came across a shed wherein a priest had stopped they would take some of the firebrands left by him and make a fire therewith, then in this fire the sticks of the shed could be used as firewood, but only thus could the tapu be removed. No one would pass behind a priest; that would make the offender tapu. It was only in war that a priest would lead his men and the tapu of his god was supposed to be in front.

A tapu person not being allowed to feed himself sometimes great mischief was wrought by disobedience to this rule. When Tutanekai, the celebrated lover of Hinemoa was baptised, his father called upon the priest Te Murirangaranga to perform the duty. This was done, but before the priest had completed his purification he was seen one day gathering and eating poro-poro berries. This was a deadly insult to the baby he had baptised, therefore the child's father, Whakaue, had the priest (tohunga) drowned, it not being lawful to shed a priest's blood. Of the arm-bone of the victim a flute was made and given to Tutanekai who became very proficient thereon, and afterwards charmed the heart of the celebrated beauty Hinemoa with the melody evoked from the arm-bone of Te Murirangaranga.

Of course a chief's house was tapu, and on one occasion the people of a village became tapu from eating the wild cabbage which had grown on the site once occupied by a chief's house. If rain from the roof of a sacred dwelling, such as a chief's house, fell into a vessel and anyone drank the water he would die unless a certain invocation (tupeke) was recited by a priest. The tapu was a very convenient thing, spite of its immense drawbacks and constrictions, in making private small personal effects such as ornaments, dress, etc. Often if an ariki or other person of eminence got tired of an old garment it was burnt or thrown into some inaccessible place lest a common person should get hold of it and become tapu. Each village had a piece of ground (wahitapu) reserved for placing thereon tapu property, such as scraps of a chief's food, clothing, etc.

Beside what one might call the lesser or closely personal tapu there was another kind which carried an assertion of rights such as “lords of the manor” might exert with us. The right to stop traffic on a river or through a forest would often be exercised, apparently as an outward show of authority, though at great inconvenience to other people. The person who could do this, by such act showed himself a great lord, whereas without the tapu power he would be a mere common fellow. This variety of tapu appeared to be not so much a religious force, appertaining to chiefs as descended from the gods, as it was an evidence of territorial power showing that they were nobles and aristocrats. Often this was done by means of a rahui, that is by putting up a pole with a bunch of rags or leaves fastened thereon. A road was made tapu by placing a stick or branch across it. A bit of flax tied to a door secured it and the valuables within.

All fruit, roots, etc., growing in sacred places were tapu. In great fishing expeditions all those engaged in making or mending nets were tapu, so also was the ground on which the nets were made, and the river on whose banks work went on—no canoe being allowed to pass on it. No fire might be lighted for cooking purposes within a prescribed distance from net-workers, and it was not until the regulation ceremonies were finished, the net wetted, and a fish taken and eaten by the owner of the net, that the tapu was lifted. Generally throughout this book many instances of tapu are mentioned, in regard to almost every variety of occupation and action.

Not only was the chief's house tapu on account of his sacredness—so that he could not even eat food himself therein, but every house was to be avoided in reference to some of its parts. A person could become tapu by sitting on the inner threshold (paepae-poto) of a house. The walls of a house were particularly shunned as a support or leaning - place by natives of any standing, and great care was taken to keep a space between a chief's back and the wall. This was not only on account of the house thereby being rendered useless through their sacredness, but because they themselves would acquire the unclean tapu. The walls of a house were apt to be infected by malignant infant spirits (kahukahu). 2 If a chief of exalted rank entered an ordinary house the passage of his sacred head beneath the door - lintel would probably ensure the destruction of the house, but if the building was of value it could be redeemed by certain ceremonies being performed to make it “common” once more.

The tapu for touching a dead body (except in case of war) was the worst kind of the defiling tapu. There was generally in every village some person (kai tango atua) who was almost continuously unclean from handling the dead; silent, solitary, daubed with red ochre, he lived as an outcast, almost as a leper. He took the displeasure of deities or malignant spirits upon himself, and so was victim or scapegoat for the whole community.

The infringement of tapu was not only a spiritual offence, but sometimes produced actual physical consequences. Thus it is related that on account of common men taking some palm (nikau) leaves from the sleeping-shed of a priest who was engaged in important funeral obsequies an epidemic disease broke out that carried off two hundred warriors. Consumption or a wasting (kaikoiwi) of bodily strength was a sign of having offended the gods. The physical consequences of broken tapu have been noted in numberless individual instances. Death would almost certainly ensue if a common man found, for instance, that he had cooked his food with timber from some tapu place, whether it was a fragment of a house once dwelt in by a chief, or twigs from a tree in among the branches of which the bones of a dead person had once been deposited. The story is told that a certain tribe killed and ate the favourite dog of the chief's wife; the way

Kapikapi, Rotorua.

the tapu punished them was that thereafter the members of the tribe became doglike in speech, and that when they are talking it sounds like the au, au, au of a barking dog. A slave when cooking birds for his master burnt his fingers and foolishly put them in his mouth. This was a wicked action and was instantly punished.3 If a person was struck by lightning it was a sign that some rule of tapu had been broken, and that the god Tupai (one of the lightning deities) had punished the offender.

The variety of tapu called tapa consisted in transferring personal sanctity to an inanimate thing by calling it after a part of oneself. Thus if a chief said, “That mountain is my backbone,” or, “That canoe is my head,” the mountain or canoe would acquire the sanctity of the part named. Sometimes a mountain or river would be “named” (tapa) for an ancestor, and thus become sacred. The name (or a syllable of a name) belonging to a chief was not allowed to be used in common conversation lest a reference should be inferred to the chief himself. Thus if a chief's name was Upokoroa, “Long-head,” the word upoko for “head” would be dropped by his followers, or by those who had reason to be careful, and synonyms such as pane or uru or mahunga used instead. If a chief had a long life the tapu word would almost drop out of recollection, and this accounts for much of the difference in dialects found between certain tribes.4

If one fell ill and could not remember having committed an action that had broken the tapu, then he had to make enquiries as to whom had secretly thus caused him to offend, for an old way of paying out a grudge was to make the person you hated annoy the gods unwillingly. Generally this was done by one in an inferior position, or one who did not openly dare to show his animosity. To discover the malicious person recourse had to be taken to a Seer (matakite) who by means of his art could find out the offender and nullify the evil effects.

When Christianity was introduced sacred things were made “common” by the effects of food—thus by washing the head in water heated in a cooking-vessel.

Closely connected with the subject of tapu is that of sanctuaries or “Cities of Refuge.” At Mohoaonui on the Upper Waikato River stood a fortress that received its name from Hine

Hine is pronounced somewhat as if written in English, He-nay.

the daughter of Maniapoto. Hine was a woman so highly thought of by her tribe that her home was held for ever inviolable and sacred. Even her foes respected her so greatly that when the fort in which she lived was attacked it was sufficient for her father to say to the storming party “Do not intrude on the courtyard of Hine!” to make them stay their steps and retire. No human being was allowed to be killed on that spot, and “the courtyard of Hine” became a synonym for “sanctuary.” Thence arose the widely known proverb “The Courtyard of Hine must not be trodden by a war party,” and if one tribe was asked to assist another in battle and made answer “Come to the courtyard of Hine” it was understood as a refusal and a message of peace. It is a beautiful thought that even among such ruthless warriors as the old Maori the memory of one good woman could be kept so sacred that for generations after her death her name and that of her house were equivalent for “Sanctuary” and “Peace.”

A very sacred spot for centuries was the temple and courtyard (marae) at Taporapora in the Kaipara Harbour. The place on which it stood has no residential existence now, for it became covered by the sea and appears as a sand-bank, but it exists in Maori legend as the “Kingdom of Lyonesse” does in the Arthurian legends of Cornwall. The temple, and all the sacred property therein which had been brought to New Zealand by the immigrants in the “Mahuhu” canoe, were swallowed up beneath the waves.

Curses.

Among the Maori a very frequent cause of bloodshed and a still more frequent cause of social unquiet was “the curse.” It had its primitive signification generally, this being to utter an evil wish; often among Europeans cursing only means the utterance of forbidden or disgusting words. In this latter sense the word had no signification for the Maori, and he has had to fall back on the resources of civilization. The real curse (kanga) was generally a wish that the indignity of being cooked should fall to the lot of the insulted person, “May your head be cooked,” etc. Another form (apiti) consisted in likening a portion of the other person's bodily parts to some undignified utensil, etc., also generally connected with cooked food, as, “Your skull is my calabash,” “My fork is of your bone,” etc. The third curse (tapatapa) was to call anything by a person's name, such as to name a vessel after him. This is not what we understand as a curse, but it would give the person whose name was used a title in the article. For instance, if a chief tapatapa'd a spear by saying that it was one of his legs, it became his property, that is if the owner was not a greater man than he, in which case he would probably consider himself cursed, and demand satisfaction. The subject is difficult, and can be best understood by giving a few examples.

An old man of Waikato was at work in a plantation at Kawhia during a shower of rain. The sun came out and made the moisture rise in a cloud from the worker's body. A lad of the Ngati-toa tribe standing by said “The steam from the old man's head is like the steam from the oven.” These words were considered a curse, and a war ensued in which many were killed. A famous battle was fought in old days because a woman was asked “Is the firewood your brother's pillow that you do not use it for the fire?” This parallel drawn between common “cooking wood” and the pillow on which a chief's sacred head rested was sufficient to convey a deadly insult. A chief jealous of the fame of the great leader Te Rauparaha said of him “His head shall be beaten with a fern-root-pounder (paoi).” War followed; as it did on another occasion when it was reported to Te Rauparaha that a man had cursed him by saying “I will rip open his stomach with a barracouta tooth.” A little boy having gone up to receive a portion of the livers of some skates that had been cooked was pushed aside by his uncles, and the child wept. He went, however, to his half-brothers, of another tribe, and told the tale of the slight upon him. Soon a war party was assembled and this taua attacked and carried the fort of the churlish relatives. The boy's uncles pleaded to him for mercy but received none, and each as he was despatched heard the taunt “This is the liver of your skate.” The old wife of a chief was pounding fern-root when a party of another tribe, passing, called out “Pound away at the fern-root; it will line the oven in which you are cooked.” This was a fearful and unsurpassable curse, so the old lady was not long in rousing up a war-party to pursue the speaker and avenge the insult.

Sometimes the curse took the form of naming some part of an opponent's body or limbs, and striking the ground at the same time, thus bestowing a blow by proxy on the part named, and this was considered as equivalent to a blow on the part itself. A curse need not always be uttered, an action was sufficient, thus when the bones of Tupurupuru were used as tools with which to dig fern-root, his tribe was “cursed” thereby.

To liken a man to an animal or inferior was a curse. One chief noticing that the hair of a senior was white as a Maori's dog skin, called to him as one calls a dog “Moi! Moi! Moi!” This was a very deadly insult. If, when hair had been cut from the head of some person of consequence and had not been removed to the sacred enclosure (wahitapu), any one should say “How disgusting to leave it about; whose is it?” that would have been a curse on the owner of the hair.

The supposed origin of cursing was the malediction on the moon, uttered by Rona. (See Moon Stories.)

A curious legend exemplifying the extraordinary way in which a curse could be conveyed is related by the Arawa tribe. Tuwharetoa was a renowned warrior whose three sons were killed in battle. With his remaining son, and his fighting men, the old chief started out for revenge. Arriving near a fort of an allied tribe they blew the long war-trumpet (pukaea) and this sound so enraged an old priestess resident near the fort that she cursed them with a shout of “Cooked heads” (pokokohua ma). When the sons of Tuwharetoa heard this curse they repeated the sound of it on the trumpet, thus “To-roro! to-roro!” “Your brains.” The priestess replied “My fern-root is the bones of your ancestors.” So the hearts of her hearers grew dark with the shadow of so terrible an insult. Tuwharetoa was very sad and consulted the oracles how the curse might be removed. According to direction a lizard was killed and the apiti neutralised; after which the army went home and stayed for ten nights. Then said the chief “Go and slay the offenders,” and the war-party moved off to the attack; two forts were encircled and captured.

A laboriously intricate ceremonial accompanied the removal of a curse (kanga). The person insulted had to accompany the priest (both being naked) to the side of a moving stream beside which mounds of earth were raised. The priest set a twig of mangeao (Tetranthera calicaris) into the bank; on this the gods were supposed to alight and rest upon the mounds. The two men then went into the water and an incantation was uttered.5 Then returning to the village a place was swept clean of grass and leaves as a resting place for gods, and the “Sweeping” spell (tahinga) was recited. After this a hole about two feet long was made as a grave for the souls of the people who had uttered the curse. With a mussel-shell these spirits were swept or scraped into the grave. The priest brought stones and gave each of them a name of one of the cursing persons, then put them one by one into the grave and covered it up, patting down the soil with his hands. The next day the priest and the injured party again visited the spot and wove a little “god's basket” (paro taniwha) repeating an invocation which fixed the soul of the enemies in the basket and this basket was hung over the grave and squeezed by the hands of the priest, the contained spirits being offered to the gods. There were several other ceremonials before the whole matter was concluded, but they are wearying to peruse except by those persons to whom the study of ecclesiastical formulæ is of interest.6

If one person insulted another who could not at the time practically revenge it, the injured person would perform the “clutch” action (kapo); that is, would raise his arm above his head and clench the fingers as if clutching an object. This had the meaning of intention to attend to the matter later on.

Dreams And Omens.

We have treated of the omens that were particularly noticed by a war-party (or in time of war), in those parts of this book which treat of war itself. There were besides these, omens drawn from dreams or from circumstances not having direct connection with the “alarums and excursions” of actual conflict.

Dreams were supposed to arise from one's spirit (wairua) leaving the body and wandering about. Sometimes dreams were accepted as warnings, sometimes as prophecies, but there was hardly a case to be thought of in which they would not be regarded as of importance. It was GOOD to dream that— Your spirit was flying along with another pursuing it, but you escaped. You were embracing a woman. A lucky hunting sign. You saw alive one who was really dead (as one's late wife, etc.). You saw a calabash of preserved birds. You had a new house. You saw feathers. If a woman dreamt this, it signified conception.

An evil dream was called a kotiri.

It was BAD to dream that Your spirit was flying along pursued by another, and that yours was captured. You saw someone carrying an ornament of green-stone. It was evil for him or her. You saw a man spilling tutu juice on the road. Tutu juice symbolized blood, and the dream showed that a murder would soon take place. Someone made an insulting gesture to you. You were inside a house with two doorways. You could see a house facing towards the back of another house. Someone used threats to you. This was a warning. You saw a garment hung up before you. This was only for a woman who had been weaving by day. You beheld the vision of a god or supernatural being (atua) hovering about you. It showed that the spirit, probably of your dead father or your child, was telling you to beware of some unknown danger. A spirit was doing you mischief. You were inside a house that had carved slabs. Evil for the owner of the house. Your hair was being cut. Evil for your elder brother or his child. You saw the spirit (wairua) of a human being. An unlucky sign in hunting or fishing. You visited a place and the people thereof offered you no food. Evil for them. A fence lay across your path. You were eating provisions, particularly if they were bad provisions. You were out in a canoe catching sharks. It foreboded war. You saw death-wounds, or people wailing, etc. It foreboded death, particularly if it was yourself you saw being wounded or killed.

The above instances will suffice to show the nature of the auguries derived from dreams. Of the omens the greater number by far were evil, and the path of the Maori was beset by innumerable warnings and gruesome portents.

Some of the GOOD OMENS were as follows: If anyone sneezed while eating, visitors or news would soon arrive. If a dog twitched or barked in his sleep, you would go hunting with him soon, and he would catch plenty of kiwi (apteryx) for you. If when catching mutton-birds one bird flew against the lower rope of the net. If when hunting, your dog ran ahead and waited for you on the right hand side of the track. If an owl hooted when the tribe was in council. If a hawk flew over the heads of a council when they were deliberating as to projected war. If a pigeon cooed at the moment a child was born. If when men were voyaging in a canoe one of them in changing his paddle from side to side accidentally allowed the outer end of the paddle to come into the canoe. It presaged plenty of food at the termination of the journey. If when travelling by land the feet got filled between the toes with fern. It was an omen of abundant food, but to ensure this a charm had to be repeated, which ran thus, “Omen of sweet food, hold; go thou to the oven that I may arrive ere it be opened.” If a travelling party heard the bird called the Saddle-back (tirauweke: Creadion carunculatus) cry on the right hand of the path, it was a sign of feasting. If the chin itched, the person owning the chin would soon have a meal of oily or fat food such as eels, dog, whale's blubber, etc. When spiders built their webs. A sign of fine weather. If the sign was a jerking (takiri) of the limbs, etc., in sleep. The jerk on the right side was generally held to be fortunate. The lucky ones were the hokai, a starting of the leg or foot in a forward direction. (If in war time, it denoted a repulse of the enemy.) The tauaro, a starting of the arm toward the body. The whaka-ara, the head starting upwards in sleep. It signified that the chief (ariki) would soon arrive. The kapo, when a man lying asleep with his arm for a pillow started so as to strike his head. If in war-time, the sleeper who had experienced a kapo would not speak of it, for if not revealed to another it was an omen that the man who had felt it would kill the first man slain (mataiki) of the enemy.

There were omens that were neither good nor bad. Of such are— Should burning wood shoot out a jet of bright flame (hutarore) it was a sign of approaching rain; a spirit had come to obtain fire. Should food fall from the mouth of one who was eating it was a sign of visitors coming. If, in weaving, the woof threads became knotted, visitors would arrive next day. Should the weaving-rods (turuturu) fall, visitors would soon arrive. If one felt hungry when cooking it was a sign that strangers were on the road to that place. When one heard a singing in the ears it was time to ask a question, such as, “Is it peace?” “Is it war?” “Is it murder?” “Is it good news?” and so on. The ears would cease singing when the correct question was asked. If the sign shown by involuntary twitching (io) of a part of the body was given it was interpreted thus. If on the right leg between thigh and knee visitors who had never been in that district before would arrive. If between thigh and stomach, visitors were coming who had never been to that village before. If in the groin a visit from relations coming that same evening or at dawn next day. The subject would say, “My parents?” “My elder sister?” etc., etc., and the io ceased at the right name. If on right arm a present of food would soon arrive for the person perceiving it; if on right shoulder the food would be birds and eels. If on the lower lip food would soon arrive for that person. If a sleeping man's right hand closed convulsively (as if clutching something) or if he ground his teeth, these were signs that plenty of food would soon arrive.

The EVIL OMENS were as follows— If a woman stepped over a male child. Bad for the child; it would become stunted. If one beat out fern-root at night. One's head would soon be pounded by the enemy. If a chill wind blew through the village and sent a shiver over every one. This was the icy Wind of Battle (Tokihi kiwi), and that village was threatened by a foeman near at hand. If a gurgling sound was heard in the throat of a sleeper. Murder was near. If anyone sneezed. A charm (tihe mauri) had to be said to avert the omen. If the young moon was on its back. A sign of bad weather. If you allowed a person to go by your village without asking him to stay. Even if you had no food you should have asked him to stay awhile, as only the sound of your voice requesting him to do so would avert the calamity (aitua). If you passed cooked food over a person's head. If you slept often in the day time. If when on a journey you lit a fire on the path. It should be lit to one side. If you stumbled with the left foot when going out hunting. If a spider when spinning a web on the inside of a roof let one of its threads down to the floor. The house would catch fire and be burnt. If feathers were left behind in the hands of the priest when food had been consumed by the gods in the ceremony of Kumanga Kai. 7 If you awoke and found signs of a lizard (kaweau) on the floor. If a chief quarrelled with a common man and was thrown down. Evil omen for the chief. If a sound was heard in the house like a hand fumbling with the thatch. It showed that Maikuku and Maikaka, two household gods that dwelt in the corners of every house, were moving. If you saw any demons (tipua). These demons might be stones, water monsters, etc., or only sacred birds. If there was heard a spirit voice (irirangi) singing outside the house when all the people were within their dwellings. If there was anyone ill the omen was for him. If one sang in the house at night. If a man was always singing about the place. Evil for him. If you sang when travelling at night. It was your spirit (wairua) making you do it as a sign of danger to you. If people (when not on a woman-seizing expedition) collected and sang jeering songs. If one heard the sound of a death-watch beetle. If one heard the chirp of the small house-lizard (moko-ta). If you slept in the open and did not cover your face. If you talked nonsense in your sleep, and your hands were clenched. It was not an omen to talk in one's sleep if the words were sensible. Delirium was a bad omen. If a man slept at another man's feet. A woman could sleep at a man's feet. If one awoke a man when he was dreaming. He was not to be shaken, but called so that his spirit might have time to get back again. If, when you were sleeping near another person, you received a dig with his elbow. This was unlucky for him, but the evil could be averted by giving him a pinch. If, when not asleep, you heard a tree falling, or the noise of a cracking branch. Should many trees fall or the sound be heard on many successive nights, it meant trouble for the whole tribe. If one heard a peculiar sound, said to be made by an earthworm. If heard at night it was a death omen, but some say it only presaged a deserted house. If you saw the spirit of a person who was absent. If the appearance was shadowy and the face hidden, the person it represented was in danger only; if the face was plainly seen he was already dead, and the ghost was a kehua. If a weaver wove fine garments after sunset. If a fine mat or garment was woven in the open air. This could be averted by the erection of any kind of temporary roofshed such as an old garment on sticks. If, in weaving, a cross thread was left not carried out to the margin by sunset. If a visitor arrived when weaving was going on, and the work was not laid aside. If, when a weaver ate food, the work was not covered. If, after the site of a house was levelled and prepared, the house-building was not proceeded with. If, in house building, you improperly fastened the batten that lay next the ridge-pole. If, in house building, when the pegs were put in to square the house, the pegs were inserted exactly in the right spots at the first trial. This was evil either for the principal builder or for the owner of the measuring cord. If the house should shake when on the occasion of its opening ceremony the visitors seized and shook the posts. It was an evil omen for the builders, not for the visitors. If one got up and went through antics of defiance while others joined him, all without singing. Evil for those people. If you passed anyone without speaking. You were a rude person and it was ill for you. If, on a journey to another village, you met someone who told you that a friend or relative had died in that village; if you did not go on, but turned back it was evil for you. If, when travelling, you were invited to stop at a village and refused. If you made a mistake or omission in reciting an incantation. Very deadly. If you made a mistake in singing a song as part of a public speech. If you fell when among a number of other people. If you experienced when sleeping one of the unlucky jerkings (takiri) of the arm or body. They were: Kohera, a starting of the arm and leg of one side of the body in an outward direction. Peke, a starting of the arm outward from the body. Whawhati, a sleep in which legs, neck, and head were bent doubled up to the belly. Very unlucky for the sleeper. All takiri but the last may have referred to companions. If your nose itched. It was a sign that you were being maligned. If you experienced an involuntary twitching (io); the signs differed as follows: Near lungs it meant death. Under the ear, death. At the side or below the eye, death. If above the eye the person would be smitten with leprosy or with contracted muscles. If on upper lip, you were being slandered. If a party of travellers was detained by rain or wind an io felt by an eminent person such as the chief or priest would have following meanings: If in middle of arm or leg, general misfortune. If on extremity of arm or leg, there would be bad weather, rain or wind, coming. If on left side under arm, death. If on chest and near heart, death, murder, or war. If anyone interfered with the Sacred Tree. The tree is the abode of one of the guardian-spirits of the forest. If you carried cooked food to the forest in a bird-snaring expedition, or cooked birds a second time. If, when hunting, your dog ran ahead and waited on the left hand side of the track. If, when hunting, and going along track, one's head got into a spider's web. If, when on a hunting party, you spoke of game as already caught. If, when looking for edible roots (such as perei), you uttered its name. The root would get away, or, as we should say, you would not find any. If, in snaring birds, you said “I am going to examine my snares at such a time.” If, when hunting, another person got fine fat birds and you did not. If, in netting mutton birds, any of them should bleed or strike against the upper part of the net. If you spoke when returning from setting traps for rats; if you spoke, rats would not enter the snares. The hunter had to eat his food and go to sleep in silence. If one's eel-weir was interfered with or part of it destroyed. If one took off his mat without untying the string, when about to make a public speech. If you spoke of ancestors, history, etc., in a place not made sacred. If you offered food to anyone who was in “The House of Mourning.” If, when carrying food, you met a friend and passed him without speaking for fear you would have to share the food. It was bad for the churl. If, when on a plundering party (taua muru), you stood by idle while others loaded up with booty. It was unlucky for you. If you made an error when carving wood. If you blew off the dust or chips when carving wood. If you found a pigeon's nest. A rare find. If, when a tree was being felled, it hung on the stump. If, in felling a tree, it fell backward. If, in felling a tree, one did not spit into the “scarf” or cut. If no one spat, the arms of those using the axes wearied. If, when making a canoe, you did not throw a small stone into it during the final adzing. If this was not done it was thought that the art of canoe making would be lost. If you did not bevel the gunwale of the canoe when adzing it. If, in clearing ground for cultivation, certain trees (rau-tawhiri, tawhero, etc.) were not left standing with their branches lopped off. If every limb and branch were not cut off the clearer of the ground or his wife would die. If you saw a certain kind of lizard (moko-tapiri or moko-papa) that lives in hollow trees. If a traveller saw a lizard on the path before him. This was very deadly. The omen was only to be averted by killed the lizard and getting a woman to step over its dead body. Then the traveller would search his mind to try to discover the malicious person who had sent the lizard and would say “May so and so (the enemy) eat you (the lizard).” This would bring the bad luck upon that designing one. If a land-slip occurred. Sometimes a very evil omen. If you kept seed in a house where a certain kind of wood (maire) was burnt for firewood. The seeds would not grow. If you planted seeds at any time of the moon except the full. If you lashed the palisading of a fort badly. If, in going to visit a village, you did not take some present (koparepare) for your hosts.

The above long list will serve to give some idea of the innumerable omens and presages which surrounded the daily life of the Maori. Of course there were other signs which connected with the religion, superstition, tapu, etc., etc., complicated observances and encircled, as with a fine net of unseen rules, every thought and action of the native, but these can only be gathered by inference as we describe the customs and beliefs of the people.

The antidote to some kinds of evil omen was to be found in a “luck-post” (tuapā), a slab of adzed timber painted red and set up in a village. Persons going on an expedition would avail themselves of its powers somewhat as follows: A fisherman before setting out would take a splinter from his torch, touch his fish basket (puwai) with it, and then throw the splinter down before the luck-post, reciting a charm the while. So, a person going bird-snaring would take a small branch, touch his bird-spear or the basket in which the snares were carried with the branch, throw the branch at the foot of the luck-post and repeat the charm.

Offerings.

Mention has been made of offerings presented to deities or during ceremonial rites of different kinds. It may be remarked, generally, that the character of the offerings differed according to the nature of the person to be propitiated or the character of the occasion. Sometimes it appeared as if in offerings to unseen beings, such as deities, only the spiritual part of the sacrifice was accepted, while in offerings to human creatures (themselves representatives of the gods) the actual substance of the sacrifice itself became the property of the person addressed.

In an offering of first fruits to a chief, kumara, birds, fish, taro, etc., were presented, while hymns (waiata whangai ariki) were chanted; these offerings were accepted wholly and in full. Again, food set apart for the gods, “food of propitiation” (kai popoa), was offered to and received by a chief as a sign of his supremacy and because he represented deity. Even to the gods themselves the most simple of sacrifices was at times presented, such as fern-root, seaweed, grass, etc. One ceremony consisted in making a canoe of bulrushes (typha) and putting stones therein to represent men; also food cooked and uncooked. Then the canoe was set adrift as an offering to the gods of Hawaiki. A calabash of potted birds was the thank-offering for the recovery of a sick person. To the spirit of a deceased chief a dog was sacrificed, and birds before setting out on a war party.

More terrible were some of the sacrifices offered to the gods of a battle-loving race. Libations of blood before a war began and presentation of the scalps, hair, and hearts of enemies in the Whangai-hau ceremony at the return from the fight were usual and common. A war-chief would cut out the heart of his own son, and offer it to the gods as a bribe for victory. To Whiro the head, heart, and liver of a victim would be sacrificed, and a human head was offered to Maru in the Whangai-hau. The fatal sacrifice was not confined to war alone; the opening of a new house, the tattooing of a chief's daughter, solatium to mourners in the House of Mourning, erection of the palisading of a fort, all these and other occasions (alluded to elsewhere) called for offerings of human beings to appease the bloodthirsty ghosts of religion and custom. It seems almost impossible to reconcile the ideas we entertain of the ordinary life of a race like the Maori—simple, cheerful, industrious, affectionate—with such barbarous practices, but the nature of man is full of anomalies. Human life is freely sacrificed every day in the crowded industrial centres of population for the production of wealth, and the recipients of that wealth are accustomed to spend the proceeds of sacrifice very cheerfully. It may be said to the credit of the Maori that little children were never among the victims offered to their gods—as they are to ours.

Textiles.

The Maoris were skilled weavers of those materials which were accessible to them, and which could be utilised for the rough uses of people to whom luxury was unknown in the sense in which the inhabitants, ancient and modern, of great cities have conceived and executed beautiful fabrics for the decoration of their persons and their homes. Rough, comparatively speaking, as some of the products of the native looms were, they were admirably suited for the purpose for which they were designed, and were not only hygienic and durable, but were often ornamented with a good taste beyond praise. The mats and baskets now so often seen in New Zealand, and exhibited as specimens of Maori work, decorated with fringes and tassels coloured in discordant and glaring hues, owe their hideousness to “Judson's Dyes” used with unsparing hand to produce vulgar effects. The beautiful browns and dull reds, or the black and white patterns to be seen on old Maori garments, prove that the eye of the maker was as susceptible to an æsthetic scheme of colour in the decoration of textiles as it was unerring in regard to form when carving or canoe-building.

The chief textile material was the New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax). It was as a general name spoken of as harakeke, but to the accurate speaker and observer there were over fifty varieties.

The best kinds were tihoi, oue, rongo-tainui, paritaniwha, rukutia, and huruhika; of these the superior sorts of garments were made. The varieties called huhi, rataroa, mangaeka, and tutaemanu were of poorer quality and used for inferior or rougher materials. Wharareki (or Wharaeki) is brittle in fibre and was only used for sleeping mats. The ruatapu was set apart for making fillets where with to bind the air, while the ngutu-nui was split into unscraped threads for the making of nets. There were three or four kinds of variegated flax (taneawai,aohanga and pare koretawa) but these were more valued as ornamental plants than for textile purposes.

The species fit for nets could not be used for making a fine mat; that woven for the body of a mat was useless for the border. The variety suitable for a girl's small apron (maro) was rejected for the mat used as a spear-pad, and so on.

To prepare the material the leaves of the Phormium were cut, generally in the winter time, dried in the sun, tied into bundles, and carried to the village. The green outer cuticle was scraped from the fibre with the sharp edge of a cockle (pipi) shell. The fibre (muka) was then steeped for three or four days in running water, taken out and pounded with a stone beater. It was again dried and bleached the sun; then chafed and rubbed, and well worked in the hands till properly soft, and till every particle (para) of the green outer skin had been removed. It was only the portion of the flax intended for the warp-thread (io) that was pounded; the woof-threads (aho) were merely chafed and rubbed. When this had been accomplished the muka was called whitau, and was ready for spinning, but the process was often repeated several times in preparing choice fibre for the superior kind of garments.

Although the groundwork of a fine mat consisted generally of the silvery white of prepared flax, still there were portions such as the borders, fringes, etc., requiring dyed material. The Maoris had two good dyes, a black and reddish brown, both fast colours as they prepared them. The red was obtained from the bark of the tanekaha (Phyllocladus trichomanoides) which was pounded up with a wooden or stone beater (patu) and placed in a bowl or vessel (oko) full of water. The water was kept boiling by means of hot stones transferred thereto with wooden tongs. The fire at which these stones were heated might not be a cooking fire, nor might it be looked at by common people, or the knowledge how to prepare the dye would vanish from the minds of the artificers (ah, the trade-secrets!). After water containing the bark had been some time boiling the flax-fibre was placed in the vessel and the boiling continued. The fibre, stained red with the dye in the bark, was then transferred to a carefully prepared bed of hot clean wood-ashes, a layer of ashes being placed above it. The whole was moved about quickly, being stirred with a stick to thoroughly make every part of the fibre come into contact with the ashes and prevent it being scorched or discoloured. This set the dye, but the fibre was afterwards put back into the oko, and boiled again for a few minutes, after which it was taken out and hung up to dry, a completion of the process.

The black dye was generally obtained from the bark of hinau (Elœocarpus dentatus) or the pokaka (E. hookerianus); after it had been pounded and placed in a wooden trough. A layer of crushed bark was covered with a layer of fibre, and water poured in. The fibre was left soaking for fourteen or fifteen hours till it had become sticky to the touch, when it was transferred to certain swamps wherein a particular kind of black mud was found. This mud is found in swamps where the white pine (kahikatea: Podocarpus dacrydioides) abounds, and is generally accompanied by a reddish scum on the surface. This soaking in the mud really dyed the flax, the steeping in hinau solution only being the mordant process. Yellow, a colour little used, was obtained from the barks of the Coprosmas, karamu and raurekau. For some delicate work, as in the making of the pretty little baskets woven for a first-born child, etc., a fine blue-black was procured from the bark of tutu (Coriaria ruscifolia). The other fibres, besides flax, used in making garments were those of the Cabbage Palm (ti: Cordyline sp.) and the kie-kie (Freycinetia banksii) a parasitic plant, interesting as being allied to the Pandanus or Screw Palm of the Pacific. In mountainous parts of the country where flax was scarce the toi (Cordyline indivisa) was found extremely useful. It was the flax, however, upon which the native almost universally relied, not only for his clothing, but for his sleeping - mats, nets, cordage, etc., and it is recorded of an old Maori, who was told that Phormium flax did not grow in Europe, that he was overcome with astonishment and inability to conceive how the unhappy people living there continued to clothe themselves or pursue the arts of life without what to him was almost a necessity of existence.

The young woman who was desirous of learning the art of weaving had much ceremonial to pass through, and her memory was thoroughly taxed to retain all the minutiæ of her new occupation. She had to be taught to weave (whatu) by a priest (tohunga) and one well acquainted with the ritual as well as the practical methods of weaving. It did not resemble in any way the introduction of a new hand into a European cotton-mill.

The pupil and her master were alone allowed to be present. Seated near each other in the weaving-house (whare-pora), the initiate was introduced to the weaving frame (turuturu) consisting of two sticks often carved at the top, about four feet in length and one inch in diameter except for certain kinds of work (such as making korowai) when four short turuturu, about 14 inches or 18 inches long, were used. These sticks were stuck upright in the ground at a distance corresponding to the width of the web. The threads used were of two kinds, one (miro) made by twisting and rolling the fibre on the leg, the other (karure) of two of the first kind twisted together. The first woof-thread (aho) was fastened to the sticks, pulled taut and secured, the sticks being also made firm in the ground. To the aho was then attached the vertical threads of the warp (io or whenu) which hung down to the floor. The woof-threads (aho) were then passed across from left to right, the first being the sacred thread (tawhiu or aho tapu.) Each woof-thread was made of four single threads, two of which aho were passed in and out, under and over each io. The process was, however, opposite to the European mode of weaving. Two aho threads were raised or depressed at the same time, crossing them by bringing the two outer ones over the two inner, which thus became two outer, and formed the knot holding the woof-threads. Thus instead of the shuttle-thread or woof being alternated between threads of the warp, the warp-thread was brought over the woof-thread.

Before the pupil could work, however, she had to be made holy, so that she could handle the sacred thread (aho tapu). She took in her hand some of the flax while the priest recited a charm (he moremore puwha) and when he had concluded, she bit the upper part of the right-hand weaving-stick, that turuturu being the sacred one, the other, the left-hand rod, being common (noa). Then the sacred thread was laid by her across the frame and fastened; this thread being made from the fibre she had held in her hand during the ceremony. She then wove in a band of the woof-threads some inches in depth, copying some valuable garment spread out before her for the purpose.

As the work went on the priest chanted another invocation (pou) designed to make the mind of the learner receptive, and the memory retentive. During the time the ceremonies and teaching were in progress to perfect the initiation the pupil was not allowed to eat, nor to approach food or the cooking place of food; she was tapu. If the matter in hand could not be finished in one day the novice had to sleep in the whare pora or in some place by herself, which place itself became tapu. Neither could any communication take place between the pupil and her family.

By “the matter on hand” being finished it is not meant that the mat or garment had to be finished. The remark only applied to the initiatory ceremonies. The web first started always remained unfinished, as her “pattern piece” (mea tauira). When the time came for the young woman to go out, she had first to be “made common” (whaka-noa). To do this the priest produced some green vegetables (puwha) and then repeated the incantation (without the ceremony) known as “turning the floor mat” (hurihanga takapau). On its completion the pupil bent her head and ate some of the puwha or else touched it with her lips and gave it to her teacher to eat. She was then free to depart, and take up the ordinary duties of life, including weaving, for the future.

A valuable mat would sometimes take a woman two or three years to weave, and a proficient weaver was regarded as a very desirable wife.

There were many omens to be watched for and rules touched with the supernatural to be observed while the process of weaving was going on. If in preparing the threads some of the refuse, the tow (hungahunga), should be thrown into the fire, it was bad luck. If the woof-thread was incomplete at sundown (that is not carried right across) it was bad luck. If fine work was in hand, at sunset the right hand turuturu was released and the work rolled up till morning; but the threads might be prepared or common garments woven at night. If this was not attended to the weaver would lose all knowledge of the art. If one of the upright sticks fell over without being touched it was a sign of approaching visitors. If a stranger approached a woman who was weaving she had to lay down her work and grasp the right-hand stick, the sacred turuturu, laying it down, or leaving it lying at an angle across the work. If the woof-thread (aho) became tangled it was a sign of visitors. When high-class work, such as for superior garments had to be done it might not go on in the open air; some sort of roof, even a branch or two put over the head, had to be provided. If men ever wove they confined their attention to the weaving of the ornamental borders (taniko) of mats.

Mat-weaving is said to have been taught to Rua, an old Maori ancestor, and Rua is the tutelary deity of the weaving-house and weaving. He is reported to have learnt his art from the Wood Fairies (Hakuturi) who also taught him wood-carving. Another legend, however, ascribes the credit of first weaving clothing to Hine-rau-a-moa, the wife of the god Tane, and certain garments are named as having been made by her, but the honour is claimed, also, for Hinganga-roa who taught the art of weaving baskets and sleeping-mats in coloured patterns.

Further allusion to weaving clothing will be made under the description of the different kinds of garments worn by the Maori, but we will now pass to the consideration of the coarser kinds of weaving and plaiting necessary to form the different articles in common use.

Floor-mats (whariki) made of flax or kutakuta, a kind of rush, and a finer description used as sleeping-mats (takapau) were constructed of kiekie (Freycinetia) leaves or wharariki (Phormium colensoi) but under the fine sleeping-mats were placed coarser ones named tuwhara. The kiekie leaves required little preparation. They were cut and half dried, threshed on the ground to give them pliancy and hung up for a while till bleached, then split into strips and woven. Coarse mats (tapaki) were used for placing in the earth-ovens, underneath and above the food.

Reference is made in legend to a very valuable and sacred mat on which a chief's wife lay in child-birth. It was made of the scalps of slain enemies.

Baskets (kete) were of many kinds and, though all named, are difficult to differentiate in some of their varieties, some being set aside for particular purposes, and others only being noticeable from a peculiarity in weaving. The leaves of the cabbage-tree (ti) or of the nikau palm (Areca sapida) were often used instead of flax for baskets, but flax was the chief material for their production. The best and most beautiful work that could be executed was expended on the baby's basket by the native woman when expecting her first-born child, and on it was lavished the tender and delicate workmanship which was the outward expression of mother-love common to every race at such a time. “Weave, weave the basket, a couch for my unborn son” were the opening words of the invocation address to the goddess of child-birth at the time of parturition. Small finely-worked bags (putea) were used for holding small articles,1 and, being carried by a cord slung over the shoulder, served the purpose of a lady's reticule. Very small ones, containing fragrant moss or gum were worn in the bosom by a cord round the neck. Food-baskets, named differently on account of the shapes (taparua, paro, konae, etc.), were roughly woven from green flax and served as plates or dishes to be thrown away after being once used. Baskets (ngehingehi) were used in the process of extracting oil from titoki berries, others (pututu) for straining the juice of tutu. Round baskets (toiki or tukohu) held food requiring to be steeped; seed-kumara were kept in baskets (pu-kirikiri or toiki) but the toiki were made of supple-jacks (pirita: Rhipogonum parviflorum) not of flax. A very useful kind of basket (patua or papa-hua-hua) although not woven, was made from the bark of the totara pine (Podocarpus totara) folded together to hold water, and sometimes used for boiling water through the agency of hot stones thrown therein.2

The larger kinds of ropes, (taura) cords, etc., were made of flax, but leaves of the ti (cabbage-palm: Cordyline) and of kiekie were also used. Some kinds of flax are much more plaint and flexible than others, and great care was taken and discrimination shown in choosing the right material. All kinds of twists and plaits were used, flat, round and square. The shoulder-straps (kawe or kahaki), for carrying burdens on the back, were flat. The anchor-cable was a peculiarly-plaited four-sided rope made from the leaves of the ti wilted in the sun and then soaked in water to make the material pliant; flax would not have been suitable for ropes often wetted in salt water.

Ropes were named generally as “a rope” (taura, rahiri, whaka-heke, hutihuti, etc.), or from their use, as pae the rope by which a seine net was hauled, kaha the rope at upper edge of a seine, or else from the plaiting with several strands (tari 8: tamaka 5; whiri paraharaha 3 flat; rino 2 twisted; whiri-kawe 3 flat; iwi-tuna 4 round; whiri-tuapuku, 4 round; rauru 5 flat; whiri-pekapeka 9 flat; whiri-taura-kaka 10 square). Flat plaits were generally whiri-papa.

The large seine fishing nets were made of flax prepared but not scraped, and split into widths. Some were of immense length; one example measured 2,400 feet long by 30 feet deep. They were all fitted with floats of buoyant wood (whau: Entelea arborescens) and with sinkers, hauling ropes, etc. The fine cords or lines for fishing, etc., were twisted with the most delicate care, and those for special purposes, such as for fastening barbs to fish hooks or for attaching to the little apron of a young lady of rank, were often exquisitely made.3

Dress, Ornaments, Etc.

The basic portion of a Maori's dress was the belt (tatua) and apron (maro). The man's belt (tu pupara) was about five or six inches wide, made of strips of white and black flax, with fastening strings (tau). It was worn doubled over with the edges turned in, and fastened so as to serve as a bag for small articles.

It is related that when Kahukura came from Hawaiki to New Zealand and visited Toi the resident chief, Rongi-i-amo, the friend of Kahukura, took some dried kumara from his girdle and presented it to Toi, who, with his people, had no previous knowledge of such a delicacy. The girdle must have been of large size since the dried sweet-potato (kao) was put into seventy calabashes, but it is probable that both Kahukura and Rongo were gods.4

There were many patterns, some in vandykes, and some (tu muka) in strands of white, black, and red. It is probable that the tu (the name of the war-god) was formerly applied to the war-girdle worn by fighting men, but also by priests. The war-belt worn in the Ngati-awa tribe was called Kuaira. The women generally wore girdles of sweet-scented grass (karetu: Hierochoe redolens) or if wearing the tu-wharariki belt

Group of Maori Curiosities.The elaborately carved upright slabs are stern-pieces of canoes. The smaller rounded object surmounted with a carved head is a coffin (Atamiro).—[See page 397.]

some sweet-scented moss (kopuru) was inserted into it. To the girdle was fastened the apron (maro) which was sometimes worn like the Highlander's purse (sporran), but when hanging in front was generally supplemented by another behind, or else the maro was drawn (hurua) between the legs and fastened to the belt behind. Girls wore a small apron (maro kuta) of woven grass, but when of high rank a triangular maro (maro kapua) with ornamental border and thrums, or one (maro waiapu) of black, white, and yellow, adorned their privileged persons. Married women wore a larger apron (maro nui) than girls. Only chiefs were allowed to wear the apron of dogs-tails (maro waero); and two kinds, one (maro huka) of dressed flax, and the other (maro tuhou), were reserved for priests, the former in war time. When the war-girdle was put on a particular incantation (maro taua) was recited. Boys did not wear girdles or aprons; they went naked as far as underclothing was concerned.

Over the maro or apron was worn the kilt (rapaki) or waist mat. This generally consisted of a mass of strips of flax hanging from a belt of the same material. The green strips were scraped and left untouched in alternate inch-lengths, and were also scraped at the sides so that when dried they curled round like pipe stems. The loose strips hung down to the knees and rustled musically as the bearer moved. This kind of mat (kinikini or pokinikini) concealed the limbs sufficiently and gave full cope to movement. A waist mat (piupiu) was of similar length but was of dressed flax and did not rustle. Women sometimes wore a waist mat (pihipihi) of dressed flax with little rolls of flax in short lengths sewn thereon and dyed in horizontal stripes.

The most important garment for both sexes among the Maoris was the cloak worn hanging from the shoulders. These were sometimes very large, some of the handsomest being nine or ten feet by seven feet. Such cloaks were divided into two classes, fine woven cloaks which were properly called clothing (kakahu), and the rougher inferior varieties (mai), which latter never received the honour of being considered clothes. The fine cloaks were of many kinds each distinguished by its name.

The korowai was of fine flax beaten out with a club to make it soft. It was generally worn by women or girls. The white ground was thickly covered with black thrums or hanging tags (tahuka) of twisted flax. There are several varieties of cloaks almost similar, one (kuiri) with the thrums in squares, another (whaka-hekeheke) the groundwork of which is arranged in bands of black and white, with black thrums, another (hihina) entirely white with white thrums, and a fifth (waihinau) all black with black thrums. The korirangi was a large mat covered with black and yellow strings, the latter made of curled hand-scraped flax, but with joints of each tag made flexible by scraping so that the countless hard pipes rattled merrily.

The kaitaka or aronui was a fine white mat of flax without thrums, but with a deep border (taniko) woven in black, white, and brown patterns at the bottom, and with similar but narrower borders at the sides. Only chiefs of good position wore the kaitaka. When this kind of mat had a deep border at top as well as at bottom, it was called paepaeroa. There were several other varieties of mats with coloured borders, such as korohunga, parawai, and parakiri, each with some slight difference from the other. The border was woven on after the body of the mat was finished. A mat often seen was the pekerangi in which the white flax was studded with little tufts of coloured material instead of thrums.

Feather cloaks (kakahu-kura or huruhuru) were woven of flax in the same manner as the korowai, but in the process of weaving feathers were fastened in by the woof-thread. They were often very beautiful. One of the most showy was that made from the red feathers under the wing of the parrot (kaka: Nestor meridionalis). Another handsome cloak was prepared with the neck-plumes of the wood-pigeon, often with a narrow border of red and white feathers. The Maoris prized highly the garment (arikiwi) made with the hair - like feathers of the kiwi (Apertyx). The kiwi cloak is the only one of the feather cloaks in which the feathers are worn with their points upwards so that they fall outwards, making the garment look as if composed of fur. Sometimes there is a woven border (taniko) in colours to this cloak. The feathers of the white albatross were also used for adorning cloaks, and so were those of the ground parrot (kakapo: Stringops habroptilus).

The most valuable shoulder-mats of the Maori were the cloaks of dogskin (kahu kuri). The most highly-prized variety was that (kahu waero) made of the bushy tails of white dogs, fastened so thickly on the flax foundation (papa) that none of the textile portion could be seen. When the tails were less closely placed an inferior kind of mat called mahiti resulted. If instead of tails the skins of white dogs were used, sewn on in strips to the flax, the cloak was a puahi, if the skins were of black dogs it was a topuni. The latter also had a thick shaggy collar of the skins, and if very closely woven was called ihupukupuku. The ihupuni was also a cloak made of strips of black skins. A cloak for use in war (for protection against spear thrusts) was made without any flax foundation, and composed of the hides of the dogs sewn together. The mat was known as tapahu or tahi-uru, and hence the proverbial saying “Irawaru's cloak” (He tapahu o Irawaru) applied to them, because Irawaru, the husband of Maru's sister Hina, was the tutelary deity of dogs, after he himself had been turned into a dog by his cunning brother-in-law. Maori legends mention cloaks of seal - skin (kahu kekeno), but except in the far South they were exceedingly rare.

The rough inferior cloaks (mai or pokeke), or more properly capes, were strong and serviceable, used tied round the shoulders for warmth or in bad weather, as most of them would turn the rain. The timu or whakatipu was made of loosely-woven coarse flax, and was about four feet by three. The ground- work was thatched with short pieces of unscraped flax, or rather unscraped except about one inch in the centre of each piece, which was dressed so as to allow of some flexibility in the hanging strips (hukahuka). These were fastened by being passed under the woof-thread and doubled over, so that they were fixed (like the hairs in a brush), and the loose ends hung flat one over the other to shed the rain. This mat had a collar formed from the upper ends of the warp-thread (io). A cloak much resembling the above was the tihe-tihe. A showy kind of timu, generally coloured black and yellow, was the manaeka or mangaeka, so called from the dye of the same name.

Other kinds of rough shoulder-capes (tatara, tara, taratara, pake, pekerere, pora, tuapora, pukaha, pureke, etc.), were in common use, they differed in some slight degree from each other, but not in any important degree. A cloak (pauku or pukupuku) was very thick and closely woven; after being soaked in water to swell the fibre it was worn in war time as a protection against the long spears (huata) or darts thrown with the kotaha or whip. One of these mats was worn above the other, and formed a cumbersome sort of armour. The pauku had an ornamental border with a fringe (kurupatu) of dogs hair on the lower hem. Sometimes as a defence against the spears cast with the whip-sling (kotaha) a plaited band of flax about six inches wide was wound round the body. As the band was often ten fathoms long, such a preparation needed some time to accomplish.

Other materials than flax were sometimes used for cloaks, though rarely if the flax was plentiful. Rough shoulder mats of kiekie were serviceable garments, but the fibre was prepared by steeping not by scraping. They were soaked in water until the fibre could be easily separated from the refuse. The Tuhoe tribe found a substitute for flax in the leaves of the mountain cabbage-tree (toi: C. indivisa). It is much coarser fibre than flax, and the midrib of each leaf had to be taken out, as it was too hard to work up. Only enough leaves could be cut for one or two weavings, as they dried too rapidly to be kept in stock, and the fibre itself required beating before the cuticle and refuse (para) of the leaf could be taken away. Rough almost as cocoa-nut fibre, the toi was a serviceable cloak, and when dyed black (with unbeaten strips of the same material as thrums or “thatch”) they would remain waterproof for years.

In the South Island mats have been found in which the flax has been covered with tufts of tussock grass. Sometimes a sea-side-spreading plant named pingao (Demoschœnus spiralis) was used for making belts, and the soft leaves of kahakaha (Astelia banksii) were also taken into the service of mat-makers.

In former times there were in New Zealand large plantations of the Paper Mulberry (aute: Broussonnetia papyrifera), but the shrubs never grew to a large size, so that bark-clothing like the tapa of the South Seas was not worn within historic times. There is, however, a tradition of the Ngati-awa tribe that in old days the bark of the mulberry was used as clothing, and that two men, Te Whatu-manu and Te Manawa, were renowned as beaters of the material for garments. One of the names of these ancient garments was te kiri o Tane “the skin of Tane,” i.e. of Tane Mahuta, the Lord of Forests. Generally the aute bark was used for ornaments, as thin streamers for tying up the hair of chiefs, etc., and for making the most valuable kind of kite. Small plantations of aute were seen growing at Whangaroa and Mangamuka so late as 1839, but (except perhaps in some garden) the plant is now extinct. It is supposed to have been brought to New Zealand in the “Tainui” canoe, and was first planted by Whakaotirangi, one of the women of that canoe. Another lady on board, Marama by name, also planted aute, but on account of sexual indiscretion on her part the plant did not “come true” but appeared as the whau (Entelea arborescens). Indeed so highly moral were all the vegetables which she attempted to grow that they came up as something different from what she attempted to raise; a disastrous result luckily confined to a remote period of history. The bark of aute-taranga (Pimelea arenarica) was also used for ornamental purposes, and for the belts of chiefs. The legs and feet of the natives were generally uncovered, but sometimes sandals were worn, or rather sandals and leggings combined. They were usually, in the North Island, constructed of flax, either woven or green. Of these the panaena was of dressed fibre; it was little more than a toe-cap, and was fastened with a cord from the heel passed round the ankle. The rohe was a combined sandal and legging. The papari was a legging sandal of green flax stuffed or lined with moss (rimurimu). The parengarenga or kopa was a broad piece of woven flax folded round the leg and then laced from ankle to knee. The tumatakuru was a combined sandal and legging, netted from the alpine spear-grass tumatakuru or kurikuri: Aciphylla squarrosa). They were folded over the foot and leg and then fastened by lacing. Sandals made from the leaves of the cabbage-palm (ti: Cordyline sp.) were sometimes made; they were called parewai in the North and tahitahi in the South Island. The latter, however, only received this name when composed of one (tahi) layer of material; they were called torua when of double thickness. The southern name for a sandal generally was paraerae, but the paraerae hou or kuara was so called when only one layer or thickness of flax was used.5

When needles were employed they were formed from birds' quills (tuaka) the thread being fastened to the feather end, such needles were called toromoka. The bones of a fallen foe were contemptuously made into needles with which dogskin mats were sewn. Needles of bone and of greenstone have been found, but they were, possibly, most used as pins for fastening mats at the shoulder. The mat-pins (au or au-rei) were probably so called from rei a tusk, or anything of ivory

The lei is the Samoan and Tongan word for the whale's tooth, in Mangareva rei is a whale's tooth. See also aurei in regard to ear-pendants.

, as they were often made from boars' tusks or from sperm whales' teeth, but also of manuka or maire wood, or the iridiscent shell of the paua (the sea-ear: Haliotis iris). With these pins the mats were fastened on the right shoulder. Anklets (tauri) or ornamented bands were worn on the legs; they generally consisted of dressed flax woven into strips with patterned borders. The komori was a small sea-shell and many of these strung upon cords of plaited flax adorned the leg; this ornament was then called tauri-komore and was donned by persons of rank. Tattooing to look like anklets or bracelets also was called by this name of komore. The hollow culms of a plant (hangaroa) were threaded on flax and used for anklets.

Little or no attention was paid by slaves or common persons to the dressing of their hair which fell about their shoulders how it would. The chiefs wore their hair long in times of peace, though it was not wholly free from freaks of fashion. The most common style was the putiki, in which the hair was gathered into a knob behind the head (almost in the Japanese mode) and fastened with a comb (heru or amiki) formed from a portion of the thin part of the jaw of the sperm-whale (paraoa). Other combs were made from the heart-wood (mapara) of the white-pine (kahikatea), or from the stalks of a fern (heruheru: Todea inter-media).6 The comb of a chief was sacred. When the head was dressed elaborately even the wooden pillow or head-rest could not be used for sleeping lest all the trouble be wasted. As a variation, a number of small knobs varying from two to eight, were sometimes worn round the head. The coiffure called “the Top-knot” (koukou) was formed over a framework of supple-jack (kareao or pirita) which supported the hair. The latter having been plaited with eight tails was wound round the frame with the ends turned up on the top of the head. The rahiri method of hairdressing consisted in turning the hair up like a sheaf, and binding it with a tie of aute ribbon.7 At certain times and places tikitiki was the fashionable mode. It was formed by drawing the hair to the top of the head and slipping it through a two-inch ring (porowhita) made from the akatea vine; the ring was pressed down close to the head, the hair arranged neatly and evenly all round the ring and the ends brought up and tied underneath the ring. This style in old days was not wholly confined to men, as we are told that Maui, the hero-god, received his full name Maui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, because he had been hidden or carried in the tikitiki of his mother Taranga. An unusual mode of hairdressing was “the rat path” (ara-kiore), in which the hair was thinned out in a broad parting from the forehead to the base of the skull. Of course an inferior could not touch the sacred head of a chief for the purpose of dressing his hair, but sometimes a high chief would comb and dress the hair of his sons of rank. He would not do this, however, for his bastard sons or for his sons by an inferior wife. Beards were not worn, because they hid the tattooing of the face; the hairs of the beard were removed with tweezers of mussel-shell.

The women generally wore their hair short if unmarried, and when arranged in a mass of curls (potikitiki) it distinguished them from the married ladies, who favoured plaits of long hair braided round the head. The fan-like wharawhara plant and the downy skin of the Celmisia supplied material for the women's hair-adornment. A sign of mourning was the tiotio or reureu, a long lock hanging down at one side of the neck while the rest of the hair was cropped short; the effect of this when worn with the mourning cap (potae-taua) was somewhat ludicrous.

Green leaves of various plants were used by women as ornaments, but especially as signs of mourning. Artificial chaplets or fillets (pare or rakai) were also worn; generally they were woven bands of flax or kiekie. If adorned with feathers they were called kotaha. Sometimes a cap covered with feathers was used as a head-dress.8 The mourning caps (potae-taua) were really fillets, and were worn by widows. They were made of the inner part of a large lake-growing rush, dyed black and yellow, and woven with thrums, which hung down all round the head and over the wearer's eyes. Sometimes these were decorated with birds' tails (removed in one piece) and allowed to move about.

Feathers were extensively used for hair-adornment. The most valued kinds were tail-feathers of the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris). wing-feathers of the white heron (Ardea sacra) and the long red tail-feathers of the amokura (Tropic bird: Phaethon rubricauda). The ancient war-plume (marereko) consisted of twelve huia feathers. There was one peculiarity attending the use of the white heron plume. A woman was not allowed to eat food in the presence of a man who wore such a plume. If she ate anything her hair would fall out, but if the visitor removed the feathers and put them aside she might eat.

As an almost invariable rule Maoris disliked wearing red feathers or red flowers in the hair, and practically never did so. There are legendary allusions to such a fashion, however. We are told that in far Hawaiki, Uenuku “made red plumes for his children,” and in the story of Hinepopo the girls danced “wearing balls of red feathers as ornaments in their ears.”9 Maru-tuahu also wore fifty red parrot (kaka) feathers in his hair.10 These references only make the usual dislike more apparent by contrast. The well-known story of the “red wreath of Mahina,” told as an incident of the arrival of the Arawa canoe, is a misunderstood legend and has some far remote origin; probably it is a lunar myth, since Mahina means “the moon.”

Feather plumes were kept by their owners in small boxes (waka-huia) often beautifully carved.11

Bird-skins (pohoi), dried into cylindrical shape over a rounded piece of wood, were worn fastened to the ears. The skin of the purple swamp-hen (pukeko: Porphyrio melanotus) soaked in titoki-berry-oil and scented with fragrant tarata gum was often tied to the ear or worn round the neck. Balls of down from the breast of the albatross or other sea- birds were similarly used and known as pohoi or kopu. Nasal decorations, consisting of the tail-feathers of birds thrust through the pierced septum of the nose, were now and then affected by the men, but rarely.

The most prized ear ornaments were pendants of greenstone (jade), although similar articles were formed of bone or shell. These ear-drops (kai or whaka-kai) were named according to their shape, material, or quality, as —kuru, kapeu, kapehu, tangiwai, tautau (this last is curved to one side at the end), tara, etc.12 Some ear-pendants were priceless on account of their historic or legendary interest and were kept as heir-looms. Of such articles may be mentioned the famous kuru,