298 Transactions. — Miscellaneoiis. 



wheoro and Te Tini-o-te-makahua. These people also seri- 

 ously injured Tawhaki, by burning him at the place called 

 Tarahana. 



The origin of the whirlwind was the rainbow-god Kahu- 

 kura. This rainbow is always a double one. The brilliant 

 one underneath is the female ; her name is Tu-awhio-rangi. 

 The male is Kahukura. Their offspring is the whirlwind 

 which gyrates through space. When we see the whirlwind 

 it is a sign that visitors are coming. The rainbow is a 

 weather-sign of the Maori people. The parents or origin of 

 the rainbow are the Imu-rangi seen on the horizon and Tuhi- 

 rangi (the redness of the horizon). 



When Tawhaki ascended to the heavens in order to gather 

 the legions of men and dogs therein, he demanded of Whaitiri 

 that the thunder of heaven should resound. This was the 

 origin of the great power possessed by the priests of old, who 

 could cause the thunder to roll at their call. 



Art. XXXV. — A Name for a Spider. 



By Edward Tregear. 



{Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 20th March, 1900.] 



Many investigators are leaving behind them the school that 

 teaches how, in the study of modern savages, light on the 

 customs of the ancients may be found. Almost every thorough 

 inquiry into the beliefs and customs of supposed barbax'ians 

 seems to convince one how little we know of them, and how 

 little they know of the origins of their own practices. Publica- 

 tions lately issued on the subject of the native tribes of Aus- 

 tralia have thrown a dazzling search-light on our ignorance 

 concerning those tribes, and serve to show that, instead of low 

 savages, easily understood, and with no religious beliefs worth 

 speaking of, they are in possession of institutions which, as 

 regards their theology, marriage-rites, initiations, &c., have 

 imbued them with notions of the most complex nature. They 

 have apparently in an abraded or worn-down form mystical 

 ceremonies and beliefs compared with which an ordinary 

 European's guiding courses of conduct are simplicity itself. 

 Moreover, they, by a thousand lines of direction, appear to 

 point to highly organized systems in the remote past, and 

 therefore for us to regard such people as primitive unspoilt 

 children of nature, in whose artless habits may be read the 



