48 Transactions. 



One of my informants, a descendant of these tribes, said to me, " There 

 are four kinds of greenstone, but the Kati-Mamoe never used them. The 

 North Island people did not make trips for greenstone as early as they 

 say, for the first expedition to get it went from Kaiapohia and fought the 

 Patea people in Westland. The people of Eaumano who settled on the 

 West Coast had greenstone before either the Kati-Mamoe or Kai-Tahu Tribes 

 came to this island." 



A Maori of Kati-Mamoe descent says, " The Kati-Mamoe remained 

 on the east and south sides of the South Island, and had no greenstone 

 weapons until the Kai-Tahu brought these among them. In some of the 

 old encampments at Kawhakaputaputa and elsewhere in Murihiku you 

 can find the uri, ox slatestone axes, and parahi, or flint knives, of the old 

 people of the Kati-Mamoe before they used greenstone." 



Greenstone was brought under the notice of the Kai-Tahu Tribe in 

 Canterbury by a woman named Raureka, who, accompanied by her dog, 

 found a way through the dividing range between Westland and Canterbury. 

 Both Stack and Wohlers call her a mad woman, but I should ' scarcely like 

 to infer that she was, seeing she is an ancestress of an esteemed old friend 

 of mine. She married a man called Puhou, and by the genealogy furnished 

 me I note she flourished ten generations ago. The Kai-Tahu invasion of 

 the South Island took place in the year 1650 approximately, and ten 

 generations back from 1900 places the birth of Raureka as about 1650 also ; 

 so if we allow she was twenty when she made her exploring trip, we can 

 put down A.D. 1670 as somewhere near the time when Kai-Tahvi became 

 interested in procuring greenstone. 



I was told that two West Coast Maori, named Pakiha and Taka-ahi, 

 came over to Canterbury and were acting as brigands, pouncing on solitary 

 wayfarers, whom they killed and ate. Rakitamau killed them, but before 

 doing so elicited information as to the route to the West Coast. He and 

 his sons (Weka and Marama) followed the directions and arrived at a lake 

 where was a store of greenstone, guarded just then by oilly an old man 

 and woman. They killed the old couple and used them as provisions on- 

 the way back to Kaiapohia, which they entered in triumph, carrying as 

 much greenstone as they could bring. The time of this occurrence is not 

 stated, but I take it to be before the war expedition led by Rakitamau at 

 the time when he killed Uekanuka. 



The possession of greenstone weapons was an advantage to Kai-Tahu 

 in their conflicts with Kati-Mamoe, but the latter gradually acquired the 

 valued pounamu. It is faid that one of the weapons of Marakai, one of 

 the most valiant Kati-Mamoe chiefs, was a jw^mamu toki. For a long time 

 the Kati-Mamoe, a tangata-whenua people, were inferior to Kai-Tahu, who 

 belonged to the conquering strain, whose achievements in Maoriland were 

 analogous to the Norman Conquest in England. They were inferior both 

 in weapons and prowess, but as they were pushed back from Canterbury 

 into Otago and Southland they roused themselves, and, to quote one of 

 my informants, they " fought like tigers," with a result that the two tribes 

 amalgamated and were so found by the white people. 



That the Kati-Mamoe possessed greenstone is evident from the tradi- 

 tions concerning the Otaupiri pa, on the north side of the Hokanui Hills. 

 After Tu-te-Makohu killed Kaweriii at the fight of Waitaramea (also known 

 as Tarahaukapiti) he lived at Otaupiri. Of the presence of greenstone in 

 this pa I have been told no fewer than eight times. " There is, or was, 

 a-. spring close to the pa,'' said the first man who told me of this famous 

 piece of pounamu, " and it is, or was, covered over with a greenstone slab, 



