76 Transactions. 



Maori Cooking. — One of my informants said he greatly preferred food 

 cooked by the old Maori methods to those introduced by the pakeha.^ 

 although he had not enjoyed the former for years now. European cooking, 

 he said, took the strength o^it of flesh or fish, whereas the umu, or earth 

 oven, preserved all the natural virtue and flavour. What better than to 

 wrap the food in nice green flax-leaves and let it steam in an umu ? He 

 considered even the method of toasting food before a fire on a kohiku or 

 stick was preferable to frying in a pan or roasting in a stove. Some of 

 the superstitions connected with cooking co*ntinued after the white people 

 came, and the operation would be done outside, the women who had been 

 cooking changing their dress before coming in and eating. 



Preserving Food. — The same Maori went on to draw my attention to 

 the excellence of Maori methods of preserving food. Anything cooked 

 was called jjaka, and you could get j9aA;a-U'e^a, paka-titi, and so on. 

 These birds have been cooked and then preserved in their own fat. The 

 great receptacle for these preserved foods was kelp which had been made 

 into the familiar poka. My informant considered that kelp possessed 

 some special quality in preserving the taste of what it held, and said he 

 had heard there was a proposal to send butter away in kelp bags. He 

 thought if such Was done the butter would keep its taste and quality better 

 in hot weather than under the present system. 



Not all food was preserved in the foregoing manner, some being dried 

 uncooked. The hapuku, or groper, was sometimes cut into -strips and 

 treated this way, the flesh being then called maraki. One old man gave 

 me some maraki to chew, but my tastes were not sufficiently educated 

 in what pleases the Maori palate for me to ask for a second helping. 



The Maori Quail. — One of my informants mentioned the koreke, or Maori 

 quail, but unfortunately I omitted to ask how the Maori caught them. 

 These birds were teeming in Otago when European settlement began, and 

 it is hard to realize the countless numbers of them that existed ; yet when 

 the diggings broke ,out this beautiful bird vanished as if it had never 

 been. An old settler who has eaten dozens of them says he never foimd 

 berries inside them ; they had no gizzards, and apparently lived on beetles 

 and insects. ' 



Bob Fishing. — One of the old Maoris mentioned catching eels with 

 a bob. Some frayed strips of flax were attached to a stick, and large worms 

 were threa,ded on the flax strands, which were looped up, and then the 

 baited mass was dangled in the water. If a tug is felt the fisherman flicks 

 out the eel before it can disentangle its teeth from the bob. I have not 

 learned whether the Europeans copied this from the Maori, or vice versa, 

 but somebody may be able to supply the information. 



Medicinal. 



An old Maori said to me, " A good remedy for colds and sore throats 

 is to steep goai (kowhai) bark in boiling water and drink the infusion. It 

 has to be taken fresh, as it will not keep, although perhaps spirits would 

 act as a preservative. The bark is taken only from the sunny side of the 

 tree, and its removal does not kill the tree. My neighbours and I all keep 

 a stock of the bark handy." A well-known Maori remedy for diarrhoea 

 is the leaves of the kokomuka, or New Zealand veronica, and it is used by 

 both races now. It is said that in the old days the Maori who suffered 

 from toothache — a rare complaint among them — stufied the gum out of 



