Best. — Food Products of Tuhoelaud. 61 



All the above kinds are eaten. One kind of harore, known 

 as the puapua- a- autahi, is poisonous. It is sometimes called 

 mckemeke, on account of its rough surface {humckemeke = 

 xvhekewhekc, terms applied to a rough surface, as of bark, &c). 

 Should a person eat the puapua- a- autahi raw, or without 

 being properly cooked, he will be seriously affected thereby, 

 and stagger about, unable to control himself. To cook this 

 article it was wrapped in many layers of leaves of the rangi- 

 ora shrub, then tied round, and baked among hot ashes 

 and embers. When cooking-pots were acquired then it was 

 boiled. The puapua grows in spring, from the ground, and is 

 usually found growing among puahou, rautawhiri, and koko- 

 muka trees. 



If harore grows plentifully it is said to be a sign of a lean 

 season (tail hiroki) ; other foods, birds, &c, will be scarce. 

 Harore is cooked by what is known as the tupuku method — 

 i.e., it is put into a basket and that basket is placed bodily in 

 the steam-oven. 



The species termed keka and hakeka (syn., hakeke) is not 

 here styled a harore. It grows on dead trees and on decayed 

 logs of taiva and mahoe. It grows all the year round. Some 

 puwha, or greens, and in late times potatoes, are cooked with 

 the keka as a totohiro. This latter term is applied to any 

 food cooked and eaten with an inferior food in order to render 

 it palatable, a practice which formerly obtained in seasons of 

 scarcity. Hence the greens or potatoes are eaten with the 

 hakeka, which is, I believe, the fungus of commerce (Himeola 

 polytricha). 



Another variety of such food is the taioaka, a species of 

 Agaricus. This plant grows in the summer, and upon dead 

 trees or logs of tawa, houhi, and mahoe, hence it is not 

 termed a harore, which spring up in the winter. The tawaka 

 grows to a great size ; I have seen them a foot across grow- 

 ing upon dead tawa stumps. These were eaten, and were 

 cooked either in the steam-oven or stone-boiled in a wooden 

 vessel. In the latter case " ka mumura katoa te ivai i 

 tunua ai taua tatvaka" — the water in which the tatvaka was 

 cooked becomes red (or perhaps brown). 



A curious superstition is connected with this plant : " If 

 a person has eaten of the tatvaka he is not allowed to go 

 into the hue (gourd-plant) cultivations, for if he did so 

 all the fruit of the gourd-vines would decay prematurely. 

 Or were that person to go a netting the kokopu (Galaxias 

 fasciatus, a fresh-water fish) he would not catch any, not a 

 single one." 



The Hue, or Goukd. 



Although not properly belonging to this paper, I propose 

 to insert the few notes that I have collected locally anent 



