56 Transactions. — Miscellamous. 



tion). It does not apply to the abduction of a single girl. If 

 a woman marries, say, into another clan or tribe, and in after- 

 time her people are vexed with her husband on account, per- 

 haps, of some slighting remark he has passed about them or 

 about his wife, they will go and take her away from him and 

 conduct her back to their home. That is a ta^igo tu. Some- 

 times the husband's people would show fight and a scrim- 

 mage would ensue, or perhaps the former might not consider 

 it advisable to use force. A company of people bent on a 

 tango tti would not be termed a taua. In a case that came 

 under my notice a girl eloped with a man of Ngati-Whare. 

 They were pursued by the girl's elders and brought back, and 

 the girl was taken from him, as her people would not let 

 her marry him. That was termed a taiigo tti. 



1 will now tell of the Eua-a-Peka. This is the name of a 

 bathing -pool of warm water at 0-hiue-uuitu, in the Arawa 

 country. A singular old custom pertaineth to this pool. In 

 former times any married woman or man who bathed in this 

 pool was free to have sexual connection with any person she 

 or he might fancy. No objection was made, no taica went 

 forth to punish or plunder, for it was an old-time custom, 

 a privilege inherited from other generations. The origin of 

 this singular license is unknown to me, but it is interesting 

 as an illustration of Maori ethics. It is said that the old-time 

 saying, " Ko Turanga mahau rau (" Turanga of the number- 

 less husbands "), applied to the Poverty Bay district, implied 

 that the married women of that district were somewhat loose 

 in their morals ; also that but little notice was taken of such 

 incontinence, an unusual thing in Maoriland. 



In olden times, when a man was leaving home on a 

 journey, he would repeat a charm or incantation (karaha) 

 known as taujm over his wife ere he left, the effect of which 

 was that any man who had connection with her during her 

 husband's absence would perish through the power of the 

 spell. 



The Tuhoe saying, " Toevga nuihara iiui a Te Wai-haroto " 

 ("The prized leavings of Te Wai-haroto "), implies tliat a 

 man when away from his wife did not like to have her in- 

 terfered with by any one. " Ngat-I'e-Au tarn makuku" is 

 a, saying applied to the clan of Tuhoe of that name, a clan 

 famous for the number of adulterous women it contained. 

 A more widely known proverb is, " Te pnapua ka laka i Aro- 

 mea, he kai na te ure tavgata ke." This implies that any 

 woman left by her husband for a long time is justified in tak- 

 ing another man as husband, and that the wanderer would 

 have no right to complain when he returned. 



An adulterous parent is not allowed to retain any viana 

 ■(power, authority) over her or his children ; the other parent 



