Best. — Food Products of Tuhoeland. 77 



water caused by the passage of the fishers and works up 

 stream, following the muddied water, possibly finding food 

 therein. Anyhow, they are so met by the returning fishers, 

 who manage to secure some of them, although the fish are by 

 no means asleep. 



To preserve kokopu for keeping they are placed on a plat- 

 form of sticks over a fire, but are not cleaned for this process 

 as eels were. This fire is known as an ahi rard ika; it dries 

 and preserves the fish. When required as food they are 

 cooked in a hangi. 



At Lake Eotoiti a practice obtains of tying a cord to a 

 bundle of fern (rarauhe) and lowering it to the bed of the lake. 

 This bundle is termed a tdruke. It is said that hour a (cray- 

 fish) and kokopu enter these bundles and lie there, attracted 

 by the neJm (? pollen) of the fern. The bundles are hauled up 

 and the fish secured. The taruke would appear also to have 

 been used for taking salt-water crayfish, for which see a 

 passage in "White's " Ancient History of the Maori," vol. ii., 

 page 63. But a net, known as a pacyae, is generally used for 

 taking koura in lakes. It is dragged along the bottom of the 

 lake. The vgehe is a soft- shelled koura, found at Botorua 

 and other lakes. It is not eaten. It is soft and flabby 

 (konohcnohe) . Koura are not found in the Buatahuna district, 

 but are found in lagoons at Te Houhi, in the Bangitaiki 

 Valley. They are best eating in the summer season. 



Inanga. 



This small fresh-water fish is taken in great numbers in 

 the lower parts of the rivers of this district, although not 

 found in the headwaters of the Whakatane. They are taken 

 in summer-time, in close- woven nets termed pouraka, and in 

 former times used to be taken in great quantities at the eel- 

 weirs at the time they were migrating to the sea. 



" You have seen Behua. It is a star which stands above, 

 on the breast of his ancestor, Bangi. Behua is a bird, and is 

 an ancestor of the Maori people. He has one sound wing 

 and one broken one, as you can see for yourself. Below the 

 sound wing of that bird the Waka-o-Tama-rereti moves across 

 the heavens. Whanui (Vega) swings up on the seaward side. 

 The descendants of Behua are the inanga, pahore, koputea, 

 kai-herehere, and the koko bird.* On the nights Turu and 

 Bakau-nui, of the ninth month [of the Maori year] , they begin 

 to migrate to their ancestress, Wainui. The reason is this : that 

 they hasten to their female ancestor in order that they may 

 give birth to their young. For his inanga descendants asked 



* The first three are small fish, the kai-herehere is a kind of eel. The 

 koko is the tui (bird). 



