Best. — Maori Marriage Customs. 45 



husband, an invocation known as a tvhakapiri, was repeated 

 over her by the priest, in order to cause her to cleave to her 

 husband, to bind them together (literally, to "fasten" them 

 together). This was performed at the above ceremony, lest 

 they become separated. 



The bulk of the assembled people had their food separate 

 from the party who partook of the kai kotore, and the food 

 prepared for the former was not termed kai kotore. The_ 

 ■mdtdmua, or first-born son of the interested families, would 

 not partake of the kai kotore. 



On my asking an old man of the Ngati-Awa Tribe as to 

 whether or not his ancestors had these invocations repeated 

 at the marriages of their important people, he replied, " Yes, 

 it is quite true about the marriage invocations of former days. 

 0, friend ! the best invocation to use for a woman nowadays 

 is money. If a man has acquired plenty of money he will 

 acquire a wife easily enough. That is the proper invocation. 

 The moneyed man gets a wife." Which was, raethinks, not 

 bad for the neolithic Maori. 



Pakuwha. 



We will now give some description of the custom of 

 pahcivha, which may be defined as a formal handing-over of 

 the woman to her husband. It was a universal custom ap- 

 parently."'' Tlie young couple may or may not have gone 

 through the ritual of the aristocratic marriage. The term 

 pahiivha is applied to relations by marriage, and also to the 

 ceremony of handing over or delivering the wife to her 

 husband and his people, for, as usual among the Maori, the 

 husband had little or nothing to say during the function, his 

 relatives doing all the speechmaking on his side of the house. 



The pakuwha was made the occasion of a sort of marriage 

 hakari, or feast. It was, and still is, quite an important item 

 in the social life of the Maori. These meetings served to 

 break the monotony of the lives of the people, and they 

 thoroughly enjoyed them. Marriage and death are two im- 

 portant causes of these social functions, and the Maori enjoys 

 bo til. 



The pakuwha often takes place after the couple have been 

 married, or have cohabited and arrangements concerning the 

 marriage (see ante) have, of course, been completed. 



" I am living, say, at Eua-tahuua. My daughter marries, 

 or is to marry, a man from Te Whaiti, a day's journey distant. 

 1 and my relatives form a party and escort my daughter to 

 her husband's home at Te Whaiti. We have been invited to 

 do so by the elders of my son-in-law, who live at that place. 



* I.e., among the rangatira class, not among low-born people. 



