Beattie. — Nature-lore of the Southern Maori. 63 



It is said the Maori named the woodhen from its cry, " tve-ha, we-ka " ; 

 but a European who is well acquainted with the birds renders this cry as 

 " ka-week, ka-week." This is just another illustration of the difference 

 between Maori and pakeha ideas in regard to onomatopoeia. 



The 'Weather. 



The foregoing accounts of the rough weather sometimes experienced 

 by the Maori in winter afford an appropriate opportunity of giving some 

 stray remarks made to me by the old men. One said, " Our word for 

 spring is kana ; summer, raumati ; autumn, kahuru, a word meaning 

 ' ten,' or ' plenty ' ; and winter, makariri, which means cold. The old 

 people did not like the winter. If snowfiakes came they would shiver 

 and say ' Kai te oka te huka ' (The snow is falling). We used the word 

 huka for snow generally, huka-wai for snow and rain or sleet, huka-taratara 

 for hail, huka-nehunehu for fine dry snow, huka-kapu for flakes of snow, 

 kopaka for ice, ua or awha for rain, and the name for frost I cannot 

 recollect." 



Another said, '" The mountains north of Gore are called Te Rau, and 

 when the natives of Murihiku heard thunder from the north or north-west 

 they said that was Te Rau praying for snow, and if the thunder was from 

 the south-west they said that was Hautere (Solander Island) praving for 

 snow." My mformant added that he had heard the green tui or koparaparu 

 chattering that morning, and that this was not a good weather sign. The 

 koparapara is the bell-bird {korimako, or makomako, in the North). The 

 Maori also foretell the seasons by observing trees and plants, but I have 

 no particulars of this. 



Maori traditions tell of great floods in the Aparima, Mataura, and Clutha 

 Rivers, and debris was found by' early white settlers at a height which 

 has never been approached since. A vast flood in the Clutha is known as 

 Wai-mau-pakura (" Water which carried the swamp-hen " — so called because 

 it swept many nesting-birds eut to sea), and at the recent Rivers Com- 

 mission the date was surmised to be 1800. The question arises, Was the 

 climate wetter before European settlement ? 



r 



Birds. 



My Maori friends did not have very much to say about the avifauna. 

 One remarked, " In days gone by the bush swarmed with native birds ; 

 now we see scarcely any. We had the kakaruai (robin), miromiro (tom- 

 tit), titakataka (fantail), tatariki (canary), a very small bird without a tail 

 called titiripounamu (rifleman), kakariki (parrakeet). We had a black 

 bird with red wattles, koka (native crow), and a bird with a yellow mark 

 over its back, tieke (saddleback). Both these birds had beautiful notes — 

 ' they could whistle like a man. Then we had two birds which came only 

 in the summer, the pipiwharauroa (shining cuckoo) and the koekoea (long- 

 tailed cuckoo)." * 



Another said, " Our name for the tui was koko. Away behind Seacliff 

 Asylum there is a bush called Potae-rua, and a creek there is Waikoko 

 (Tui Stream). Our trees fruit about six weeks later than the North Island, 

 and the tui are fat in April and May. A man could hit them with stones 

 [sic] and fill his basket ; hence the name of that place. A ridge between 

 Waikaro and Te Akaroa, near Measly Beach, is Paekoko, which means 

 ' the tms resting-place.' " 



