Beattie. — Nature-lore of the Sotifhern Maori. 67 



as your two fists together, but some remain quite small. There was also 

 a small; round thing about the size of your thumb, white or somewhat 

 darker. An old fellow said it was good to eat, but I cannot think of its 

 name. I once tried it. I placed it in a whena (roll) of bush flax and 

 cooked it in an umu (oven). It had no taste, and was soft like a jujube." 

 This represents the information I gleaned about fungi. The poketara 

 is possibly our " puffball," but that, and other queries, is now presented 

 for discussion. 



Fern-trees and Fern-root. 



Mention of the southern Maori eating mushrooms leads me on to the 

 question of how they wrested an existence from Nature, whose moods are 

 sterner down here than in the more enervating North. They say the 

 kumara did not flourish farther south than Banks Peninsula, but a northern 

 opinion that they must have subsisted mainly on fern-root and fish did 

 not meet with the approval of one old Maori, who told me that by the 

 system of kaihaukai they could exchange titi (mutton-birds) and other 

 things for kumara from Canterbury, and even get taro and hue from the 

 North Island. In regard to the natural products of Otago he said, 

 " We had different kinds of fern-trees. The mamaku was not in this 

 district, although it was over on Stewart Island; but we had the poka, 

 wheki, and katote. The leaves of the poka are white underneath, the 

 katote leaves are green on both sides and softer, while the leaves of the 

 wheki are very rough and its stem very black. The iho (heart) of the 

 katote is good to eat, but that of the others is bitter. I remember that 

 three of us had a good feed of the heart of a katote at Opiriao (Sandy Bay, 

 near Catlin's). Perhaps katote heart might make good jam — it had a sweet 

 taste. 



" Our name for fern-root was aruhe, and the leaves of the fern were 

 called rau-aruhe. I remember once, at the south end of the Koau on Inch- 

 Clutha, at a place called Pekeihupuku — the ihupuku was a big kind of seal 

 and peke means its shoulder — eating fern -root. It was during the big 

 flood of 1868, and we went back to the reserve and got fern-root and beat 

 it on a big stone with a piece of iron. In the old days it was beaten with 

 sticks and wooden clubs. When it was mashed we picked out the fibres 

 and ate the rest, and it tasted good. It used to be mixed with whitebait, 

 these tiny fish being beaten into it ; the name of the resulting mash was 

 kohere-aruhe. Mr. Hay, an early settler, used to eat fern-root occasionally, 

 both when he was among the Maori and at his own home." 



Relative to eating tree-ferns, one of my informants related, " In the 

 whaling days the brig ' New Hampden ' was wrecked at the Bluff". She 

 was known to the Maori as ' Kai-mamaku ' (to eat fern-trees) because once 

 she ran into Te Ana-hawea (Bligh Sound) for shelter, and, food becoming 

 short, the crew went ashore and cut some mamaku, which they ate." 



Some localities were renowned for the excellence of the fern-root gTOwing 

 there, one such place, I was told, being Pau-upoko, near Port Molyneux. 



Various Foods and Drinks. 



The old Maori who spoke to me about fern-trees and fern-root continued, 

 " But we had another vegetable food too, and that was the kauru, the 

 cooked root of the ti (cabbage-tree). Sometimes these trees had a side 

 shoot, and that was the proper kauru; when it was taken the tree did not 

 die, as it did if its root {mor^-ti) was taken. If the kauru you were eating 



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