44 Trayisactions. — Miscellaneous. 



made things interesting for her and her friends — but that is 

 another story, which you will find at page 94 of Volume xxxiv. 

 of the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute." 



The Umu Kotoke. 



The urmi kotore was the marriage feast of the Maori — that 

 is to say, of the aristocratic marriage before mentioned. It 

 was at this function that certain invocations were repeated by 

 the priest over the couple. 



In the first place, the priest repeats a prayer or invoca- 

 tion over the twain to preserve them in health and prosperity, 

 to ward off from them all evil, physical or otherwise. After 

 this the pair enjoyed the rights of married people. The 

 marriage feast is then prepared, and is known as utnu kotore, 

 or kai kotore. Probably the former term is more correctly 

 applied to the ritual pertaining to this function and the latter 

 expression to the actual food. Ujjiu means a steain-oveu, in 

 which food was prepared by the neolithic Maori ; but the term 

 is also used to denote a rite as performed by a priest — e.g., 

 umu 2)ongipo7igi = a magic rite to destroy man. Kotore means 

 " the lower end, buttocks, anus, tail of a bird." The word 

 rejierejye (and tareperejje) also means the buttocks, hence the 

 above feast is sometimes termed kai reperepe [kai = food). 



I asked an old man why the word kotore is applied to a 

 marriage. His answer was brief and convincing, " Ko te take 

 i kiia at he kai kotore, i moe ko tona kotore i te taiie ra. 

 Ehara i te mea i moe ko tona mahunga" ("The reason of 

 the feast being called a kai kotore is because the woman's 

 kotore married the husband. It was not her head that mar- 

 ried (slept or cohabited with) him "). 



The kai kotore is special food, the best procurable, cooked 

 in a separate oven {timu kotore) for the relatives of the young 

 wife. Food was cooked in other ovens for the rest of the 

 assembled people. Only the relatives of the young wife 

 partook of the kai kotore, or kai reperepe, cooked in the umu 

 kotore. The young couple themselves did not eat of the kai 

 kotore. In some cases the wife's younger sisters would 

 decline to eat of the food prepared in the umu kotore, koi 

 purua — i.e., lest they he p7ikupa, or barren. 



Further invocations were repeated by the priest at the 

 umti kotore which constituted a part of the marriage ritual, 

 and gave viana (efficacy, power, prestige) to the ceremony. 

 Another invocation, known as the oJiaoJia, was then repeated 

 over the couple. This was equivalent to a blessing — in the 

 first place, that the twain might not be assailed by sickness or 

 the shafts of magic, but be preserved in health. It also invoked 

 a state of fruitfulness for the wife, that she might bear child- 

 ren. In the event of the wife being nervous, or afraid of her 



