62 Transactions. 



♦ 



weha-puhuJca. The ca'l of the male bird was slow — tUre, tore — but when 

 the call was quick and agitated — tore, tore — that was the female bird. 

 The former was called toa (a toa-tautahi was a fat male weka) and the 

 female bird was called uwha. 



I have a further note to the effect that there is a kind of woodhen on 

 the islands round Stewart Island known as miuweka. 



One of my aged friends said he could go into the bush and get kaka 

 by the drinking-trough method, or the rush -hut and decoy-bird method, 

 or by the aid of ordinary manuka spears. He could get tui, pigeons, parra- 

 keets, &c., in the same manner ; there w^s no fuss, and no one need starve 

 if he knew the bush-lore. I neglected to get fuller details from him, but 

 hope to do so later on. 



Experiences of Weka-hunters. 



Winter being the best season to catch the weka, the parties who went 

 inland then sometimes had rough experiences. I was told of one tragedy 

 of the long-ago through this cause. A man named Weka, his wife Nuku, 

 and their two children set out from Tuturau up-country on a weka- 

 hunting expedition. They camped on the hill on which East Gore is now 

 built, and here the woman busied herself gathering taramea (spear-grass) 

 from which to extract scent (kakara). Resuming their journey, they went 

 to Nokomai, but much to their disappointment the weka were scarce, 

 so, under the shadow of the mountain called Karu-a-hine, Weka made a 

 pahuri (shelter) for his wife and family while he went on to Kimiakau (Arrow 

 River) and Kamuriwai. (My informant said, " Kamuri-whenua is the 

 pakihi (plain) from Oamaru to the Waitaki but not across that river, while 

 Kamuri-wai is the pakihi near Foxe's (Arrowtown) on the Arrow.") This 

 was a noted weka ground, and he had fair success and started to return, but 

 was delayed several days by a violent snowstorm. He crossed the Kawarau 

 on a moki and struggled through the deep snow to Nokomai. There was 

 no trace of his wife and children, but when the snow melted a bit he found 

 their dead bodies. With some difficulty he buried them and sadly came 

 down-country. Camping on the hill between the Mataura and Waikakahi 

 (Waikaka) Rivers, memories of his wife gathering the taramea came over 

 him and he composed a song, which is still preserved. From this circum- 

 stance the hill is called Onuku in memory of her. Weka continued his 

 journey to Tuturau, where, it is sajd, he died of grief shortly after. 



Another aged Maori told me of a party, among whom was Rakitapu, 

 his informant, who went w;eA;a-hunting, their objective being Okopiri, a 

 wooded gully north of Heriot, I was told. There were no runholders there 

 then. The party were on the Otuparaoa Mountains one fine moonlit night, 

 when all of a sudden snow came on. It proved to be an exceptionally 

 heavy fall, and the weka-hnntera had a rough time. That snowfall is now 

 known traditionally as Kaipahau, a name which implies that the party, 

 or such of them as sported whiskers, ate the sriow off their beards. It 

 was in July, the month that the weka are fattest, that this great snowstorm 

 occurred. 



A noted place for getting weka was Mikioe, up the Otamatea (now 

 called Otamita, or Otamete) in the Hokanui Hills. Here there was a 

 clump of mikimiki shrub, of the berries of which the weka are fond. 

 I was told that mihi meant the shrub and that oe denoted the shedding of 

 its berries or leaves. My informant once saw some weka so eager to get 

 the berries that they had clambered on to a matted mass of mikimiki and 

 were perhaps 2 ft. off the ground. The sight interested and amused him. 



