74 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



show no trace of permanent occupation, but were the tribal 

 preserves or hunting-grounds. Disputes often arose about the 

 rights to these places, resulting in raids or wars, ending some- 

 times in the subjugation or even complete destruction of a 

 tribe or hapu. The histories of these events are related at great 

 length, as also the various processes for catching birds, rats, 

 and fish, with the karakias (incantations, or charms) used, 

 even hundreds of years ago. We are told, for instance, how 

 Hiaora, who landed from the canoe Tainui twenty generations 

 ago, travelled up the valley of the Waipa to spy out the land. 

 Arrived at Maungarangi, near Otorohanga, he set up his tuahu 

 (altar) brought from Hawaiki and called Moekakara. and 

 there spread his snares in the mangeao trees to catch pigeon, 

 tui, and kaka. Meanwhile his rival, Rotuhuakioterangi, had 

 established his tuahu, called Tanekaitu, in full view, at a 

 place called Paewhenua, and had spread his snares, and then 

 it was a question of which of these great tohunga, (priests or 

 seers) could work the most powerful enchantments ; and at 

 last Hiaora prevailed, and the birds flew in clouds into his 

 snares. There was one great bird, called Tauherepu, which 

 broke the snares ; but as it sat in a tree Rotu thrust at it with 

 a long spear, and it flew away to Mokau, where in after years- 

 it was killed by the descendants of Hiaora, who had been 

 expelled from the place where their ancestor first set up his 

 tuahu. This great bird is supposed to have been the last of 

 its kind. We are told, too, how large lizards (jigarara). now^ 

 extinct on the mainland, were kept by the Maoris as iiiokai 

 (pets or favourites). Even their names are handed down, and 

 those, also, of birds and dogs. Then they point out to us the 

 individual trees where their ancestors set their snares for the 

 various kinds of flying birds, the paths on the mountain -ridges 

 where they hunted the kakapo or the kiwi, the pitfalls made 

 for the fruit-eating rat, and the sites in the streams of the 

 weirs for eels, lampreys, and smaller fish ; and in all these 

 thousands of pages of Maori lore which I have written from 

 the mouths of witnesses in Waikato, at Rotorua, in the Bay of 

 Plenty, Hawke's Bay, Manawatu, Wanganui, and Taupo, 

 there is not one word about the moa. I repeat that the argu- 

 ment to which I have alluded, that the bird was so .conunon 

 that the Maoris did not take suflicient interest in it to describe 

 how it was caught, or to fight over the possession of it, or 

 to tame it as a inokai, or to make a proverb, song, or karakia 

 about it, is valueless, for we know that they did all these things 

 about rats, tuis, and other small fry which existed in far greater 

 numbers than the splendid moa. If scientists who have made 

 a study of the subject say that the position in which remains 

 have been discovered, and the rapidity with which bones 

 lying exposed to the elements have decayed, is sufficient evi- 



