Best. — Food Products of Tuhoeland. 69 



sawyer, at Nga-huinga, above Galatea. When the Native 

 ■Contingent were stationed at Fort Galatea they are said to 

 have tried to destroy the mana of this log, bat without 

 avail. 



Pio, of Ngati-Awa, discourses on the benefits derived from 

 the gods : " The ancestors who dwell in the heavens are tne 

 persons who assist and succour their descendants of this 

 world. Those ancestors are Pueaea, Whaitiri-papa, Ku, 

 Whaitiri-pakapaka [the foregoing are personifications of 

 thunder and thunderstorms] , and Marangai - areare [per- 

 sonification of rain] . The benefits we derive from them are 

 fine weather and rain. When they send down the rain of ttie 

 heavens then the people within the waters move abroad and 

 perish within the hinaki of the Maori. That tribe is [that of] 

 Tangaroa. Their names are paewai. rino," &c. 



It was customary in olden times to have a sort of talisman 

 termed a mauri, which was really a material token or repre- 

 sentation of certain rites and invocations performed and 

 recited in order to preserve birds or fish. It prevented such 

 being driven away from tribal lands and waters by the power 

 of makutu, or witchcraft. It was often the case that a tribe 

 would have several such talismans, one in the forest to retain 

 the birds, another to protect eels in the rivers, and another 

 by the coast for salt-water fish, not to speak of the mauri of 

 the tribal home, which protected the people thereof from 

 such harm as might be inflicted by means of the black art. 



A mauri was sometimes located at an eel-weir. Tixemauri 

 of the Rangitaiki River, in the Ngati-Manawa district, is a 

 stone by the side of the river above Murupara. O-tangiroa 

 is the name of an eel mauri in the Whakatane River, near 

 Ruatoki. It is a log in the bed of the river, and eel-fishers 

 used to repeat an invocation at that place when going 

 a-fishing. 



" Kopaki tuhera, tu ana Tama-ika " (When an oven of 

 baked eels is opened Tama-ika is sure to be there). This 

 saying is applied to those who make it their business to be 

 where food is about ready for eating. Tama-ika was an 

 ancestor who had a great liking for eels, and used to appear 

 when any were cooked. 



A fishing-ground is usually termed a tauranga, as tau- 

 ranga paewai, a place frequented by the paewai eel, and hence 

 where it is fished. 



" He ua ki te po, he paeivai ki te ao" (Rain at night, the 

 paewai eel in the morning). Eels travel during a rainy night, 

 and many will be found in the pots next morning. 



Pdrua : A hole about a foot deep dug in the earth by the 

 side of an eel-fisher, and into which he puts his catch, unless 

 he is using a rohe. 



