White. — On the Bird Moa and its Aliases. 267 



afraid of these creations of their lively imagination " (vol. i., 

 p. 140). These and stories of a like nature are good evidences 

 that the ngarara and moa were in partnership ; in fact, that 

 they were one and the same. The additions as to the ngarara 

 resembling a magnified lizard (of which small creature the 

 Maoris are as frightened as some Europeans are of a spider 

 or a mouse, or even more so) is just what might be expected, 

 owing to the use of the word ngarara, a reptile, in place of 

 the word " moa." 



Dr. Dieffenbach is the only authority, so far as I am aware, 

 who speaks of the Maori eating the tuatara lizard, and, from 

 the lively fear displayed by the Maori at the sight of even the 

 smallest lizard, it is highly improbable that such creatures 

 were ever used as daily rations. Sir W. Buller, you will re- 

 member, turned several tuatara lizards into "Maui's garden," 

 and then felt perfectly satisfied that no Maori would venture 

 near the place. How, then, would they catch such things for 

 food, or ever have done so ? That the killing of a large bird like 

 the Dinoruis should be spoken of as the killing of the monster 

 (ngarara), and those who killed it be remembered as valiant 

 warriors, is a very different matter from the recording of the 

 killing of tuatara for food-supply, or any other purpose. Also, 

 the supposition that the stories of killing ngarara in New 

 Zealand at particular places, and by men whose pedigrees show 

 that they lived and died in New Zealand, are simply a 

 remembrance or tradition that the ancestors of the Maori 

 fought with the crocodile in Papua, or lost Hawaiki, or any 

 other place, is simply ridiculous. The Maori has merely con- 

 fused himself bv a one-time change of the word "moa" to 

 that of ngarara, and the history of eatings, swallowings, 

 scales, and twining tails are just built up on the magnified 

 image of a wee lizard. 



Most of these stories are understood by Europeans to refer 

 to ianiwha, or mythical monsters. As, for instance, a certain 

 chief had a pet taniwha, which is said to have been a whale. 

 But an absurdity of this kind will not prove that all taniwha 

 or ngarara stories are without foundation. Such stories were 

 once — that is, at the first telling, and for several generations 

 of listeners — related so as to correctly describe all the different 

 incidents of the act. But as time went on the hearers had 

 no standard of comparison to judge by. The moa was 

 now extinct, and the previous introduction of the word 

 ngarara, and the placing a tapu against the use of the 

 word "moa" for several generations among certain Maori 

 tribes, caused confusion of thought. The moa becoming 

 extinct about this time, the use of the word " moa" became 

 obsolete, and future generations of Maoris — that is, of these 

 particular tribes — continued to rehearse these original stories 



