Bbattib. — Nature-lore of the Southern Maori. 59 



the end, to lift the stone and take out the eels, then go up forward and 

 lift the next stone door and take out more eels. It is a very old trap, and 

 is partly natural and partly made." 



Mr. James Cowan collected the following note from southern sources : 

 "At Little Mavora (Hikuraki) there is an artificial stone hinaki with. a 

 door for eels to get in. It was built by the old Ngati-Mamoe people — 

 they put a stone cover on." The two notes evidently refer to the same 

 "■ stone eel-pot," but its discovery has never been repotted by white men. 



Another old man speaking about eeling said, " A fine place to get eels 

 is at Miki-oe, near Dr. Menzies' old run, near the Mokoruta River, now 

 miscalled Mokoreta. It is a spring and creek where the eels go in the 

 winter-time because the water is warm." 



A large number of place-names in Otago and Southland perpetuate 

 the ancient Maori Hove for the toothsome tuna. There are a number of 

 places called Kaituna and Waituna (eel-stream), one of the latter being' 

 in the West Coast Sounds region. A lagoon near Gore is called after a 

 man, Tunarere ; and Taieri Lake, in Central Otago, was named after a chief, 

 Tuna-heketaka. Of nomenclature which does not bear its significance on 

 its face two names occur to me. A tributary of the Waiau is Kaipurua 

 Creek, and I was informed the name meant a pair of eels eating at one bait 

 or " two eels on one bob." Murikauhaka was an anc'ent village at the 

 old mouth of the Mata-au (Molyneux), and I was told the name means — ■ 

 muri, " the end " ; hauhaha, " a hole in a bank where an eel has its 

 quarters." 



The figurative name for the Canterbury seaboard is Ka Poupou a Te 

 Rakihouia, because that chief, over a thousand years ago, erected posts 

 and built pa-tuna (eel-weirs)^ at the mouths of the rivers. These weirs 

 were continued until comparatively recently, but I have no description 

 of them as yet. ,. 



Mr. F. L. Mieville, wi'iting of his experiences with the Maori in Otago 

 in 1853 and 1854, says, " The Maoris have a very good way of cooking 

 an eel. They clean it, but do not skin it. Like them, I now think it is 

 a great mistake to skin an eel. Next they impale it with a stick pointed 

 at both ends, running it through from the tail to the head. The stick is 

 then stuck slantingly into the ground close to a good fire, and when one 

 side is cooked the other is turned. The eel is then served up — i.e.. the stick 

 is placed upright in the earth amidst seven or eight Maoris, and each one 

 pulls off a bit with his fingers." 



The Small Fry. 



The season for whitebait (paraki) was October and November, said an 

 old Maori wise in these matters. The patete was another kind of whitebait, 

 and was good to eat after it leaves the sea, but as it proceeds up the rivers 

 inland it picks up stones and gets rubbish inside and is then no good for 

 food'. Waharoa (long mouth) was a big kind of whitebait. You could 

 catch it with a hook baited jvith a worm. It had bones and its flesh was 

 coarse. Mata was the very small whitebait, and it was caught with Maori 

 nets (kaka) which were sometimes a chain long. Inaka is the name of 

 the little minnows — they are black, with white bellies. My informant 

 reckoned they came down to the sea to spawn, as Wai-whakarara, near the 

 mouth of the Molyneux, was a great place to catch them. If not caught 

 before spawning they were no good, and would go up the river again 

 in long columns, leaving the water white with spawn at the mouth of 



