White. — On the Bird Moa and its Aliases. 26&' 



or Hine-mo-atu. If the name is rightly divided in the first 

 place we get the girl-moa, and, if tu is short for utu, "com- 

 pensation," the girl in compensation for the moa. Any way, 

 it seems singular that this name should come so very close to 

 verifying the truth of the story. 



In Hawke's Bay we have a place or river named Moa- 

 whango, which mav mean the loud breathing or hoarse-voiced 

 moa ; and a gentleman's property is named Pa-hamoamoa, 

 the village of the gizzard-stones of the moa. In Gisborne and 

 elsewhere are places named Papa-moa, and a cave named 

 Moa-ha. 



It is very good evidence for my argument that Dr. Dief- 

 fenbach points out that the Maoris, in describing their food- 

 supply, said that in former times they ate such-and-such 

 things, and also the " ngardra with the general name." Pos- 

 sibly they actually used the name Ngarara-hua-rau, the reptile 

 with the numerous progeny — not meaning the tuatara lizard, 

 as Dieffenbach supposed, but using the form of name adopted 

 in place of the original word " moa," which had long ago been 

 considered iapu by that tribe. 



Also, it is notable that the Maoris all through New Zealand 

 know the domestic fowl by names not so utilized among the 

 other branches of the Polynesian people. Yet the word 

 " moa," a fowl (Polynesian), is not lost to the Maori, but used 

 to denote the Dmornis, and moamoa, ha-moamoa, to denote 

 moa-stones. 



The use by the Maori of tara-moa as the name of a plant 

 having many sharp curved hooks on its branches is a score 

 against me, for Mr. Tregear connects it in theory with the 

 spurs of a cock, and other words in which the personality of 

 the domestic fowl would seem to be referred to in Polynesian- 

 island languages. Can the moa have had a partiality to the 

 berries of this shrub ? 



In spite of the charge of a repetition, I will give a resume 

 of my argument. If the Maori had a knowledge of Gallus 

 domesticus, the domestic fowl, in times long ago — say, five or 

 six hundred years back — how come they to have had such a 

 fear of the traditional living thing the moa, a dreadful some- 

 thing which, in alliance with the ngarara, a second traditional 

 being of great fierceness, guarded, or roamed through, little- 

 known and inaccessible places, and about the tops of the 

 highest mountains, and lived in caves ? These fierce creatures, 

 together or in company, were expected to destroy any person 

 who was sufficiently daring to enter the regions where they 

 lived. Now, is it reasonable to suppose that the Maori con- 

 sidered that a barndoor fowl was the companion of a dreadful 

 crocodile (ngarara), and that this small-sized fowl could pos- 

 sibly kill or frighten a stalwart man — a fowl or domesticated 



