S-i Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



always after them, and even the moki and butter-fish join in 

 the hunt. We saw the gulls pecking at something in calm 

 water, also the terns and little white gulls, and found it was 

 squid they were eating. I thought the barracouta only hunted 

 little fish, but found them full of squid. Though they con- 

 tinually hunt the shoals of fish they seem to catch very few, 

 for we found none in those we caught for our dogs, so it seems 

 likely that they only take the laggards and leave the main 

 body flourishing. The squid are lively little fellows, and flit 

 about so quickly that the smartest of their enemies have some 

 trouble to catch them. On calm warm afternoons they are 

 all at the surface, and then there are acres of water that seem 

 alive with fish. Surely the squid that survives all this must 

 be the best of his race, or, at least, the most artful and active. 

 "We first saw them in Useless Harbour in September, when 

 they were tiny creatures only a quarter of an inch long. At 

 Christmas the main body were about an inch long; but since 

 then small ones were numerous, so that I think there may be 

 several crops in a season. In April they have almost dis- 

 appeared. 



Aet. VII. — The Ceremony of Eahui. 

 By Taylob White. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 12th August, 



1895.] 



I HAVE made several attempts to gain information on this now 

 obsolete custom of rahui — one time practised by the Poly- 

 nesian peoples — both privately and also by a short article 

 published some time back in the Magazine of the Polynesian 

 Society, but have been unsuccessful in persuading any person 

 to take the subject in hand. This being the case, I am left to 

 work out a theory of my own, which is the subject of this 

 paper. It is a thousand pities that no person having time 

 and opportunity to investigate and work out the history of 

 this remarkable custom should have inquired thereon some 

 years ago, previous to the death of the witness Noa Huke, 

 whose evidence is quoted herein : — 



Baliui. — In the case x^irini Donnelly t'. Broughton, published 

 in the supplement of the Haivke's Bay Herald, Napier, 26th 

 March, 1892, the witness Noa Huke says, "The whole of this 

 block [of land] from Te Whanga to Puketitiri and Titiokura, 

 at Mohaka, was affected. That land was given to Te Eangi- 

 ka-mangungu and Tutura. They went and put up rahuis all 



