Beattib. — Nature-lore of the Southern Maori. 71 



bad quickly and might poison any one not careful. The Maori food was 

 naturally cured, kept well, and tasted sweet and good. 



The above is the essence of Mr. Gourlay's information ; but a grand- 

 daughter added that she had recently visited the Bay of Plenty and 

 noticed the following differences between the names of shell-fish there and 

 in Southland. What is called the pij)! in the South is there called hukxi, 

 and what thev call j)Wi is like a cockle, only with an oval shell and flatter, 

 and they dig in the sand for it as the tide goes out. This shell-fish is called 

 toheroa in the South. There is also a big, heavy shell like a very large 

 cockle, which is called hiakua in the North Island, but down round Foveaux 

 Strait is known as whahai-a-fama. 



A jxtkeka who was brought up at Eiverton writes, '' Eels were taken 

 with a spear. The fishermen waded and sought for the fish by poking 

 about in the silt with their bare feet. When an eel was located by the 

 Maori's toe it was immediately secured with the spear, which was unerring 

 in Maori hands. The Maori also used eel-pots in capturing their winter's 

 food-supply. These traps were made of mamika sticks, bound together 

 with whitau (scraped flax), and made in cylindrical form, about 5 ft. long ; 

 a netting of prepared flax, with an opening in the centre, was placed at each 

 end of the cvlinder. The two nets were attached to each other by means 

 of a flax cord passing down the centre of the eel-trap. The fish, attracted 

 by a bait of worms, pork, flesh, or fish of any kind, suspended midway in 

 the eel-pot, were led by the sloping net to the entrance, passing in and 

 becoming prisoners. The eels, after capture, were cleaned and dried in 

 the sun, and then stored away for future use." 



Plant-life. 



Strolling through the bush and clearings one day with a venerable 

 Maori, he gave me the names of a few of the plants. The shrub known 

 to the white people as the pepper-tree is called ramarama ; that known 

 to the northern Maoris as koromiko is known in the South as kokomuka, 

 while the bush-lawyer is named tataraihika, and a kind of bramble is 

 tataramoa. The cutty-grass of the settlers was to the southern Maori 

 known as matoreha, the biddy-bid as piripiri, and the nettle as okaoka (the 

 island Pukeokaoka, near Stewart Island, simply means " Nettle Hill." 

 The common native grass, he said, was called ma-uku-uku, the native 

 mountain-grass potcaka, and the ordinary swamp-rushes iviwi. 



The southern Maori say that the patiti, ake-rautaki, and other vegeta- 

 tion growing on the Takitimu Mountains have a peculiar scent of their 

 own. A visitor took some to an old Riverton chief, who sniffed at it and 

 said " Ah ! 'tis Takitimu." A legendary account says that the celebrated 

 chief Tama tea brought these plants from Hawaiki in his canoe, Takitimu, 

 tw^enty-two generations ago, and that he planted them on this mountain- 

 range. 



Kohuwai, also known as kohuai, said one of my informants, is a green 

 sort of weed or moss in the bottoms of streams, and a small creek between 

 Waikawa and Chasland's is called Wai-kohuwai because of its bed being 

 so covered with this moss. 



After the Europeans introduced smoking the Maori would smoke a 

 weed called kopata. They would, said an old man, make a bowl for a pipe 

 out of wood, insert as a stem a reed of pukakaho, and puff away. This 

 kind of smoking was called tiniko. Over at Stewart Island there is a 

 plant called punui with a leaf like a pumpkin. A boy dried and smoked 



