22 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Very frequently, however, the storing-place was entirely 

 above ground. A small house was built with the walls about 

 4 ft. or 5 ft. high. These were framed of dressed slabs set 

 vertically in the ground, with battens lashed on horizontally 

 at intervals of a few inches, and covered over with two or 

 three thicknesses of raupo so as to be completely airtight. 

 Mangemange, a kind of climbing fern, or sheets of totara- 

 bark protected the lower part of the walls, and against this 

 the earth was thrown up from a ditch sunk below the floor- 

 level, which acted as a drain for the building. The roof was 

 framed in a similar manner to the walls, and also covered 

 with raupo — sometimes with an inner sheeting of totara-bark 

 — while an upper layer of toetoe-grass, secured by ropes of 

 mangemange or wooden battens, preserved the raupo from the 

 wet. A door was generally placed at each end, so that in order 

 to prevent the wind from blowing in the house could always 

 be entered to leeward; and the opening was made just large 

 enough to allow a person to creep in on all-fours. This class 

 of storehouse was always a conspicuous and picturesque 

 object. They were often ornamented with elaborate carvings, 

 inlaid with pawa-shell (Haliotis), and finished off with a teko- 

 teko (grotesque wooden figure) set up at the apex of the roof. 



Sometimes the storehouse was set up on legs 3 ft. or 4 ft. 

 high, when it was called a pataka, and as the imported rat 

 found its way into the settlements precaution had to be taken 

 against its incursions by socketing the tops of the legs into 

 heavy cross-pieces of timber hollowed out like sections of an 

 inverted canoe. A very fine specimen of the pataka is to be 

 seen in the Auckland Museum. 



When only a small quantity of kumara had to be dealt with 

 a very simple device, called the " ivhakatoke," was sometimes 

 adopted. A shallow circular depression made in the ground 

 was covered with a layer of long stalks of the common fern 

 (Ptens aquilaia), with the roots meeting at the centre and the 

 heads radiating outwards. On this were piled about half a 

 dozen kits (flax baskets) of kumara. The heads of the fern 

 were then bent upwards and inwards so as to enclose the lot, 

 and were tied together over the top. The whole was then 

 covered with toetoe-grass, and a layer of earth was thrown up 

 from a trench round the outside. 



There were other modes of storing which were variations 

 or adaptations of those mentioned, in all of which the Maoris 

 were guided by local circumstances. Sometimes the pit was 

 made inside a large shed, and sometimes it was driven hori- 

 zontally into the face of a steep bank. Occasionally the tubers 

 were placed on a raised platform (ivhata) and covered with 

 mats and fronds of nikau, while in some rare instances the 

 storehouse was built in the forked branches of a tree.* 



* For illustrations of several forms of the kumara store, see Hamilton's 

 " Maori Art," part ii. 



